I tried Adobe ConnectPro again tonight and ended up giving up and going to Elluminate. I think that this has to be the programme that I'll use, at least for the next course. It has it's drawbacks, but at least it works pretty reliably. Two people haven't been able to log in and one had trouble with the sound - I guess that technical difficulties are always going to be the bind.
15 out of 22 trainees on this course have been to some of the sessions, so it's been more popular than I thought. I haven't had a lot of written feedback from them, though (although I had some useful group oral feedback on Saturday.)
Showing posts with label Adobe ConnectPro. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Adobe ConnectPro. Show all posts
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Elluminate
Went back to Elluminate tonight for the session. Positives are that it works - no problems with breakout rooms or it freezing up as Connect Pro has tended to do. Problems - two of my 'regulars' couldn't get in and another one got in but had problems. I'm not sure whether this is because of the Java plug in or just some systems. I can see a problem here for the future if I make this commercial - I'll have to make sure that it works before I take money off anyone! In theory I've recorded the session, but I can't see where the recordings are stored - I'll have to work that out tomorrow.
Looked at clauses and realtive clauses - another lesson to learn is that this is really hard for them, and I need to go slower, in smaller steps. I think that the distance makes this even more important......
Looked at clauses and realtive clauses - another lesson to learn is that this is really hard for them, and I need to go slower, in smaller steps. I think that the distance makes this even more important......
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Using Voice and Timing
The session tonight was on the Present Perfect. It's the first of the part II course lessons, ie the first time I've been explaining grammar rather than just explaining what things are called. It was largely quite successful, but went on for much longer than I had planned - about 90 mins, not 60. I thin this was necessary, to be honest, I couldn't have done it justice in less, but I may have to rethink the times - maybe this part II has to have 90 minute sessions.
More trouble with the breakout rooms and the (not responding) signal. I'll have to get on to Adobe again - this only seems to have happened since they changed the programme - I want the old one back!!
What was interesting tonight was that people were comfortable to use voice for the first time. I had a lot more vocal feedback and much less text chat. Not sure whether this is good or bad as it meant that some of the participants were less involved, but it made it feel more like an interactive classroom environment. Not sure how this will work if the group is much bigger.....
Started to think about a website - I'll need one if this is going to be a commercial venture. There's a lot of interest in the pilot course (it is free, though....) - I've had 15 people sign up in 2 days - what is really interesting is that they are not in any way all pre-celta trainees - a lot of them are post celta or qualified teachers in a job...... There may be a lot of mileage in this.
More trouble with the breakout rooms and the (not responding) signal. I'll have to get on to Adobe again - this only seems to have happened since they changed the programme - I want the old one back!!
What was interesting tonight was that people were comfortable to use voice for the first time. I had a lot more vocal feedback and much less text chat. Not sure whether this is good or bad as it meant that some of the participants were less involved, but it made it feel more like an interactive classroom environment. Not sure how this will work if the group is much bigger.....
Started to think about a website - I'll need one if this is going to be a commercial venture. There's a lot of interest in the pilot course (it is free, though....) - I've had 15 people sign up in 2 days - what is really interesting is that they are not in any way all pre-celta trainees - a lot of them are post celta or qualified teachers in a job...... There may be a lot of mileage in this.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
What happens when the technology doesn't work?
Tonight was really quite a frustration! Adobe have updated the system (which, to be fair they did warn me they were going to do) and so the layout was a bit different, and took a bit of getting used to. More concerning was that when I rtied to use the breakout rooms, the whole system seemed to freeze up - I kept getting a (not responding) title on the top of my screen. Now whether this was due to the new system, or just the connection tonight, I'm not sure, but it was so frustrating. I had to log out and log back in twice and then there is a lot of hassle in trying to ascertain whether or not people can hear you again, etc. In the end, I decided not to bother with the breakout rooms and just to use the whole room scenario. This was a shame, though. The metality seems to be that people don't want to use voice in the main room and are happier to text chat, but will use voice in the breakout rooms. Snce using voice makes the whole expereince so much richer and more immediate, I'll have to hope that we can fix the problems with the breakout rooms......
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Voice or Chat?
Just finished my first session in my bigger room - I had 8 participants, four of whom were the same people who came last week, so were really seeing the same thing again. A couple of interesting things - one is that the number of people who are interested in this is quite a bit lower than I had hoped - only 8 out f 23 trainees - and (of course) the really weak trainees who need it most aren't coming. I guess that you can lead a horse to water.....
On a more technical note, although the voice option seems to work quite well with ConnectPro, it's interesting that most people don't seem to want to use it and are much more comfortable with the text chat option. This has the advantage that it's easy to get answers and feedback from a wider number of people, but it's less personal from my point of view. The new session went well, though - I estimated the amount of material much better and the visuals were good.
Another small technical hiccup is that when you put them into the breakout rooms, the powerpoint presentation in each room is on the first page (ie hasn't moved on.) Not sure if there is a way around this, but it'd be helpful if there were - I can't leave them with a quiz, because they're not on the right page.
