Humanizing the Online Experience 2: Sept 13-30, 2010

Thanks for organising the session - unfortunately, I wasn't able to use the video, as I don't have a webcam at home that works with the Mac - and, having been away for 10 days, biking home via the shop (& thus having a full rucksack) was a higher priority than filling my rucksack with work laptop!

Next week, I'll try to be more organised.

I found it useful - and reassuring to see that even a set of seemingly people who're very au-fait with online video conferencing still took time to get going - makes me less worried about when I've done similar sessions with studnets & took most of the first session to make sure they all knew how to use the software, how to stop echo ( stop echo, stop echo )...

I was interested in the suggestion of trying to make the background look professional - while I agreed that the dark curtain did look professional - I also thought that Nellie's books etc, made her look academic. (Certainly in the UK, when they interview academics for news items etc., they always seem to seat them infront of a bookcase ... albeit it a much tidier one than most I see ... that said, Nellie's looked very organised!)

In this type of session, though, I wonder if we're taking on more of the 'learner' role -when I'd expect them to have all sorts of things in the background - I'd aim to do sessions like this at work if I were 'teacher' - when, granted I don't have a plain backdrop, but the online students do get to see me in the same office as they would if they were on campus.

I mentioned Flashmeeting as a video conferencing tool we'd used in the past - not got much beyond about 7 in a meeting, though it can go up to 20 I think. http://flashmeeting.open.ac.uk/home.html
I'd used another (not free, but not that expensive) one in the past, before we discovered Flashmeeting - but I can't remember what it was called.

Emma

We had a lot of good laughs during our video conference on Monday. In addition to the smiling faces you see here we also had a text chat going, and a few more people who joined later.

This experience was a good reminder of a few things.

1. You ALWAYS need to allow time to play and troubleshoot when you get a group of people together in an online conference. Plan a time when people can drop in to get coached on the
   
2. It's good practice to document the minimum technical requirements, as well as the recommended requirements.
3. A moderator is a very important role. (Thanks Martin!)
4. Having someone to call for technical support is a real bonus! (Thanks Joshua!)
5. Setting up a text chat is a good way to stay connected with those who don't have audio or are having other technical difficulties.
6. People can feel uneasy about downloading applications. It's important to provide information about the process.
   
7. When you have a high definition video conference with participants who have adequate bandwidth and good quality audio & video it is an AMAZING experience!