Skyping to Japan ... and back

[Ric Wiltse]

Had fun helping the Calvin College Handbell Choir conduct a videolink between Grand Rapids, Michigan and Tokyo, Japan last week. My wife is the director of the Calvin group and we connected with our good friend Scott Ponzani who teaches at the Christian Academy in Japan. See http://caj.or.jp/ We had the wonderful opportunity to visit Scott in Japan a few years ago with our two sons who were teenagers at the time (now 20 and 22). The videolink was made with a simple Skype connection, and we had our computers linked to video projectors so the students on both ends could see each other well. One reason we did the videolink was that several of the Calvin group who are freshman now played for Scott last year. Scott also had several faculty and parents on the Japan side of the link who were thrilled to see the Calvin students. There was a slight delay in the audio/video, but not more than a second or two. The 30 minute video/audio link was recorded by Call Recorder (version 2.2) from ecamm network. The software was really easy to use and I highly recommend it. I was able to start and stop the recording so that I ended up with several manageable Quicktime movies of our connection. I also used an external iSight camera, but it is not really made for wide shots, so I'd use a regular digital camera next time. Scott had a high end digital camera and microphone on his side resulting in higher quality. I'd also use a better mic system next time. All in all, it was a great first attempt and the students got a real thrill out of the experience.