Video Conferencing

Hi

We will be revising some of our charges from September 2008 (full details at http://motivate.maths.org/about/charges.php). The changes you should be aware of are:

* primary conferences will cost £60 per VC centre (so two or more schools at a single centre can share the cost between them)

* 6th form conferences will cost £120 for up to 15 students, £180 for 15 or more students

* KS3 and KS4 conferences were increased in price this year, and so will remain at £180 for up to 40 students, more pro rata, for the time being

Because we will be introducing charges for all participating schools, our Cancellation Policy will apply to all schools from September 2008 also

(http://motivate.maths.org/about/cancellation.php)

I hope to be able to advertise the long projects we are offering for

2008-09 soon. These will cost £1299 for the early bird rate and £1550 otherwise.

We have not charged primary schools for participating in our conferences until now, but primary conferences cost as much as any others for us to put on. When we first started providing primary conferences, we were specifically funded to do this, but this has not been the case for some years now - hence the need for a change of policy.

If any school feels that they would not be able to participate in our programme because of the cost of a conference, they can get in touch with us to see if we can help in any way.

Best wishes

Jenny

--

Dr Jenny Gage

Coordinator, Motivate Project             Centre for Mathematical Sciences

Millennium Mathematics Project                            Wilberforce Road

University of Cambridge                                          Cambridge

44(0)1223 764278 or 44(0)777 189 1776                              CB3 0WA

Fax: 44(0)1223 765900                                          

The Motivate Project is putting on a free videoconference for Science Week.

The first four schools to respond who have VC'd with us already will get the places. The VC will take place on 5 March, starting at 10.30am, and lasting for about 1 1/4 hours.

The title is 'Computer Speak: Machine Translation & Ambiguity', and the speaker is Cecily Morrison of the Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge. She will discuss why we want computers to translate documents for us, the problems this presents, and current efforts to overcome the problems. There will be short pencil and paper activities for students to do during the session.

The session is aimed at 14-16 year-old students, and will have relevance to ICT and languages (English and others), as well as demonstrating how a mathematical model is applied to a real-life problem, and giving students an insight into a significant current research topic.

Regards

Jenny

--

Dr Jenny Gage

Coordinator, Motivate Project             Centre for Mathematical Sciences

Millennium Mathematics Project                            Wilberforce Road

University of Cambridge                                          Cambridge

44(0)1223 764278 or 44(0)777 189 1776                              CB3 0WA

Fax: 44(0)1223 765900                                          

http://www.motivate.maths.org

Hi

We now have an unexpected place on our Nrich problem solving day for Y12 A level maths students on 29 Feb. See http://motivate.maths.org/conferences/conference.php?conf_id=152. This will be an excellent way to extend Y12 students' understanding of some basic A level concepts through problem-solving and seeing how other schools tackle the problems set. Resources will be set through the Motivate website, with suggestions for follow-up suggestions from the Nrich site.

The day will last from 10am till 3pm, and costs £80 for up to 15 students, £130 for more.

If you are interested in participating, please go to http://motivate.maths.org/getinvolved/getinvolved.php and submit our online registration form.

Regards

Jenny

--

Dr Jenny Gage

Coordinator, Motivate Project             Centre for Mathematical Sciences

Millennium Mathematics Project                            Wilberforce Road

University of Cambridge                                          Cambridge

44(0)1223 764278 or 44(0)777 189 1776                              CB3 0WA

Fax: 44(0)1223 765900                                          

http://www.motivate.maths.org

Videoconference Layout on Screen

The Booking Service has been changed so now videoconferences default to continuous presence rather than voice switched layout on screen. When the conference is booked, a continuous presence, single participant layout will be automatically selected (see screenshot below) unless another option is chosen. Note that there is still an option to select a voice switched conference if necessary.

Previously, with a voice switched conference, only the current speaker was visible on all screens and it was not possible to change how a conference was displayed once it had started. With a continuous presence conference, multiple participants can be visible on screen at the same time and the layout can be changed at any time even if the session has already been booked or the conference is in progress. This ability to dynamically change how a videoconference is viewed will also allow conference managers to change the screen layout and how participants are viewed if the original screen layout doesn't meet their needs or the number of endpoints coming into the session is altered. These screen layout changes can be made through the Booking Service online user interface and changes made during a live conference can be seen immediately by all attendees.

Lara van de Langeryt

Videoconferencing Services Co-ordinator