Web-Conferencing Lab Reflection

For our first web conference, my group decided to use the program Vyew. Previous to the conference, we individually played around and got comfortable with the program so that when it came time to meet all together it would be more successful. I set up a room for us to use and e-mailed the link to that room to my group members Laura, Megan, and Kevin. My group members and I agreed on Saturday May 28th at 10:00 am EST as the date and time for us to meet. We all logged into our room around the same time with no major issues. I was at my parents’ house and Laura was out of town as well so our slower connections kicked us off a few times, but overall it worked out logistically. We used the webcam, microphone, and chat features as well as document sharing, comments, and sticky notes. We could not locate a built-in recording option with Vyew, so I offered to record our session using Jing. With Jing, the screen recording only lasts 5 minutes, so I had to break our session video into about 6 chunks. I told my group I would figure out a way to put them together into one video.

If I could do this web conference differently, I would use a program that had a built in recording option that did not have a time limit and also formatted the video for easy sharing and uploading to youtube. As our CEP 812 instructor displays, web conferencing is such a good way to stay connected to students when class is over or when a classroom is not accessible. I think I will look into getting a subscription to a web conference service such as Adobe Connect and hold online office hours, especially the night or two before a test or due date for a major assignment. This would help students who have conflicts with staying after school for help and/or those students who may be too shy to stay after for help or ask questions in class. Students could also collaborate using web conferencing if they can’t all be together or if they want to record their computer screens for an assignment.