Richard “Dick” Stufflebeem is the Regional Telecommunications Council (RTC) technician assigned to oversee the operation and maintenance of ICN classrooms. The state legislature provides funding through Des Moines Area Community College for his services to your classroom. Area 11 is the largest of the ICN areas in the state, and Stufflebeem is responsible for approximately 72 school and library classroom sites in the area. Although the schools own and are responsible for the majority of the equipment in their classrooms, the ICN does provide equipment service through Stufflebeem. His main responsibility is to fix any problem that should arise in an ICN classroom. If a student microphone or a camera is not working, he will come to the school’s ICN room and repair it. While the service is at no charge to the school, the cost of repairing the camera, microphone or any of the electronic equipment in the room is the school’s responsibility. Replacement of TVs, tables, chairs and/ or any other items in the room is also the school’s responsibility.

Stufflebeem’s additional responsibilities include providing assistance and advice concerning equipment purchases for ICN classrooms. For example, he is currently assisting many schools as they replace existing television sets. The original televisions purchased for the ICN rooms were the analog CRT picture tube type, and these televisions are rapidly becoming obsolete. Schools are now upgrading to new flat screen televisions, but not all of these televisions work well in an ICN room. Stufflebeem works with vendors to review flat screen television specifications and find schools the right television for the best price. He is also working closely with many schools as they upgrade their classroom controller unit. The controller unit configures an ICN classroom as an origination or remote site and is responsible for the switching of the cameras. This unit has been discontinued, and thus if it should fail and no used cards are available to repair it, the classroom will no longer function. Stufflebeem can assist in the installation of the upgrade unit to prevent this problem.

If teachers are having problems in their ICN classroom, they can contact the ICN for help by using the telephone located on the side of the equipment rack in the ICN room. Calling the phone number located on the telephone will connect individuals with the help desk at the ICN control/test room. Callers can describe the problem to help desk personnel, and they will assist in fixing the problem if possible. If the problem cannot be solved, the ICN will open a repair ticket, which will then be e-mailed to Stufflebeem to bring his attention to the problem. He will respond to the ticket by coming to the site and checking out the problem, at no charge to the school. If teachers or administrators would like to speak with Stufflebeem to personally answer questions concerning the operation of the room or to talk about the controller upgrade, please call him at (515) 964-6831 (office) or (515) 210-8043 (cell phone) or e-mail him at rlstufflebeem@dmacc.edu.

Stufflebeem’s vision of the future of the ICN is built upon his perspective as the RTC technician and his past work experiences. He has been around this system since its conception. For 28 years he was the Assistant Director of Engineering at Iowa Public Television, and his engineering group was responsible for the design and implementation of the 700+ ICN classrooms. Upon retirement from IPTV six years ago, he came to DMACC to help with the college’s rooms. He has seen this $185,000,000 system work in colleges, high schools and libraries all over the state. In addition, he has traveled all over the United States to visit other distant learning classroom systems and he has never seen a system comparable to what we have in Iowa. He feels that there is not a system like ours anywhere in the world.

Two major factors make the Iowa system very different from the others. In other systems Stufflebeem has studied, the origination classroom is located on a central campus and the remote sites are located in other buildings or in a different town. The origination point is always the classroom on the central campus. In the Iowa system, any ICN classroom can be configured as an origination or a remote site. At any given hour, an instructor can come into an ICN classroom and teach from that room as the origination site to as many classrooms as desired. Students can come into that same room the next hour and receive a class as a remote site with the instructor in a distant origination site. The huge advantage of this type of system, unique to Iowa, is that it gives every school district the opportunity to originate programming from any of its schools. The ICN is also not limited to a certain number of remote classrooms connected to an origination site. In other systems, as many as four or even five rooms may be connected at one time with monitors across the back of the room. Due of the distant proximity, the figures on the screen are so small and so far away that students and teachers cannot clearly discern which individual they are speaking with. In the ICN, participants have one monitor to look at and the video on that monitor is always focused clearly on the site that is currently communicating.

Stufflebeem feels strongly that the ICN is still very relevant in today’s world and is dismayed by the underutilization of this valuable Iowa educational tool. He finds that ICN classrooms are used for many things other than distant learning. His question to the education community is, “Why are we not using this great system more?” Although he realizes that Video over IPs popularity is rising, he feels that this new technology has “a long ways to go before it can come close to matching the quality and dependability of the ICN classroom.” No other current technology will allow teachers to go into a classroom, (not a conference room or office, but a classroom), turn on the equipment with a switch and teach day in and day out. Video over IP currently requires a technician to set up and program the equipment for each meeting. In addition, if the speed of the session is slow, the video is poor quality and the audio fades in and out. Alternatively, teachers and students can walk into an ICN room, turn on the system and teach or participate with full motion video and full duplex audio. For those wishing to communicate with people outside of Iowa, the new Video over IP technology can be incorporated right into the ICN classroom. Stufflebeem feels we should “add new technology to the working existing technology instead of throwing away what works.” He feels that Iowa currently has the greatest system in the world and that we should continue to refine it and to find more ways to use it.

Stufflebeem feels that any decline in ICN use can be attributed to a lack of understanding concerning appropriate content and specific effective uses for the system. The ICN is not a content provider, but it is a transport provider. The role of the ICN is to get information, like a phone company, from one point to another. According to Stufflebeem, leadership in providing appropriate content to be used on the system is the most important factor toward continued effective use of the ICN. Teachers and administrators need to become aware of reasons they should use their ICN classrooms. They must realize the value and benefits of using their ICN classrooms now and as future technologies develop.



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