Thoughts on the recordings

A few interesting comments on the recorded sessions vs the live sessions today. I had thought that the recordings wouldn't be as popular as the live versions as the latter would be more interactive, more immediate, more motivating and there is the option to ask, to question, to clarify.  However, there were comments that they liked the recordings because they like to make notes and having the recordings allowed them to do that, also to pause, rewind, have a break etc.  One keenie even said that she listens to the recordings even if she's been in the sessions! That's dedication!

Someone also suggested that I should sat up a facebook group for people to be able to contact each other, and I think this is a good idea - I could post up interesting bits and pieces as well.

Feedback

Some useful feedback from Mike Carbarles

By the way I tried out the recording and noticed that when you go to breakout rooms, there's deadly silence. If you want to make this more marketable, I suggest you try leaving a few students in the main room for the recording.

Actually, I should appologize. When I opened my mic there was a lot of echo. That's because I was being lazy - using my laptop built in mic and speaker. so the sound was feeding back out of the built in speaker and into my built in mic. You should specify in the signup process that a headset with mic is absolutely necessary. Not only should it reduce background noise, but also eliminates the "talkback radio with the radio on" effect(which happened when I spoke).


Hope that is useful for future.

Breakout rooms

This continues to be a journey of discovery.  I've explored the idea of using the timer when learners are in the breakout rooms, but what if they have finished before - Michael had a good idea today, to put a tick up when they have finished so that I can see.  I'm going to try that.

Maybe I need to put together a video or a 'do's and 'don't's of the virtual classroom and how to use it (including that).  It's also really annoying if people leave their microphones on if they are not speaking - it makes it all very echo-y.

Getting good feedback from people and feel as if I'm settling into the medium a bit more, especially as I get to know people a bit better. 

Feedback on breakout rooms

Hi Jo,

    It was fun being there with you. No doubt, the lesson was way too elementary, but i guess that was just the beginning. What I didn't enjoy is getting into rooms to discuss. Can we not just discuss it together? Getting into rooms is a waste of time as we all are just trying to talk or trying to listen if someone else is talking. I did go through the worksheet- its good , but am not sending it back to you. 

Also, i might not be there for the Thursday session due to last minute change. I might join in a bit later than the scheduled time. 

See you soon.

Tejashree

Thoughts from me - fewer breakout sessions? for longer?  in pairs, not groups?

Elluminate again

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.)