Posting the Vodcasts: When we required that all students watch the Vodcasts, it became very apparent that our district server could not handle the traffic of 300 kids all trying to download the vodcasts between the hours of 8 pm and midnight. To solve this problem we took a muli-modal approach

1. Flash Drives: We encouraged students to purchase flash drives and they can download the vodcasts from the district server while they are in school. This has proven to be the best way for students to access the vodcasts. This is especially helpful for students who do not have high speed internet at home.
2. Our Websites: Our school district uses a program called FirstClass (www.firstclass.com) for our primary email program and server. We discovered that they have a feature whereby one can create and place vodcasts (or podcasts) right in Firstclass. When we saw this feature we uploaded some sample vodcasts and students were only able to access the vodcasts from within the school-district network. We then chatted with our district technology people and they did some magic and wala, it worked for all people. The key really is to find a place to put your vodcasts. It should be on a place that can handle an RSS feed. If they can’t be housed on your district servers, there are plenty of websites that do podcast and vodcast hosting (usually for a fee)
3. iTunes: We have also linked our vodcasts to iTunes. The files are still downloaded from our school websites, but they are can be searched for through iTunes, and students can easily upload them to their video iPods.
4. Google Video: We are now uploading our vodcasts to Google Video. It is an easy process using the Google Video Uploader (https://upload.video.google.com/) . This has helped our students who have a high speed internet connection to watch the videos.
5. Cellular Phones: Most newer cell phones now have the ability to view mp4 files. Students now regularly download their videos to their micro SD cards and place them on their phones. We think that this will be the way that most students watch their vodcasts in the future.
6. PSP: A few students bring in their Play Station Portables and have upload the files from our computers. This method requires a video format converter like Media Coder.
7. Making DVD’s: Once we started this project it became apparent that there were still some students who were either technically challenged or did not have adequate technology at home. We approached our school district and they provided a computer with software that can turn video files into DVD’s (Nero: www.nero.com/) . We produce each unit and then place them onto a DVD and burn a sufficient quantity for those students who need this. DVD’s cost about $0.40 each and we are burning about 30 DVD’s for each unit. We have roughly 300 students doing the Pre-Vodcasting method of instruction, so this amounts to about 10% of our population. If you have a higher number of students needing this, we would encourage you to purchase a DVD burning tower that would burn multiple DVDs at a time.

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