Media Streaming at Matthew Boulton College

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Media Streaming at Matthew Boulton College

• Chris Evans
• Manager of ILT, E-Learning and M-Learning

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About Matthew Boulton College
Matthew Boulton is a large FE College located in
the centre of Birmingham. Currently going through
merger with Sutton College, the combined number
of students is over 18,000. Last year a
successful Molenet bid allowed the College to
invest in equipment that enabled the procurement
of a media streaming server.
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Summary of Media streaming Project
Since October 2008, Matthew Boulton College has
been piloting its own internal media streaming
service using VBrick technologies. This new
facility has been designed so that students and
staff can access ,create and display streaming
media within the College
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VBrick media Distribution
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The Challenge

• Similar to most Colleges, Matthew Boulton and
  Sutton have, over the past few years, created and
  collected a wealth of multimedia content -
  including hundreds of videos. These tend to be
  stored in various locations and are difficult to
  monitor, find or collate. Typical locations
  include
• VLE
• Website
• Intranet
• Hard drives
• CDs/DVDs
• Memory Sticks
• As video becomes increasingly important in the
  teaching and learning process we need to deliver
  anytime anywhere streaming video content. Using
  in-house media servers is rapidly becoming the
  chosen solution for many FE colleges.

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College Videos
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VBrick Interface
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Multimedia Service

• On-Site multimedia Developer dedicated to
  supporting creation of Flash and Video for VBrick
  
• Regular staff development to support tutors in
  developing their own content
• Fully equipped Multimedia Content Creation room

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Plasma Screens
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Streaming Media on the Plasmas
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Pros and Cons

• Excellent for scheduling and screening streaming
  media on the Plasma screens
• Used to schedule and download TV programmes
• Designed to be a student portal, but ..
• Web 2.0 Applications are more accessible
• Content cant be linked to Moodle or Web
• Very Expensive

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Where to now for VBrick?

• VBrick will continue to be used and developed to
  support
• Marketing
• Promoting good Practice
• Celebrating Success
• College Communication
• Student Work
• News and Events
• Teaching and Learning Resource
• TV Recording and Scheduling

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What about the Student portal?

• Develop our own portal that can be used with
  Moodle similar to OurTube

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Any Questions?

• chrisevans_at_mbc.ac.uk