Webex 30 September - 2009

I was very curious to try Webex as it sounded interesting and I hadn't experienced anything like it before.

I received my invitation to join early in the day but found that I was unable to accept the invitation until right before the meeting began. I found this a tad daunting - as my computer is not always the most reliable and I would of liked to of been prepared if anything should not go to plan. Luckily, everything did go to plan and I was able to accept the invitation without any problems.

I had my microphone and earphones set and ready to go, but found I could not hear properly nor could others hear me, thus my microphone and earphones were malfunctioning! This did not seem to be a huge problem as I could still hear without the earphones, but the only problem was I couldn't speak.

I liked how on Webex the person who is facillitating the meeting can "mute" other participants. I sometimes find dialogue during online discussions (particilarly when several people are participating) can run in many different directions and thus can be confusing. The "mute" function helps to overcome that. Similarly, I liked how participants could use the hands up function.

I can see Webex or a program similar to it being advantageous in a remote school similar to the one where I am currently working in. At out school we are often short of specialist teachers and I see (if it wasn't for the financial cost) that we could employ a specialist teacher to instruct classes via Webex, as the students can still see the instructor and vice versa. Of course, in terms of behaviour management there would have to be a teacher physically in the room with the students however, I think this could be something that isolated schools should probably think about considering.

Interact Tool - 19 August, 2009

After feeling totally out of the loop and unable to get the gist of what was discussed at last week's meeting I made a huge effort to make sure I was present tonight for the interact chat meeting.

I found the program itself was relatively easy to use, however, I found with so many people chatting at the one time getting the gist of the topic is somewhat difficult or even impossible! I think it is very important that when we are having an online chat such as this that we stay with the one topic until everyone else is ready to move on. While I enjoyed conversing with my fellow students, I found trying to keep up with the discussion was like unsuccessfully trying to play ping pong! While the experience was good and it was great to converse with others - I don't feel in terms of knowledge I benefitted much from the chat.

Google Chat - 12 August 2009

Unfortunately, I completely missed out on the google chat tonight due to prior commitments. Upon looking at the transcript of the chat it looks like there was an option to do a voice chat or video? On the transcript I cannot seem to follow much detail of what has been discussed. A bit confusing, must try and be part of the loop next week.

Etherpad - 5 August 2009

I had not heard of Etherpad - let alone used the program before, therefore I was very enthusiastic to give it a try. I found accepting Ken's invitation to join etherpad relatively simple (even for a novice like me). The program itself also looked easy enough to use as well. The only time I felt etherpad was a little tricky was when the red group were trying to set up their own. But that was sorted out rather quickly. I found tonight's experience interesting as I had the opportunity to "speak" to other students...share ideas and discuss what we think this course is it about.

I think etherpad would be relatively easy to use in the classroom and would definitely consider doing so.