Recordings:
1.What web conferencing tool did your group use?
Our group decided to use Vyew as our web conferencing tool. Each member of the group has explored Vyew and felt it would work well for our purposes. We attempted to use Jing to record our group session, but found it didn't work well given the length of our web conference. Both Lindsay and I attempted to record our web conference but were only able to get 3-minute recordings using Jing, and we had to record our conference in segments. We are still working on compiling the recording to post to our blogs. Needless to say, for our next web conference we will try to find a different means of recording our session.
The web conference itself went fine, but I was not overly impressed with Vyew. Although we were all able to meet and get the ball rolling on our Group Leadership Project, it was not without some difficulty.
2.What were the advantages to using the web conferencing tool to discuss this project?
Overall, I found Vyew to be fairly user friendly. It's easy enough to create and sign up for an account. Also, the introductory tutorial is brief and to the point, but gives you a great "snap shot" of what you can and cannot do with Vyew. I think the biggest advantage to using Vyew is that is was free. It was also very easy to create a meeting room, invite others, and create a link that all group members could easily access to ensure we were all in the right place on the day of our meeting. From my end, I found it easy enough to use the webcam and talk feature and it was nice to put some of my group members names with faces/voices. Furthermore, I found it beneficial that all group members could upload content, add text and edit our "meeting space", as we could all contribute to the brainstorming that was occurring.
Aside from a few technical glitches, Vyew was easy enough to figure out and use and we accomplished what we needed to.
3.What were the disadvantages to using the web conferencing tool to discuss this project?
I feel the biggest disadvantage was not being able to record our web conference using Vyew. It was quite the inconvenience to try and figure out how we were going to record our web conference (given the issues we had with Jing), while remaining fully engaged in the group conversation. Furthermore, we had a lot of issues with the audio and getting a lot of feedback. It ended up being too difficult to have a conversation using the mics, so we all eventually resorted to using the chat feature instead. I know a couple of my group members had issues with the webcam feature, as well as getting kicked out of our session entirely. Also, because we were all using the chat room feature, the text box seemed to take up much of our work space and it was difficult to add text and content in such limited space. Again, we spent a lot of time focusing on the technological glitches, which made it difficult to remain on-task.
4. What will you do differently for next time?
While it may be easier to use Vyew next time, as we had the opportunity to become familiar with it and use it as a group, we may consider switching to Adobe Connect.
5. How could this tool be useful in your classroom?
Given the age level of my students (first grade), I could see this tool being incredibly difficult for my students to use. However, I could see using this tool for "virtual field trips" of sorts, in terms of web conferencing with other classrooms within the district, the state, across the country, etc. In terms of this technology's usefulness in classrooms in general, I could see this being a great tool for older students to use to work on group projects together, for teachers to use when they are unable to meet in person/over the summer, and again for classrooms to use to connect with other classrooms/schools.Although difficult for my students to use individually, I could see them really enjoying it when used collaboratively, to connect with other first grade classrooms.
Sorry to hear that your group had so many issues to work around during this meeting. Since the free version of Vyew prohibits recording, perhaps someone in your group could sign up for a free trial with Adobe Connect. It's easy to use, records the session, and allows you to download the recording after the meeting finishes up. Looking forward to hearing about your Group Leadership project in your next Web Conference post.
ReplyDeleteAn additional thought ~ Watching everybody move around Vyew's workspace looked very Harry Potterish=8-) Footsteps tracking across the surface of his magical map. It looks like your group covered a lot of ground during the work session=8-) Looking forward to reading your group's storyboard ~ Sue
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