Elluminate Live! Makes Global Collaboration Projects Possible

Fire and Ice is a non-profit initiative aimed at developing learning, collaborative action, and most importantly, special human and cultural relationships across distances through web conferencing and social networking technology.  Canadian Elluminate technology forms the centerpiece of distance technology packages—eClassrooms-in-a-Box—that are being distributed around the world.  Fire and Ice was recognized in 2007 by the Tech Museum of Innovation for its humanitarian impact.

Stace Wills, who holds the auspicious title of Global Coordinator for Fire and Ice, describes the special opportunities created by the technology:

It’s a live environment where you can log in to a virtual environment that closely replicates the physical classroom. You have a virtual whiteboard to either write or type on. You’ve got text chat, microphone audio (voice-over-IP), and web cam usage so teachers and students can interact in a very collaborative, engaging way.

Another key advantage of this virtual classroom is the ability to share applications. For instance, the teacher can upload a Word document or PowerPoint presentation and then interact with the students on the same document—they can each make changes on their end. The teacher can also take the class on a web tour—literally bring up any web page and walk them through it. It’s a tool that’s very useful in distance learning programs in K-12, the university level, and in continuing education around the world.

Social Entrepreneurship at Work

The Fire and Ice Project was initiated under the auspices of Elluminate, where Stace was once employed (and continues to perform contract work). As a track record of successes were garnered, it became clear the project could grow through additional collaborations and donations from other sources, including UK-based Promethean Inc., which donates electronic whiteboards. Stace emphasizes, though, that Elluminate, a company with a social conscience, remains the primary patron:

A co-founder of Elluminate, Nashir Samanani, was born and raised in Africa, and now is running one of Canada’s fastest growing technology companies. But he hasn’t forgotten his roots, and continues making generous donations that allow Fire and Ice to take the technology to Columbia, Brazil, Africa… We use Elluminate technologies to promote interaction across schools in the northern hemisphere, which we call the ‘Ice,’ and the southern hemisphere, which we call the ‘Fire.’

A Smaller World

To instantiate the power of the technology, Stace relates a recent visit to a small village, Pabré, in the African country of Burkina Faso. Fire and Ice connected a Seminary training boys to become priests in a rural area of one of the poorest countries in the world with a school in Calgary to work together on a project to combat climate change with local action. The seminary in Burkina Faso chose to plant trees because of the extreme desertification occurring there as a result of deforestation. The exceptional project involved loading the students in the back of a pickup truck and driving them a substantial distance to a remote area to obtain minimal satellite connectivity to join live exchange sessions. Ultimately, they received a leadership award for the project resulting in the establishment of an antenna on a church steeple (the tallest point in the village), full local internet connectivity, and an eClassroom-in-a-Box that included a donated Promethean white board. Stace waxes a bit sentimental in the memory:

We had a ceremony that took place on Elluminate Live in which schools all around the world in our program came on and congratulated the Seminary students. There was a cultural exchange as everyone talked a little bit about their own projects, and a memorable moment at the end when the Pabré students showcased how excited they were. About 200 people in the large classroom area sang a proud tribal song using a wireless ‘mic’. On that day, the technology brought the world a little bit closer, and I think a little bit smaller!

Combating Isolation at Home

Despite advances in the design of assistive technologies that make productivity and communication technologies more accessible to youth with disabilities, a primary theme in disability studies remains that of isolation across learning, social, and geographic dimensions. Some authors refer to social distance as an additional form of disability in itself. Little examination has been focused on the potential of emerging social networking technologies as a tool to help reverse ongoing separation and stigma. However, successes in helping to foster distance learning and cultural understanding, as well as project management and globally distributed production and assembly practices in industry, suggest obvious potential. This point is not lost on Stace, who highlights the fact that Elluminate technology has already proven benefits for students with disabilities, and offers the capacity to do much more:

One of the slogans we use is ‘No USER left behind!’ We accomplish that with Java-based software that’s applicable across a variety of operating systems. We’ve worked with schools that have hearing impaired students in Brazil, so in that sense no student is ever ‘left behind’ from the ability to collaborate with others. The software has closed-captioning abilities, and it is ADA compliant. It opens up avenues for educators, no matter what the economic situation, where they’re located, and no matter what the profile is with their students in terms of special needs.

Screen-shot of students using sign language to communicate how violence
and discrimination affect them in a project session.