On a more technical note, although the voice option seems to work quite well with ConnectPro, it's interesting that most people don't seem to want to use it and are much more comfortable with the text chat option. This has the advantage that it's easy to get answers and feedback from a wider number of people, but it's less personal from my point of view. The new session went well, though - I estimated the amount of material much better and the visuals were good.
Another small technical hiccup is that when you put them into the breakout rooms, the powerpoint presentation in each room is on the first page (ie hasn't moved on.) Not sure if there is a way around this, but it'd be helpful if there were - I can't leave them with a quiz, because they're not on the right page.
How to do it better...
I signed up to Adobe Connect yesterday, so now I have a room that I can fit 100 people in (wow!) at a cost of around £40 a month. I spoke on-line to the trainees in their input session, so now they all know what's available and we'll see how many turn up tonight at 8pm.
I've been thinking about the differences between this kind of on-line teaching and face to face classes (f2f). It is a different animal, and is going to require some different techniques, I think, or at least a rethinking of the emphasis of different things.
The main two differences (and they're related) are that you can't see the learners' body language, and that makes it more difficult to ask them questions and have any idea of whether or not you're going to embarrass them. In a class, you stand a good chance of knowing if they know.. not so, on line.
The other thing is similar, but related to the teacher, and is that it's easy in a class to create an atmosphere with your personality - you can sense the mood, run with it, and use your own energy to 'gee things up' where necessary. This isn't so easy on-line. I've been pondering how to help to inject more interest into the sessions (although, to be fair, the learners seem to like it so far, anyway). I've re-adjusted the parts of speech session so that it's got about half the content of the original, includes lots of images, cartoons, etc and has a 'quick quiz' slide after each new bit of input -four in all. Let's see how that goes....
I've been thinking about the differences between this kind of on-line teaching and face to face classes (f2f). It is a different animal, and is going to require some different techniques, I think, or at least a rethinking of the emphasis of different things.
The main two differences (and they're related) are that you can't see the learners' body language, and that makes it more difficult to ask them questions and have any idea of whether or not you're going to embarrass them. In a class, you stand a good chance of knowing if they know.. not so, on line.
The other thing is similar, but related to the teacher, and is that it's easy in a class to create an atmosphere with your personality - you can sense the mood, run with it, and use your own energy to 'gee things up' where necessary. This isn't so easy on-line. I've been pondering how to help to inject more interest into the sessions (although, to be fair, the learners seem to like it so far, anyway). I've re-adjusted the parts of speech session so that it's got about half the content of the original, includes lots of images, cartoons, etc and has a 'quick quiz' slide after each new bit of input -four in all. Let's see how that goes....
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Adobe Connect and keeping it simple
Tried this out last night. I think it's going to be my vehicle of choice. It only needs Flash Player, which apparently is pretty universal and only has one version, and the interface is nice. You can use Powerpoint and the animations work and there is the possibility of breakout rooms. Having said that, I tried to use this facility last night and it seemed to result in the screen going blank and all of the learners losing sound and vision! I thinkmore practice is needed with the software, preferably in a room where we can all see each other and play around with it a bit.
Adobe is better with voice, too. I only had 3 people there, so I gave them all microphone rights and they can just press 'talk' when they want to put their microphones on (thus avoiding all of the feedback issues I had with Elluminate (which were probably my fault...) Interestingly, though, they weren't all that keen on using the voice option and still prefered the 'chat' option often. Not sure why - I'll have to ask them. There is a bit of a delay with the voice communication, it's not as easy as speaking on the phone, for example, and it wasn't all that easy to hear all of the participants. All bugs to iron out, I'm sure.
The other thing is simply that I'm still, despite paring back this session, putting in too much. This isn't about the on-line part of it, I don't think, but just about what they do and don't know. I HAVE to go back much more to basics - I tried to look at overall meanings of the perfect and continuous forms, but this was too much - I'm going to re-plan it looking just at the form. It's hard, as always, with this kind of stuff, to see it from the trainees' point of view. The nomenclature of the verb system seems so straightforward to me, but it really isn't to them.
Onwards and upwards......
Adobe is better with voice, too. I only had 3 people there, so I gave them all microphone rights and they can just press 'talk' when they want to put their microphones on (thus avoiding all of the feedback issues I had with Elluminate (which were probably my fault...) Interestingly, though, they weren't all that keen on using the voice option and still prefered the 'chat' option often. Not sure why - I'll have to ask them. There is a bit of a delay with the voice communication, it's not as easy as speaking on the phone, for example, and it wasn't all that easy to hear all of the participants. All bugs to iron out, I'm sure.
The other thing is simply that I'm still, despite paring back this session, putting in too much. This isn't about the on-line part of it, I don't think, but just about what they do and don't know. I HAVE to go back much more to basics - I tried to look at overall meanings of the perfect and continuous forms, but this was too much - I'm going to re-plan it looking just at the form. It's hard, as always, with this kind of stuff, to see it from the trainees' point of view. The nomenclature of the verb system seems so straightforward to me, but it really isn't to them.
Onwards and upwards......
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