Group Leadership Project: Part A

Using a web conferencing tool of your choice record a group session that meets the following requirements:

All group members are present and participating in the session
- All four of us attended. 
A technology is chosen to be taught (This will be what the tutorial is about)
- We chose to teach how to use Facebook as a communication tool.
A technology is chosen to facilitate the learning (This is the tool used to demonstrate the tutorial.)
- We chose to use screencast-o-matic or jing to capture video and IMovie to put the clips together.
Technical aspects of how the work will be completed is discussed & a timeline of who will be doing what is created and agreed upon
 




 

1. What web conferencing tool did your group use?

We chose to use Vyew for our web conference. Although Adobe’s free trial was recommended, we wanted a tool that we could continue to use even after the class ended. We looked at Yugma; however, it only allowed you to invite two other people into the meeting and we needed three. Webhuddle was another option, but Vyew had a slicker look and better editing tools. The main problem with Vyew is that it doesn’t have a recording tool. Instead, I used screencast-o-matic to record 15 minutes of the web conference and uploaded the video https://www.msu.edu/~rebaemil/wc.flv. Pam also took pictures using Jing.
 

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

The advantages of using web conferencing were being able to see one another and having the shared board to put up pictures, notes from the brainstorming, and share our desktops. The tools on Vyew were great. We used video, voice, pictures, highlighting, typing notes, etc. It was much, much faster than trying to chat through emails. It was also nice to be able to see and hear everyone. We got a better feel for each other’s personalities which made assigning tasks easier. In all, I think we were able to understand the task better and know what our next steps were.

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

It took a lot of emailing to find a time that worked for everyone and for a while I was worried I’d have to do it in the middle of the night. Once we all got to the room, there were definitely a few technology problems. Dave couldn’t figure out how to turn his mike off, and Tammie couldn’t turn hers on. We all needed to realize that unless we turned our mikes off when we were done, the feedback was deafening. Aside from scheduling, most of these problems would probably disappear if we did this again since we would know what to expect and plan for it. I would definitely use web conferencing again as a means to brainstorm and communicate with a group. I also like how we use it in class, and if I were doing an online class, I would definitely use it.