December 07, 2007 // Chicago – IOCOM, a Chicago based visual collaboration software company, announces today the acceptance of 7 distance learning projects. The proposals were submitted as part of IOCOM’s pilot offering to the K-12 market. IOCOM’s initiative, entitled “Removing Boundaries”, invited a small group of K-12 schools to submit a one page proposal for a distance learning project. IOCOM’s offer included free software and support for the duration of the project. Further, IOCOM offered use of special equipment that might be needed for the project.
To pilot this initiative, IOCOM focused on one private school district. “We felt it would be best to present this initial offer to a small group. Many K-12 schools lack the resources of colleges and universities, so we wanted to work more closely with them,” explained Jim Miller, Executive Vice President of IOCOM. He added, “We are trying some new and innovative ways to ‘Remove Boundaries’ of the physical classroom. Once we get an idea of which ones work, we plan to extend this offer to a larger audience.”
The proposals accepted varied in scope. IOCOM will be used for district wide departmental meetings, social and cultural interaction between inner city and suburban schools, visual pen pals with a school in Mexico, live tours and presentations from nature park in Oregon, collaborative classroom teaching sessions, live discussions with authors of children’s books, and a unique twist to a tv quiz show.
“It is exciting to see how creative the responses were. These teachers and administrators have come up with ways to utilize the IOCOM technology to enhance not only the way they teach, but also to expand what they teach,” added Miller.
For more information on IOCOM or how to participate in the Removing Boundaries initiative, please contact Jim Miller at jmiller@iocom.com.
About IOCOM
IOCOM is a Chicago-based software provider that helps keep people connected through video, data and audio conferencing. Its solutions work with virtually any Internet-enabled device, including room systems, PCs, laptops and mobile devices. IOCOM’s focus is on delivering the high performance necessary for smooth audio and video without the cost and complexity of bulkier, proprietary systems. Fortune 500 companies, government and education institutions, researchers, skilled workers, and general consumers currently rely on IOCOM’s solutions. For more information, please visit http://www.iocom.com.