Q: What exactly is Chalkwaves Ohio?
A: Chalkwaves Ohio, which is also called
Chalkwaves Plus, is a collection of award-winning, educational videos
that are segmented for easy classroom use and reside on a single hard
drive in your school, which all teachers can access instantly. Pick
a topic, pick a grade level, click, and it flows to your classroom
as easily as turning on a faucet.
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Q: What do I need in my classroom to access Chalkwaves Ohio?
A: Typically, a video segment is played via a Player
program that is easily and quickly installed on the classroom computer,
with an .ini file pointing to the video server drive.
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Q: What about the network requirements?
A: Your school must have an Ethernet network with
bandwidth of 100 Mbps or greater. Token ring will not work.
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Q: Does this drive have an operating system?
A: No. This drive is a Slave drive to your current
Master drive with the server's operating system.
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Q: Is this a SCSI drive for a server?
A: No. Drives can be ordered as NTFS drives or Mac
OS X HFS+ format. We can provide internal drives for installation into
a server or external Firewire/USB 2 drives. Drives are 300 GB.
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Q: What file formats are used?
A: The videos are in MPEG-1 format, managed from a
Microsoft Access database
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Q: What software do I need?
A: For the Server: Windows Server (2000, 2003, or
NT), Macintosh OS X Server, Novell or Linux.
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Q: What do the classroom computers need to have?
A: For Windows:
Hardware: Pentium II, 300 MHz processor, 64 MB RAM.
Software: Windows 98 SE and above; (Windows Me is
not recommended); Windows Media Player 6.8 and up; Adobe Acrobat Reader
5 or higher; Internet Explorer 5.5 S2 or higher or Netscape 7.01.
A: For Mac:
Hardware: OS Xrunning on the appropriate hardware
(G3 or G4 recommended).
Software: Windows Media Player, and Acrobat Reader
5 or higher.
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Q: What about Mac OS X, Novell or Linux?
A: Chalkwaves Ohio is compatible with these
operating systems. You can order drives setup for OS X servers. For
Linux or Novell, you can copy the Chalkwaves Ohio content
onto a drive on the server or to a SAN.
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Q: My Server cannot read a drive this big. How can I use Chalkwaves
Ohio?
A:Some machines with an older BIOS are unable to read
drives of this size (120 GB and up). Sometimes a BIOS upgrade with
fix the problem. You can also get an internal card with driver that
will handle the drive. Most newer machines will have no problem. It
is also possible to play the videos off an external firewire or USB
storage devise or NAS drive, as long as you can map it to your end-users.
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Q: I have Windows NT on my server. Will Chalkwaves Ohio work
on Windows NT?
A: It should. KCPT is successfully running Chalkwaves
Plus on Windows NT. However, the Help Desk reports that some users
have experienced problems with Windows NT and large-capacity hard drives.
Windows 2000 is, therefore, preferred.
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Q: I don't have the Internet bandwidth to receive streaming
video.
A: You don't need it! Remember, Chalkwaves Ohio does
not stream, it simply plays over your LAN. The only thing coming over
the Internet is a one-line Java script, and then only if you are using
the Web Launcher instead of the Player that can be installed on the
classroom computers.
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Q: Will I be the first teacher using Chalkwaves technology?
A: Teachers in schools in Ohio, Kansas, Missouri,
Illinois and South Dakota are successfully using Chalkwaves technology
in the classroom. Schools throughout Ohio are enthusiastic about its
classroom application.
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