The blogging class was the first OL course to attempt the technology of Qunnipiac's Blackboard virtual office technology.
Prior to the meeting a set of instructions were emailed explaining how to initiate the session. Of course, when reading the instructions 5 minutes before the meeting, I panicked when I saw insert your microphone. Was I suppose to buy a microphone? Well, although I couldn't get my audio to work, I guess you do not need to buy a microphone.
The screen was chopped up in about 4 or 5 sections. One section on the left seemed quite large and was filled with figures of a person from shoulder up and your name under the picture. We had about a half dozen on the call. If you have a large class, I fear the whole screen will be filled with silhouettes. Personally, I thought this was alot of space used to represent who was on the call. Especially since the actual follow my example work area was too small to view. In this area, there was no straight forward enlarge/maximize screen button. My eyes suffered trying to follow along. In the bottom right hand corner was an area where you could type in and chat. This was especially helpful if you could not get your audio to work.
In general, the audio was beyond poor. Either the professor or other students voices echo and faded in and out. Finally, we gave up on the audio and switched to a conference line hosted by www.intercall.com . This proved to be quite productive.
Students, at their places of business have had experience with Sametime web conferencing and it wins hands down when compared to the Breeze web conferencing.
Although the technology was poor, we must commend Quinnipiac University's CPS for providing and experimenting with innovated ways to allow the professional student a "classroom" interaction without physically needing to be present.
Well, I would like to hear what you thought of this. The technology basically crashed. The phone was a great backup. Thanks!
Posted by: Bud Gibson | March 27, 2006 at 03:54 PM