<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.3243" name=GENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=#ffffff>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The video conferencing tool Macromedia Breeze is
well worth considering for rural PD. I know it is expensive but can't put a
dollar figure on it. But PD is expensive anyway, a PD with 15 participants
attending, each paying $150 brings in $2250.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>You can get an idea of its functions by looking at
<A
href="http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatconnectpro/?ogn=EN_US-gntray_sol_web_conferencing">http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatconnectpro/?ogn=EN_US-gntray_sol_web_conferencing</A> and
clicking on "see the demo", it takes a while to load.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>It allows the presenter and the participants to
share their computer screens, so for example if teaching Game Maker, the teacher
could code a program infront of participants and run it. Meanwhile participants
could code on their PC's. If their program that they are coding crashed
they could use the audioconferencing to ask questions and even share their
desktop to show their code.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I have used this conference tool a number of times
and it really is the best way to run remote PD, I just dont know how much you
would have to charge for PD registrations to cover the costs.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>You could try to run the poor man's version using a
free audio tool like skype. Skype will support 5 people, or skype conference a
larger number, but only audio and text chat. The presenter could share a
powerpoint by email and talk to that powerpoint, "I am now looking at slide 2",
participants could discuss in the text chat window or talk on the
audio. I could see it working quite well for a presentation but not for hands on
PD.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I would be happy to present a PD on game
programming using Macromedia Breeze if we can make the dollars part work
out.</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>