Why does education need to change and how will it happen?

That’s the topic of the “Reboot: Education” event  tonight, May 20, in Washington, D.C. Leaders from Pearson, Coursera, 2U, the US Department of Education, Watchitoo and more will be both on hand and brought in via the Web to discuss how the industry is changing and how they are responding to the challenges. The live stream of the event, powered by Watchitoo will be live from 7:45pm-9pm ET http://1776dc.com/rebooteducation/.

The event, hosted by DC tech incubator, 1776dc, is preceded by a fireside chat led by Jeff Selingo, Chronicle of Higher Education editor and author of “College (Un)Bound.” It will include 250 confirmed on-site guests from the U.S. Department of Education, regional universities and Capitol Hill staff.

Speakers will have the opportunity to address the question of why education needs to change, and how that can be accomplished, either live on-site or brought in virtually through Watchitoo. Online viewers of “Reboot: Education” will be able to view the conversation, ask questions and post comments on their social networks.

This was the challenge for Lisa Druxman, founder and CEO of Stroller Strides (under the Fit4Mom umbrella), an 11-year-old company dedicated to helping women develop and sustain the “strength for motherhood.” With nearly 300 franchisees in the United States, it’s one of the largest fitness programs for mothers in the world.

As the company grew, Druxman looked for more effective ways than conference calls and PowerPoint presentations to stay connected with franchisees. Most of those franchises are owned by young mothers who rarely can come together in one place.

Druxman needed a way for everyone to collaborate as a unified enterprise. She needed a way to combine the convenience of the Web with the impact of face-to-face conversation. After months of searching, she found a solution: Watchitoo.

‘So pumped’

With Watchitoo, Druxman can bring together hundreds and occasionally thousands of participants in an online videochat. As many as 25 participants can be onscreen at once. Participants can share videos, presentations, documents and more. Thousands of viewers can follow along, asking questions of the host and text chatting among themselves. With a click, Druxman can make any viewer an onscreen participant, and any participant can be switched back to a general viewer.

“I get so pumped when we all come together,” says Druxman. “Watchitoo is so much better than a conference call. We all feel one another’s energy. It’s like we’re in the same room, and we kind of are.”

Fit4Mom uses Watchitoo for training, support, “coffee chats” with the CEO and sales meetings with new prospects. Druxman has recently held two conferences, and she streamed the company’s annual in-person conference live from San Diego. It included streamed keynotes by noted pediatrician Dr. Alan Greene (author of “Feeding Baby Green”) and former financial and food industry analyst Robyn O’Brien (author of “The Unhealthy Truth”). The sessions are recorded and available online.

Monetizing the audience

Fit4Mom sells advertisements for conferences and deploys them as virtual layers on the Watchitoo interface. Watchitoo viewers see advertisers’ offers on the screen and can click to take advantage of them. Other advertisers sponsor attendee surveys conducted through Watchitoo’s polling tool. “Our budgets are tight and everything needs to have a positive return on investment,” said Druxman.

When meeting with franchisees online, Druxman can easily pull participants out of the crowd of viewers and place their video streams on the screen that everyone’s watching. She can roll a YouTube video, display photos, or run through a presentation. “I’m not technical in the least,” she says, “but Watchitoo has been very intuitive, and if we have a question, we just ask Watchitoo support professionals. They’ve been amazingly helpful. We really get our money’s worth.”

Next up: Web TV

Fit4Mom innovates relentlessly. The next step is taking video streaming to a new level by creating the Fit4Mom Web TV series, “Mom on a Mission.” The series will focus on fitness, food, spirit and home, while featuring Lisa’s special guests  answering viewer questions. The show will highlight Lisa’s Mom on a Mission Fitness Challenge, which was developed to help get moms active and fit and to understand that a healthy family starts with a healthy mom. A select group of three moms have been given Flip Cameras and are documenting their fitness and wellness regimes.

The show will begin airing May 1. Because Watchitoo is uniquely embeddable in the Fit4Mom website, Fit4Mom owns the content and can sell ads around the Watchitoo stage interface. Household-name sponsors are lining up. Other video conferencing platforms force visitors to come to their Web sites. These platforms leverage customers’ content to sell their own advertising.

“Watchitoo is a better fit for us and it’s perfect for our franchisees,” says Druxman. “It’s a strategic part of our mission to help raise healthy moms so they can raise healthy kids with healthy minds,” said Druxman. “Watchitoo is the most cost-effective way to do it, and I feel like we’re only scratching the surface of how we can profit from it.”

Click here to watch

Dreamworks will talk about how HP’s gear helps drive its animation production.

