Our group chose the web-conferencing application of “Vyew” for our meeting. Needless to say, we were not impressed. The concept of the site is very promising, but we ran into a lot of bumps along the way. First, no one could initially get into the room. I set it up a few days ago and everyone was ready at launch time, but we kept getting error messages saying the meeting room could not be opened. Finally, I found a link that I sent everyone through our emails and they were able to follow it and enter successfully.
Our next issue was with sound. There were four people in our group, but we experienced awful feedback and echoes. It was very annoying, so we finally simply decided to use the chat box and conduct our meeting in that manner. Needless to say, it is a good thing we are all proficient typists. Once we adjusted the chat box to a suitable length, we were able to discuss the class and ask each other what we wanted to study for our upcoming Group Leadership Project. Ideas flew back and forth very quickly. I was pleased that Vyew.com did not lag too much when it came to using the chat feature. Everyone was able to keep up with the conversation and provide their input and make the voices and opinions heard. In that respect, our meeting was very successful.
If we were to meet again via web-conference, I would not use Vyew. It had too many issues for us to work productively. I have literally only used Skype about three times before now, so I would probably lean in that direction for a future meeting. From what I have learned and used with that program, sharing and setup was easy. It was simply a matter of “calling” someone and having them answer without the need to setup a “meeting room.”
I think that web-conferencing has many promises, despite our somewhat negative experience with it tonight. When we were able to communicate via our microphones, communication went quickly. However, by typing out our answers, we have a quick visual record of what was being said. I recorded our session using QuickTime, but seeing that we simply typed our discussion, that did not seem necessary. Once we were done, I pasted our conversation into our Google document for future reference.
To use a web-conferencing tool in the classroom would be an amazing benefit for students. We could easily schedule a live meeting with students in other schools or professionals we would like to interview based on work we are learning. This tool would enable students to understand that even when we are separated by distance, we are still connected through technology.
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