For students who must learn outside the school setting, he adds,

It’s really a powerful thing. For example, there’s a school in Calgary called the Rocky View Virtual School and there have been several instances where students have been sick, sometimes terminally, but didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity of the educational process. Elluminate Live! enabled these students to attend classes virtually, from their homes. You’re going to see increasingly blended learning environments where you actually have some students coming in from distant locations and others joining from the traditional, physical classroom—total integration.

He also describes Elluminate’s potential with students who have developmental disabilities:

We had a group of Argentinean children with Down syndrome in their physical classroom collaborating online within an Elluminate Live! virtual classroom with an indigenous community in a remote area of Columbia. They worked together on a terminal, and the teacher was able to operate the equipment and inspire the students to contribute. The Argentinean teacher also brought out her guitar and led the students with Down syndrome in a song. They were being heard by an audience they never would have imagined they would have access to!

Students at a school in Argentina for children with Down syndrome

eClassroom-in-a-Box: Portable Technology Designed for the Real World

Stace begins describing other special features of the design of Elluminate and the Fire and Ice Project with the portability and affordability it offers:

With the eClassroom-in-a-Box, we deliver a new, powerful laptop, a projector, a web cam, speakers, and a web microphone. We pack it up in a military strength case that we can basically roll into any classroom. Schools then have everything they need to participate in web and video conferencing at the price of about $3,000 to $4,000 compared to other expensive video conferencing facilities. We’ve toured high-end video conferencing sites in South America and Africa, and found these are rarely used because it’s just too expensive for schools. We deliver the same solution to their doorstep for a small fraction of the cost.

eClassroom-in-a-Box

Perhaps even more importantly, Elluminate affords seamless interactivity across various platforms in which participants can be connected with bandwidth as low as 28.8 kbps to connect a world still experiencing a digital divide. Owing to proprietary technology, Stace circumspectly offers,

Elluminate uses compression technologies that are capable of streaming a lot of information down narrow pipelines. The intelligent aspect of the software prioritizes the information for each individual user. Elluminate delivers the most important information first, which is essentially the voice, and less essential data comes later. It’s like a traffic cop that directs bits of information to each individual user independently so each is on the same level without falling behind. Lastly, if there are minor Internet delays, Elluminate uses proprietary buffering techniques to ensure that no content is lost. Everybody has a good, consistent experience across the board (including high-bandwidth users connected to low-bandwidth participants).

The idea of using Elluminate Live! for the Fire and Ice initiative started when we were tasked to push the limits of the technology in some of the most remote and bandwidth-challenged locations on earth.  The first place we went was a school in a remote part of the Amazon, where we connected the school with a speaker from a high-profile Canadian environmental NGO to discuss the harmful effects of illegal fishing practices in deep seas. We’ve been running the Fire and Ice program for two and half years now, and have expanded to schools in over 20 countries worldwide.

IP Concerns in a Global Market

Stace admits there are concerns about the potential for intellectual property infringement in other countries, including China specifically, for a company working in so many world regions. For this reason:

Most of our software is hosted on servers in Canada. That gives us a level of control compared to sending a CD overseas to a country we aren’t sure about. These are challenges we’re facing going forward, but local server hosting is meeting our needs right now.

Market and New Horizons

Although Stace sees rapid growth in the distance learning industry, he indicates it still involves a tiny component—less than one percent of the overall K-12 market—that persists with traditional brick-and-mortar sites and educational delivery. Stace again stresses his view that a hybridization of these two models is the next important stage:

What I think is interesting—and the opportunity for this type of technology—is to find application for uses in those physical classrooms in the way that Fire and Ice is bringing out. Using the example of school-to-school collaboration around the world, you can bring in virtual guest speakers from far away for a face-to-face presentation, or create virtual field trips where you can take the class literally anyplace in the world to give them an experience they wouldn’t get from reading their textbooks… There’s an element missing in many curricula these days in terms of cultural awareness and understanding—we know very little about our peers in other countries around the world, especially at the K-12 school level. When you think of ways that this kind of technology can be implemented with a physical classroom, and if you start educating teachers, parents, and administrators about the capacity, that’s going to be a huge opportunity for companies like Elluminate in the market today.

Institution Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Fire and Ice Leadership Award Winning school
Medellin, Colombia
June 2008