Show times, all PST:

• Monday, April 8, 3 p.m.
• Tuesday, April 9, 3 p.m.
• Wednesday, April 10, 3 p.m.
• Thursday, April 11, 10:30 a.m.

NASCAR will talk about how it can monitor traditional, digital, broadcast and social media in real time through HP’s Interactive Media Command Center, enabling real-time response to fan sentiment, emerging issues and topic trends.

Show times, all PST:

• Monday, April 8, 11 a.m.
• Tuesday, April 9, 11 a.m.

West Coast Customs will describe how an HP file-based editing platform helps them deliver their reality show.

Show times, all PST:

• Monday, April 8, 1 p.m.
• Tuesday, April 9, 1 p.m.
• Wednesday, April 10, 1 p.m.

Our VP of Sales, Dori Gurwitz will also be sharing the latest projects and Watchitoo innovations on Wednesday, April 10 at 9:30 a.m. or Thursday, April 11, at 11:30 a.m.

Since all of this is on Watchitoo, viewers will be able to chat, tweet, ask questions and possibly join presenters through their own webcams.

Visit the HP Facebook page for the full HP/Watchitoo streaming schedule.

Live, video-centric learning is a key ingredient for ensuring quality and impact of distance learning programs

Watchitoo today unveiled a new product aimed squarely at distance learning’s Achilles’ heel: the lack of a traditional face-to-face experience. Able to bring 25 students into a face-to-face video chat and involve thousands more as viewing participants, Watchitoo ClassInteract (www.wclassinteract.com) enables institutions to preserve the integrity of the live classroom experience as they move their offerings online.

The company is demonstrating Watchitoo ClassInteract at Pearson’s CITE 2013 annual users’ conference today through Thursday in Chicago. Watchitoo is a sponsor of the event and will co-host a session called “Yale Closes the Distance Learning Gap with Face-to-Face Interactive Courses” on Thursday, 4/4. [http://pearsonevents.com/cite2013/program/]

Watchitoo ClassInteract powers key activities in the entire learning lifecycle, including course management, synchronous classroom learning, discussion, polling, white-boarding and advanced analytics. Students log into classes, participate in class via webcam, chat with classmates, query professors, view multimedia materials together, and break out into subgroups for smaller video chats whenever they like.

Professors can store class materials in Watchitoo ClassInteract, create polls, aggregate results, record/archive sessions and view in-depth data on student engagement. Classes can be presented online to a small group of students and/or thousands of viewers, with guests being activated and deactivated by professors as full on-screen participants.

Watchitoo ClassInteract is a complete, cost-effective solution for virtual classroom learning and easily integrates into any learning management system for a seamless single-sign-on experience. Watchitoo has partnered with Pearson eCollege to provide an integrated solution directly accessible from the Pearson LearningStudio platform. Customers using this integration include Yale University, Palo Alto University and University of Fairfax.

Watchitoo ClassInteract has some distinct competitive advantages beyond its 25-person videoconferencing capability. It’s delivered through a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model, which minimizes the institution’s IT burden and automatically upgrades capabilities as they are developed. Watchitoo ClassInteract is easily embeddable into any university Web page and offers simple, intuitive tools for customizing its look and feel. It’s also ideal for faculty meetings, parent-teacher conferences, andcorporate training and recruiting.

“Distance Learning is a fast-growing field, and to make it truly viable, institutions need the ability to bring students together in an authentic face-to-face experience,” said Watchitoo CEO Rony Zarom. “For many institutions and students, this is the very element that makes distance learning powerful. Watchitoo can provide face-to-face synchronous experiences that can scale from a small class to massive synchronous online courses. The MOOC [massive open online course] movement does not need to be limited to recorded materials and threaded discussions. An injection of real-time interactivity stimulates learning, and establishes a better base for monetizing the experience.”

Watchitoo ClassInteract is available now in English, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish and Hebrew, with flexible pricing options based on course count or usage hours.

Convinced there’s a better way to get things done than by email, Tracky and Watchitoo today announced they are joining forces to shape the future of collaboration.

Tracky, a Web-based social collaboration platform, is integrating the Watchitoo Playground videoconferencing platform into its interface. The partners will unveil the product Sunday, March 10, at SXSW 2013 in Austin, Texas. Playground will be available to every Tracky user thereafter.

Visit the #VegasTech booth for a demo through Tuesday, March 12.

Tracky is an open social collaboration platform for accomplishing things as a project team, circle of friends or group of kindred spirits on the Internet. Watchitoo’s Playground is a Web-based videoconferencing platform enabling people to speak face to face and share multimedia content. Phase one of the partnership will enable users to launch Watchitoo Playground sessions in Tracky so they can meet face to face in real time to advance their Tracky projects.

