In tinychat, we were able to see each other via webcams and Jenni, Kevin, and Heather were able to speak to each other. I was unable to get my newly purchased microphone set to work so I had to participate by listening and contributing via the chat room. This was a little frustrating because I can't type as fast as I can talk, and those who know me know I usually have something to say! Even so, I am satisfied with the direction our brainstorming session went.
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| Screenshot in Edmodo |
We are planning to do a professional development session where we teach educators how to use the online resource Edmodo. Plans for what we will teach educators to do with Edmodo include:
- Creating a teacher account
- Creating a class group
- Creating student accounts
- Retrieving student information
We are using the collaborative feature in Google Docs to work on the script and storyboard for this assignment and plan to meet again online in the same tinychat room to decide who will be narrating the screencast. I forgot to confirm with the group what program we would be using to create our screencast. At this point, I'm assuming we are using Jing but will bring this up at our next online meeting.
In the meantime, I returned my defective mic/headphone set (it had a "short" in a wire) and replaced it with a working one! If anyone asks for my advice on purchasing this piece of equipment, I will recommend they spend the extra money to get a USB connection. The recording of our online meeting can be seen at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCLo2WqudCw.
The advantages to using the web conferencing tool tinychat were that we could see and talk to each other as if we were in class together collaborating. Next time, I think our online meeting would be more organized and productive if we had a written agenda at the start of our meeting. This would assure that we were hitting all the assignment requirements like making sure the work was distributed among group members, that we concluded the meeting with a firmer timeline, and that we were clear about what technology we would be using for our final product. Using tinychat as a web conferencing tool was far superior to what I've used previously for group work. Both in CEP 810 and CEP 811 my groups solely used GoogleDocs as our collaborative tool. The problem with GoogleDocs used in this way is that the "typing to talk" gets cumbersome and sometimes confusing. It is slower and more difficult to get clarification about another group members meaning using GoogleDocs. Tinychat gives you almost all of the benefits of face-to-face communication. You can instantly clarify meaning through conversation.
A disadvantage to using the web conferencing tool tinychat is that there were some voice delays and audio cutting in and out which made us miss whole pieces of a conversation. This was improved when the group member relocated to an area closer to his wireless router. Another disadvantage of using tinychat is that one person sets up the account and has to notify others in the group about how and when to get into the chat area. If people are not checking their email that day, they miss the notification of the meeting time and URL. Luckily, I had the cell phone number of the group member who was unaware of the meeting and notified them to check their email. Also, because one person does the whole set-up and the others just "attend" the session, the actual process of setting up, recording, and converting the file is still unknown to me. When it comes to using new technology, I'm definitely fit into the "learn by doing" constructivist learning style.
Group Leadership Project - Part A Brainstorm Session Follow-up Meeting
On 3-30-11, Kevin, Heather, Jenni, and I met again on-line to discuss our Group Leadership Project. We used Tinychat for this meeting, like we did the first time. I used the chat room feature in tinychat to type in an agenda for the meeting before we got started. This was very helpful because it kept our group focused on the specifics of the project that we need to have a plan for. We decided that the technology we will be using to make our screencast is Jing but also agreed to check out alternative programs we could use that are listed at the following site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_screencasting_software. We have a storyboard/script for the project started in Google Docs so we can all collaborate on it. The document can be found at the following link: Script/Storyboard for Group Leadership Project. We have agreed to have contributions to this document completed by April 2nd. We also still agreed that it would be best to have one voice narrating throughout and Jenn volunteered to be our voice. Kevin plans to edit and revise the screencast.
Tinychat again worked well for our meeting. Jenn had the "technical difficulties" this time. We were able to hear her voice, but not see her on video. We had some problems with voices cutting out and some echoing. The recording of this 2nd online meeting can be seen at: http://vimeo.com/21732807.
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