RJI has partnered with An Najah National University, the West Bank's largest institution of higher education, in order to make digital videoconferencing available in an inclusive, educational environment. Though we are very fortunate to have the support of the university, including access to a state of the art videoconferencing suite, we still face numerous challenges when connecting to student groups in the US. Most significantly, videoconferencing doesn't yet use universally standard protocols. This means that each kind of system works in its own way, and not all systems can communicate with each other. For example, in Nablus, we use a professional Polycom system. Unfortunately, the most common tool for videoconferencing - Skype - isn't compatible. So even though this kind of technology is racing forward and available to almost everyone in some form or another, we often find ourselves "over-teched" and unable to use what might otherwise seem like the simplest option.

We'll get a little more specific about these issues below, but as a basic rule when videoconferencing with RJI: We generally can't use Skype - at least not in a classroom-to-classroom setting. Skype is a workable option if we only have a single guest on our end, such as when Sami M'Shasha, a spokesperson from the United Nations, presented to the Model United Nations Conference at Kent Denver (2009). If you are interested in having a single guest presenter, Skype might do the trick. (This is actually a great option when time constraints make it impossible for us to host a videoconference during normal school hours in Nablus). If, however, you want to connect your students to a classroom of their peers at An Najah, we'll need to move a bit further up the technological ladder.

The most basic place to start would be to distinguish between videoconferencing and web chatting:

Web Chat: Skype, iChat, etc. – These are free, low tech options that make videoconferencing available to anyone in the world with a webcam, computer and internet. They are great and have really helped us in the past, but also have real limitations. They’re meant for webcam, one-on-one video and they can’t connect to professional videoconferencing systems. They don’t work great for classrooms or any setting where the video needs to be of higher quality or the sound is projected. If you’ve ever chatted with someone on Skype that isn’t using a headset, you’ll know what I mean. The looping echo can be so bad that a conversation becomes impossible.

Videoconferencing (DVC): When we talk about DVC, we’re talking about professional, dedicated videoconferencing technology. There are two ways to do this:

1) System to System: This is the best way with the highest experience for everyone. Not only do the professional systems come with a tech person to make sure it’s all been set up properly, but they also employ algorhythms to cancel out echos. This is important when dealing with young people and heavy accents!

2) System to Software Client: This is a solution with a much lower cost. It means that on one end, there’s a professional, installed system. On the other end, there is a normal computer and webcam; they connect by a program called a Software Client. These programs usually cost around $200 and also employ reasonable echo cancellation. However, you have to work out the tech stuff by yourself, and must provide all the other hardware that normally comes with a system (like camera, microphones, etc.)