“These are two hot collaboration platforms, and together they present a new way of working that’s intuitive, fluid, social, immediate and personal,” said Jennifer Gosse, Tracky chief marketing officer. “This integration is all about productivity. Consider it another blow against the cult of email.”

Unlike collaboration platforms such as Yammer, Tracky is not restricted to a closed group of co-workers. From the Tracky interface, users can invite their social network contacts (e.g. Twitter, Facebook) to their projects as well as discover new contacts and invite them into an open project such as a grassroots social movement. Work-related initiatives and invite-only parties, however, can still be private.

“Watchitoo’s Playground and Tracky are a perfect fit,” said Watchitoo CEO Rony Zarom. “They’re both entirely Web-based, require no software downloads, and let people come together naturally to work or play. They’re beloved by productivity junkies and early technology adopters, and are disrupting entrenched applications.”

The Tracky/Playground combination is free and supports up to 11 videoconference participants at a time. A paid upgrade enables up to 25 Watchitoo users to participate (more than any other videoconferencing platform) as well as screen sharing, recording and archiving. A further upgrade includes Watchitoo’s control room and Twitter/Facebook integration, and the ability to stream to thousands of users.

In partnership, Watchitoo and Tracky will be providing live coverage from SXSWi March 12th from 1-3pm. Social media expert Sarah Evans (@PRSarahevans) will host 2 hours of interactive interviews with key digital executives, thought leaders, and tech innovators from leading brands trailblazing new trends and transforming the market. The live coverage will be available to viewers on various syndicated partner website and Facebook pages including Cox Communications, VegasTechSXSW, inNEVation, Watchitoo, Tracky, Ticketcake and others.

Viewers will be encouraged to participate in the conversation by submitting interactive chat, questions, tweets and Facebook posts. Sarah and her guests will answer the selected comments live at: www.facebook.com/watchitoo & www.tracky.com/SXSW

About Tracky

Tracky’s social collaboration platform lets you organize all of your to do’s, work projects and social connections in one place – from planning a wedding to launching an international brand. With Tracky, you can work socially and get more done in a single work hub, including: to do lists, live chats, calendars, social publishing, task management, people and project discovery, social accountability, cloud-based storage and more. Connect. Collaborate. Share. Join us in the collaboration movement at www.tracky.com.

About Watchitoo

New York-based Watchitoo provides an embeddable video collaboration platform to deliver live content in a highly engaging way. The Watchitoo platform allows multiple participants to see and hear one another in real-time, collaborate around any form of rich media, and be viewed by an audience scalable into the thousands. With Watchitoo, any viewer can become a participant and any participant can be switched back to a general viewer. For more information, visit www.watchitoo.com.

Anyone around the globe can watch and engage with the conference via our live coverage powered by Watchitoo, an interactive streaming platform used for live events, webinars, and distance learning initiatives. Through Watchitoo you can chat with fellow viewers and pose questions which may be included in the speaker Q&A. Plus, while you’re watching online you can participate on Twitter via #BRITEconf.

Mark your calendar, tune in and spread the word!

March 4, 2013

8:45-10:35am and 2:05-3:35pm Eastern Standard Time

LIVE SESSION STREAM: http://BRITEconference.com/

BRITE ’13 AGENDA: http://BRITEconference.com/BRITE13/Agenda.aspx

Watchitoo’s Marilyn Daly will discuss best practices for achieving this level of excellence in a Bett 2013 education technology conference session called How to bridge the distance learning gap with face-to-face interactive courses. The session takes place Wednesday 30 January, from 11:15-noon at the ExCel London conference center in Learn Live Theatre C.

“The key to superior synchronous distance learning is an online learning environment that combines face-to-face interaction with the seamless ability to collaborate around subject matter, including documents, presentations, videos or any other content,” says Daly.

The session will cover how to:

• Ensure the technology platform quickly becomes transparent and the experience is seamless for students and professors;
• Support world-class education quality in a non-traditional setting;
• Measure quality and achievement, and continuously improve these results.

Marilyn will provide examples of successful virtual classroom programs. She will be available for conversation throughout the show at Watchitoo’s stand in Hall/Stand: F27B.

What’s next for social TV? Enabling couch surfers to join reality TV shows! You already see correspondents joining news shows one at a time via web cameras. Soon you’ll see groups of viewers coming onto TV shows to create an unprecedented level of interactivity – and forever blurring the lines between television and social media. Another trend in social TV is finding a way for show producers to sell ad space in the Internet communities they’re building. Too often the viewership is talking about their shows on other platforms, whether it’s Twitter, Facebook or streaming sites. Producers are finally finding easy ways to own their content, own their audience and monetize it – easy ways like Watchitoo.

