KRISTIN SOUNDS IN HIGH DEFINITION

Kristin School in Albany have successfully completed the very first New Zealand Schools High Definition Video Conference Music lesson and performance this week with Canterbury University and Christ's College in Christchurch.

The project titled �musicGrid�, was initiated by Merryn Dunmill of the Music Education Research Centre at Canterbury University. It involved two students from both Kristin School and Christ's College receiving a lesson from Mark Walton, Director of the Christchurch School of Music. Following the lesson, despite their different locations, they were able to play an ensemble together.

The objective of the musicGrid project was to demonstrate the benefits of High Definition Video Conferencing. This was done through a high speed New Zealand wide fibre optic network called the Kiwi Advanced Research and Education Network, also known as KAREN. The KAREN network connects research and educational institutions, such as universities and schools. Most universities are already connected on KAREN and are using it to share research information and collaborate on projects. Schools from around the country are now connecting to KAREN to enhance the education and learning opportunities they can offer their students. Kristin has been connected to KAREN for several months with a gigabit speed connection, allowing them to pass large amounts of data between schools and universities. The benefits of connecting to KAREN are immense; they can reach the resources of universities in New Zealand, Australia, and the United States; show maps and satellite footage to Geography classes using Google Maps; and collaborate via high definition video conferences with other students around the world.

With both Kristin and Christ's College on KAREN, they trialled a video conference between the two schools and Canterbury University. Each used a video conference unit which recorded the students (Kristin and Christ's) and displayed the teacher (Canterbury). The video conference unit was a Tandberg Edge unit, on loan from Agile and capable of sending and receiving high definition 2 megabit per second video streams. The other institutions used LifeSize units.

To record the video, a high definition camera was used. This video was displayed on one projector while the video from the remaining sites was shown on the other projector. An echo-cancelling conference microphone was set up to record the music and voices of the students, which provided great sound quality for this music lesson. The instructor was even able to hear through the video conference that one of our students had a problem with his reed and could provide guidance on improving it.

The video conference unit uses the KAREN network to connect to the KAREN video conference bridge, which is specifically set up for video conferences. It can connect to the bridge with very low latency, that is, the bridge receives the data within 10 milliseconds of sending. Without using a high speed fibre network it could take up to five times as long to reach the bridge, a delay which can cause problems for video conferencing. Each video conference unit connected to the bridge and joined the 'music lesson room', which allowed them all to see and talk to each other.

The two students from each school; Antoni Tisot and Jonathan Sampson from Kristin and Justin Standring and Danny Lee from Christ's College were understandably impressed with the experience. �The video conference was far greater than I anticipated. It was amazing how effective it was. Despite using technology, a personal connection with the tutor was easy and the quality was not taken out of the lesson at all. The tutor was able to not only accurately scrutinize articulation, but even the tone of my playing. It's really exciting to see the development of such technology which will allow for students to have direct access to tutors from anywhere in the world�, said Antoni.

�Today's live communication was eye opening in that it showed the possibility of communication with people who we would never meet otherwise. The sharing and comparison of assignments or work, for any subject, is now possible. This could prove useful in improving the quality of our work,� said Jonathan.

Undoubtedly there are now a number of opportunities where this sort of technology will assist in education. Nick Richardson, Head of Music at Kristin is inspired by the trial run of musicGrid. �The sharing of performances with other schools is a great example of its potential. At the Junior level it would be great fun for some of our younger musicians to present a shared concert with an overseas school. Another application could be for the moderation of National Certificate (NCEA) assessed performances with other schools in New Zealand, and International Baccalaureate (IB) assessed performances with another IB school overseas. The prospect of linking up with an IB school in, say, Singapore or Switzerland is a very exciting one as we rarely get to compare our work with schools at such a great distance. I can also see opportunities for professional development: there is so much expertise in overseas schools that we could tap into by video conference.�

The ICTS team at Kristin believe that this musicGrid project is a perfect exemplar and a trial case for the Ministry of Education to look into. �At the moment we are facing a chicken-and-egg scenario, in that we need more schools and universities to be connected in order to be able to connect and collaborate on an ongoing basis. However, we have many ideas for further video conferences to continue to enhance the learning opportunities for our students,� says Tony Bigby, Network Administrator at Kristin School.

Laptops with high definition cameras and high speed networks are now in more 250 countries world wide. The goal for each of the institutions participating in this trial is to make the use of this technology everyday through communities of people all around the world with advanced communication networks such as KAREN.

Kristin School is an independent co-educational school, established in 1973, of approximately 1700 students, Years K to 13. Kristin is non-denominational and welcomes students from all cultures and backgrounds. The school is owned by the Kristin School Charitable Trust and set in park-like grounds on a 20 hectare site in Albany on Auckland's North Shore. Visit their website www.kristin.school.nz

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For more information contact:

Jason MacDonald

Director of ICT Services

Kristin School

09 415 9566 x 2369