One more technology I would like to try - AdobeConnect

If I were teaching next semester on campus, I would have tried a technology called AdobeConnect. The Mulitmedia Services at SCSU describes the technology like this:

Adobe Connect is an online Web Conferencing and collaboration tool. It provides multimedia capabilities that can be used for many activities such as group work, online office hours and interactive classes.

Here is the link: http://huskynet.stcloudstate.edu/multimedia/default.asp

My understanding is that instructors can request a "room" where there is a whiteboard, audio/visual box, and online chat component. All participants have the capability of having audio, if they have a headset and microphone. Or just the instructor could have the microphone and be the only speaker. I think there is a webcam capability as well.

Susan Montag used this technology in her supplemental 191 classes so I saw how it worked. She had her students do research on a collaborative paper in a computer lab the first time they used it. They were able to chat online (like MOO) and send each other links to research they found. I was intrigued by how engaged and active the students were when doing research together.

Montag presented a PowerPoint about the assignment so the students could refer to that on the whiteboard. She was going to use this technology again outside of the computer lab; I think she was going to add the audio component then. I would have liked to be a part of the class to see how it went with the students.

Our class did not meet f2f for part of the semester. Though I enjoyed MOOing, I am wondering what the experience would have been like if we had had an audio component as well as a whiteboard feature. Web conferencing is popular in business; my husband often takes web classes for continuing education credits.

Though I still want physically to see my students, I could also having one day or one time where my students and I conference on the Web. When they are working on a project together or on a large project, it would be good to answer questions that the entire group has. It would save me on repeating myself in several emails!