I'm a little bit excited! I attended a workshop at presentation at work today on Unified Communication & Collaboration or UCC for short. The presentation was given by one of our partners, HP. An outline of HP's view of UCC from a corporate perspective can be found here.
The essence of the technology is that it allows communication in any way (ie with any connected device), at any time and from anywhere. It incorporates technology such as Instant Messaging, VoIP, Videoconferencing, Email all bundled up into one. The actual technology that is being looked at is Micosoft's Office Communications Server with Microsoft's business-based instant messaging tool, Communicator.
This is going to be great. We're going to try this out in schools, just a few, to see how they get on with it. We're going to start with teachers, but the pupils will follow close behind, and we're going to see what the schools come up with, how they feel they can use it and what benefits they feel it may bring.
The essential aspect of the technology is that we have a very clear grip on user identity. We have a massive Active Directory with every teacher and pupil in the country having a unique ID and password. This means they all have a very clear, very secure identity and this is what enables these technologies to be rolled out.
The importance of Identity
This was something that I focused on most closely as a result of Stephen Heppel's keynote speech at the Scottish Learning Festival. where the notion of identity is picked up by Stephen as one of the key elements in taking learning through technology forward. If the concept of identity can be cracked in terms of having a verifiable and secure online identity, then a lot of other things can fall into place. This is picked up further by Stephen on his own blog with his article on "Identity Lost"
Ewan McIntosh has also discussed this area in his article on Socialising, Identity 2.0 and education where he links the concepts of identity with those of social media and this is where the beauty of UCC appears to come in - linking the issue if identity with the social tools to harness it in a controlled way.
Instant Messaging - Social and Secure
Users will be able to use instant messaging (IM) anywhere (in school or at home) in a safe secure environment. I'm hoping to see teachers using it with colleagues from their school and other schools, and with pupils. I'm hoping to see it used during the day and out of hours. It really has the potential to open up learning. Backed up by the virtual learning environment I can see the potential for all sorts of collaboration. A teacher responding to a pupil's homework query, the teacher on a laptop and the pupil on their mobile phone, both running the same IM tool. The possibilities are endless and I haven't even begun to think of them.
It's a bit late, and I'm a bit tired, but as I said, I'm a little bit excited!
The essence of the technology is that it allows communication in any way (ie with any connected device), at any time and from anywhere. It incorporates technology such as Instant Messaging, VoIP, Videoconferencing, Email all bundled up into one. The actual technology that is being looked at is Micosoft's Office Communications Server with Microsoft's business-based instant messaging tool, Communicator.
This is going to be great. We're going to try this out in schools, just a few, to see how they get on with it. We're going to start with teachers, but the pupils will follow close behind, and we're going to see what the schools come up with, how they feel they can use it and what benefits they feel it may bring.
The essential aspect of the technology is that we have a very clear grip on user identity. We have a massive Active Directory with every teacher and pupil in the country having a unique ID and password. This means they all have a very clear, very secure identity and this is what enables these technologies to be rolled out.
The importance of Identity
This was something that I focused on most closely as a result of Stephen Heppel's keynote speech at the Scottish Learning Festival. where the notion of identity is picked up by Stephen as one of the key elements in taking learning through technology forward. If the concept of identity can be cracked in terms of having a verifiable and secure online identity, then a lot of other things can fall into place. This is picked up further by Stephen on his own blog with his article on "Identity Lost"
Ewan McIntosh has also discussed this area in his article on Socialising, Identity 2.0 and education where he links the concepts of identity with those of social media and this is where the beauty of UCC appears to come in - linking the issue if identity with the social tools to harness it in a controlled way.
Instant Messaging - Social and Secure
Users will be able to use instant messaging (IM) anywhere (in school or at home) in a safe secure environment. I'm hoping to see teachers using it with colleagues from their school and other schools, and with pupils. I'm hoping to see it used during the day and out of hours. It really has the potential to open up learning. Backed up by the virtual learning environment I can see the potential for all sorts of collaboration. A teacher responding to a pupil's homework query, the teacher on a laptop and the pupil on their mobile phone, both running the same IM tool. The possibilities are endless and I haven't even begun to think of them.
It's a bit late, and I'm a bit tired, but as I said, I'm a little bit excited!
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