Oct 19

DE Streaming vs. Safari Montage

Education, Technology No Comments »

I am fortunate enough to teach in a school that provides both Discovery Education Streaming and Safari Montage for streaming video. They both contain good content (from different media companies), but there are a few differences. Here is a rundown of those differences (presented in alphabetical order):

de-streaming.jpgDiscovery Education Streaming (formerly United Streaming)

  • Accessible anywhere via internet (on-site server available at extra cost)
  • Individual teacher signup required
  • Streaming video, audio, sound effect, articles, quizzes, events, lesson plans, images, clip art, etc
  • 4,000+ video titles
  • All content downloadable, some editable
  • Content can be made available with password protection (i.e. within Blackboard)
  • Some content grainy, lower quality video
  • Professional Development component through Discovery Education and the Discovery Educator Network (DEN) including webinars, online training, regional support, and much more
  • Content: Discovery & Discovery Education Titles (including Planet Earth), Suburst, AIMS Multimedia, Weston Woods, and many others

safari_splash.jpgSafari Montage

  • On-site server only = no outside access, but reliable intranet connection
  • No individual teacher signup necessary
  • Streaming video only
  • 1,000+ video titles
  • Broadcast quality video
  • Content: WGBH/PBS, Schlesinger Media, National Geographic, Sesame Street, BBC, A&E, Disney Education, etc.


Summary

The content from each provider is quite different, so educators of different levels and content areas might prefer one service over another (for instance, DE Streaming has some exceptional content for high school science, and Safari Montage carries Bill Nye the Science Guy, which might be better for elementary and middle school science).

The School Library Journal Recently compared the two services, giving DE Streaming an A- and Safari Montage an A+. Safari Montage earned the ‘plus’ distinction due to the higher quality of their videos.

While DE Streaming quality isn’t as good as Safari, DE Streaming offers more for students and teachers. DE Streaming provides a slew of professional development opportunities, more media options and their content is accessible anywhere and is downloadable. This allows DE Streaming content to be more flexible. Some titles are even editable, so educators and students can manipulate them in multimedia presentations.


More on DE Streaming and Safari Montage:

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Jul 11

Podcasting at Discovery Headquarters

Technology No Comments »

Being from the central time zone, it was hard for me to sleep in too much here in D.C. this morning. Luckily, our hotel is just around the corner from a Starbucks, in the shadow of Discovery Communications Headquarters. I grabbed the house grande, and snapped a picture from the street.


We first met in the hotel lobby, and walked to the building. We were welcomed into Discovery Education Headquarters by Stan, the T-rex and other fascinating eye candy (like a giant Rube Goldberg-type machine called Eureka, the wooly mammoth, triceratops, and bikes from team Discovery).


The day officially started with an address by Coni Rechner, followed by another from Ron Reed. Both emphasized that the focus of Discovery is (and always has been) education. This was a great start for a DEN event, as education is also at the heart of the DEN.

Discovery Education Headquarters is an impressive building, but one of my favorite parts about it is the Discovery blue hue lighting.  Our main room (and others in the complex) can be bathed in a blue hue, lit from above. Here is one of 27 celing holes – the source of the blue light.


We finally got a chance to meet everyone else with an innovative and interactive icebreaker. We broke up into four groups, and had our pictures taken and uploaded into Microsoft Photostory. We then interviewed a partner, revealing our name, where we are from and an interesting fact. Then, our audio was easily recorded into Photostory, and four seperate stories were created to play for the entire group. The whole process took a half-hour and could easily be used in the classroom and other places where intros are needed.

The afternoon was all about podcasting, as led by Steve Dembo. This is a great start for the conference, as podcasting is actually quite an easy tool to use.  In fact, DEN member Dale Basler and I have begun  to podcast for WSST (the Wisconsin Society of Science Teachers). This weekly podcast is mainly directed at Science News, and can be found at the website or on iTunes. Dale and I plan to do a podcast from Discovery Headquarters while I am here, so keep an eye out for it!

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Jun 21

Complementing United Streaming

Education, Technology No Comments »

I recently found this website from TIME magazine entitled “80 Days that Changed the World.” This is really the web version of the book, with the same title. [Link]. It seems to me that this would be a fabulous resource to complement United Streaming. For instance, students can surf through the 80 days to identify a specific event, then use United Streaming media to develop a project around this event.

For fun, I identified a handful of science-specific events, then search United Streaming for related content. Here are the results:

What are some other sites that people have found that might complement United Streaming in a similar fashion?

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Apr 07

Google Earth with Discovery Clips

Education, Technology No Comments »

I picked up this news from Boing Boing, which picked it up from Cynopsis:

 

 

  • Discovery Communications will now have video content on Google Earth If you’re not familiar, Google Earth is a way-cool satellite imagery-based mapping product that depicts 3D images and terrain with mapping capabilities and Google’s search engine. (Go ahead, plug your home address into it and get the aerial view!) Discovery will initially offer information and video content, in a two-to-four-minute segment, showcasing 10 American National Parks, including Yellowstone, Mount Rushmore and Dinosaur National Park.
  • Discovery Communications will launch its first ad-supported broadband channels on April 15. Discovery Channel Beyond and Travel Channel Beyond will offer original and exclusive short-form programs as well as user-generated documentaries. Broadband channels for TLC, Animal Planet and Discovery Health Channel will launch later this year.
  • And finally, Discovery Communications had their annual upfront presentation yesterday in New York City, and a goodly chunk of that information will be included in Monday’s edition of Cynopsis.

Can anyone confirm the first item? If so, I am very enthused to see this integration with Google Earth. Obviously, the DEN has talked extensively about this relationship, but this will be able to showcase it to everyone accessing Google Earth.

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