Budget Cuts and Technology

Like many districts everywhere we are in the midst of a budget reduction, 9.3 million this year and about the same again next year. We are actively pursuing alternate ways to train teachers that don't require face to face or time out of the classroom. We have Blackboard and that works well but we are also looking for a low cost (free is really what we need) way of video conferencing with a small groups of teachers. I tried out Dimdim today with some success and some failure. The desktop sharing tool would not work with my computer. The sound quality was at times excellent and at times poor. We also use Wimba Lite in conjunction with Bb. I use Skype often. We participate in remote simultaneous domecasts with other planetariums around the world. We can assign control of the domes to anyone and swap it around. We use Skype for audio and it works great. Last week we had a domecast with several US based planetariums plus a new one in Africa and one in South America. Super cool and super exciting. Anyway, if someone has found a good free tool to use that could include a vid feed from the teacher and the ability to share a desktop with say 4-10 people I would love to hear about it.