The "S" Word

Streaming is kind of a touchy subject. I've had a lot of people ask me why it’s such a big deal if they want to stream something from YouTube for their classroom, and to be completely honest… it isn't.

What makes it a big deal is when everyone wants to stream from YouTube and Spotify and Pandora and Vevo and Google Play and iTunes and Netflix and Amazon Prime all at once and all the time. Add in the fact that the students are streaming music and videos all on their own in practically every lab in the school system, and you might start to see why it becomes an issue.

The reason that it’s a big deal is pretty simple. At home, you pay your ISP a certain amount of money each month for a certain amount of bandwidth. It's probably plenty for you and your family, and you never top it out. That’s essentially what we do as a school system, only instead of paying Charter or Comcast we pay Alabama Supercomputer in Huntsville, and we have the capability to use way more than our limit.

The old metaphor about the internet being the "information superhighway" is equally cheesy and -- as much as this hurts me -- accurate. When we get online, we get in our digital car and we head out on the road.

Here’s where the analogy gets weird, though.

Say you’re not doing much online… maybe checking your email or the weather so you'll know how much milk and bread to buy, for example. At that point, you’re driving a smart car on the highway. You’re not taking up much room, you're just minding your own business doing your thing. Now, imagine an entire class of students has just pulled up YouTube in a lab. Your smart car is now competing with 30 semi-trucks that want that same piece of highway. The road isn't getting any wider; you've just got to share it and find some way to fit. Everything slows down, and in the end no one is getting anywhere.

That’s essentially why we limit and/or discourage streaming. It’s certainly useful when it’s needed; those trucks on the highway are frequently carrying lots of important stuff. The problems start when everyone is driving one. There’s just no room for anyone to get around, and ultimately, traffic grinds to a halt. The difference between the internet and the interstate is that often instead of blaming all the people driving around in those huge trucks… the road just gets blamed for not being wide enough.

In a perfect world, we'd live without bandwidth limitations, speed limits, and calories. Until that day comes, though, try to do what you can to make sure that you and your class aren't a gang of truckers. If you want some advice on how to limit the amount you need to stream for your classes, let us know and we'll be glad to give you some advice. If everyone shares the road, we can all drive that much faster.

Erik Hammonds is a computer tech for the Tuscaloosa City Schools.