Group Leadership Project - Part A - Brainstorm

Web Conference Videos

Video 1: http://www.screencast.com/t/vVFYRKTx1W22
Video 2: http://www.screencast.com/t/ph1nLhsw
Video 3: http://www.screencast.com/t/pHiWPjryo1aM
Video 4: http://www.screencast.com/t/tHe1qGjt
Video 5: http://www.screencast.com/t/DPFvAxPA0R

What web conferencing tool did your group use?

Our group used Vyew for our web conference. I set up the conference the first time my group met, in which we all logged in successfully. My group member Megan set it up for us the second time we met using Vyew, which we both agreed it was pretty easy to do so. We explored the application to see what tools we could use during our conference and noticed that Vyew did not have a screen recording option available, as mentioned in my earlier blog post. Both Megan and I recorded our conference using Jing, but did not have success in figuring out how the video could be accessed by others. I met with my instructor Susan during her office hours and she helped immensely! I uploaded the 5 separate recordings in Screencast and provided my group with the links to these videos to post on our blogs, as shown above.

What were the advantages to using the web conferencing tool to discuss this project?

Even though Vyew gave us headaches, the program did offer some advantages. It was very easy to sign up for, log into, and create a room for our conference. The buttons for certain applications such as chat, video, and talk were easy to locate and use. Another advantage is that if you use the same conference room, the pages you upload and edit will be available in the future when you return. A user can easily insert a blank page, a document from their computer, a link to a website, etc. It also has the capability to screen share, similar to Adobe Connect. We used this option more when we met the second time to discuss the storyboard template for part B of this project.

What were the disadvantages to using the web conferencing tool to discuss this project?

As mentioned above, the biggest disadvantage Vyew had was the lack of a screen recording service. We also had connection issues the first time we used it, Laura and I were kicked off a few times! The microphone also produced a major echo and the webcam froze a few times, so half way through our conference we mostly used the chat feature instead of webcams and microphones. Depending on what your use for the tool is, the disadvantages might outweigh the advantages, which it did in our case. We could have easily used g-chat (google chat) for our conference based on how we used this technology.