So exactly how is this all going to go down? Our Andrew Goletka, vice president of corporate development, has been on the speaking circuit painting the picture of the future.

Andrew was on two panels in our home city of New York last month. Andrew discussed alongside other industry leaders how online, and more often original, video content is spearheading the second screen evolution; and how this trend will help build brand awareness, viewership and ultimately revenue.

First up was the The Social TV Summit where Goletka joined Moderator Jack Myers, CEO of Jack Myers Media Business Report, and fellow panelists from Nobox, WiOffer, Echo and wywy to talk about revenue opportunities around social TV. The session was titled, “Social TV…..Ratings, Revenue, Engagement, Revenue, Social Commerce, Revenue, Viewers, Revenue, Brands ROI, Revenue……Did We Forget to Say Revenue?”

The Future of Television panel session addressed “Creating Original Video Content for Multiple Platforms.” Watchitoo’s Andrew Goletka, Moderator Paul Kontonis, chairman of the International Academy of Web Television, and other industry executives from SAG-AFTRA, SMOSH, Discovery Communications and Microsoft Corp. took part in this discussion that covered the creation of engaging second screen opportunities to support traditional television content.

During both sessions, Andrew was able to draw on his experience at Watchitoo, driving the company’s Social TV initiatives that focus on promotional solutions, pre/post show discussions and original programs designed for digital distribution. Goletka also highlighted collaborations with producers and networks, including Viacom, NBC-Universal and Turner Broadcasting, to demonstrate successful Social TV campaigns.

In the big picture, there are two choices: If your paramount concern is flexibility of schedule, you will want asynchronous learning. This amounts to an online environment where students can learn and work by a schedule most convenient for them. They download reading, assignments and maybe recorded lectures, and upload their homework. Their interaction with their classmates consists mainly of threaded discussions. Students post comments as their schedule permits.

If, however, you’re looking to provide a more engaging learning environment where students feel a deeper connection to their classmates and professors, who will respond to questions and comments immediately, and where students come as close as they can to being in a traditional classroom without warming a seat, synchronous learning is the choice.

We at Watchitoo are making a significant contribution to the latter with a Web-based virtual classroom platform that enables up to 25 participants (more than other group conferencing platforms) to talk to one another and see one another’s faces simultaneously – all while sharing multimedia classroom content.

Preparing for interactions in the real world

Synchronous learning has distinct advantages, according to one study of graduate student e-learners, “Examining Interactivity in Synchronous Virtual Classrooms”: “The importance of students’ ability to receive immediate feedback and their experience as presenters was highlighted across the various kinds of interaction. The instructor’s teaching style and visual presence were instrumental in engaging students with the content. The results suggest that student interaction, and hence learning, was aided by the live communication that occurred through the virtual classroom.”

If education is largely a preparation for the real world, we think it’s important for students to interact with classmates and teachers in real time. This way, students become comfortable working with sophisticated knowledge in the team (classroom) context under the guidance of a project leader (like a professor). In the real world, you need to contribute as part of a team to be useful. It’s doesn’t matter whether you’re the smartest person on the payroll.

Synchronous learning may also help bring introverts out of their shells. “I have taught Internet courses for over a decade now,” said Ed Lyell, a professor at Adams State College. “My interaction with students is often much more involved and significant with the online students than with the classroom students who avoid interaction.”

We also think face-to-face learning motivates. It takes an unusual level of dedication and stamina – sheer will power – to learn in a fully asynchronous environment, plugging away in solitude with a static Web page as your only companion. Yet if you’re bandying about a hot topic in civics with a class of 20 or 25, it’s much easier to engage with the material and truly learn. Classmates’ views, uttered spontaneously, help you refine your own. They set your thinking straight. You learn to have a civil discussion, work out disagreements, find common ground, and work toward common goals.

Many institutions are combining asynchronous and synchronous learning in hybrid classes. Students spend a portion of their time working asynchronously, then occasionally come together to discuss and debate in real time. This format can include a video lecture to kick off the week.

Whatever the form, the possibilities for synchronous learning are intriguing. We’re committed to helping higher education institutions expand them.

Panelists will include Caroline Baron and Lesli Klainberg with Ryan Harrington moderating. This interactive live-stream will enable you to be a part of the conversation – just post right into the chat and your questions will be answered in real-time.

Join the conversation here http://www.tribecafilminstitute.org/public/101_panels/