Online Teaching : The e-Teaching Community

Last I heard was late in November. But I am sure one of the Wiz team will post here also.

Steph, may I suggest that, as you are rather new to the platform, you wish to start out with these many tools that are pretty stable now? (Don't tell my ESL friends about that run-on sentence;) As fantastic as The Wiz team are I have a reasonable doubt that the desktop sharing feature will not be at 100% on day one.

You, like Captain Kirk (Star Trek), can push this ship into Warp Drive. But, she may be "a li'l bumpy cap'n as the dilithium crystals need warmin' up first!" (Scotty)

George,

I suspect that your suspicion is correct in regards to not being at 100% on Day one, or even Day 31? Meanwhile, back at the ranch I am planning on using other platforms until WizIQ is fully-operational. I am brand new, but feel totally comfortable with the tools available in the virtual classroom. The problem I have is that ALL of my classes are taught from the live websites and I've never used Powerpoint for any of my classes at the colleges, or otherwise. As you can see, this presents a big problem, since WizIQ doesn't offer a viable solution for me at this point.

So, you teach ESL classes (English as Second Language?)? There is a huge need for this subject, so you should never run out of students. Very nice to meet you and chat back and forth through this forum.

Happy Halloween from Dallas, TX
Stephanie Inge

Hi Stephanie,
The web tour feature is a very important part of online learning as it facilitates our work. I am giving a presentation at Avealmec a 4 day online conference on Social Networking using WiZiQ for the live online presentations.


Thank you.
Nellie Deutsch

My work would be a lot easier and more accurate if I had the web tour feature. Using slides just doesn't seem to work as well as moving through the pages on the website.

Nellie,

This is very exciting and I am very interested in your 4-day conference on Avealmec.

All the best,
Stephanie Inge

PS Steph I thought you asked about the desktop sharing feature (due in late November). I too wish for a little more functionality in the browsing feature. I have not heard of when any additional capabilities will be enabled.

We are coming up with the new screen sharing feature hopefully by next week that will greatly improve the way presenter's screen is shown. You will need to install a Java Applet (only the presenter) and it works well (I have been using it). You can easily use it to show your browser to students and navigate through the web.
As for the web sharing feature in particular, we haven't yet upgraded it for a few of technical reasons:
1. Since we have tried so far not to ask students to install anything on their computer except Flash, giving a web share feature (like Elluminate's) becomes a technical challenge.
2. Even if we do that i.e. ask the student to install something (say a Java Applet), it won't allow you to sync pages post-login. E.g. you will not be able to show YOUR post-login page to students because of browser security thing. The students will see their own post-login pages - even Elluminate's works like this.

We believe with the new screen sharing feature, you might not need the web sharing feature. If you think otherwise and have used some web sharing feature that you like, please let me know.

Harman, I think this is just what the doctor ordered! I'd like to check it out first, but it sounds like the screen sharing feature will kill two birds with one stone: 1) sharing one's computer and 2) navigating through the web. It will also allow one to share embedded content from WiZiQ as well. It's kind of a round-about way of utilizing embedded content from WiZiQ, but it should still work. If I were WiZiQ however, I would still keep the direct links to WiZiQ content and create a direct link to embedded WiZiQ content as well; to encourage teachers to continue contributing to WiZiQ content in the future.

In my humble opinion, having a screen sharing function would not require a separate web browsing function. But it's important that all screen sharing activities be captured in all recorded sessions (both private and public) if possible.

Hats off to the R&D team at WiZiQ for listening to its users and responding in kind.

Ben,

All screen sharing activity will be recorded and played back as video (within the class recording), as-it-happened.
On embedded content thing, we are working to tightly integrate WiZiQ content so it is very easy to access (and show) your entire WiZiQ content library inside the virtual classroom. Although you can access your library still, its not that intuitive and versatile (and may I say, "fast"). You will also see improvements in video sharing.

Perfect! I look forward to seeing these improvements.

We are definitely looking for community feedback. Please keep posting such issues/request we are definitely taking note of them & as Harman has already said screen-sharing is in last leg of release. It will be out next week any day.

Everyone, I am pleased to announce the release of the (much awaited) screen sharing feature. You can read more about it, how to use it, system requirements etc. on our blog here.

I have started a new discussion specifically about this feature here.

@ Vivek
I know you are new here but we have been waiting a long time for the "easy" button. It is super secret (hush-hush) but that is the unspoken request on everyone's lips.

Keep up the good work.

PS an "almost easy" button would be OK too.

:) I am not new here. I am on this virtual classroom project since Harman had and idea regarding creating one way back in 2003. I always pushed for the community website/forum where users can share their ideas/feedback/bugs since start of WiZiQ(2-3yrs back). But because of resources they couldn't get up to that point. @Harman can comment on that :).

I think we are in a position now where we can discuss the features and based upon community requests we can push the features up and down.

Screen-sharing feature was in queue for few years now. It was just because of Adobe that we couldn't get it to you. And finally with the help of Java we are getting it to you. It's not all flash feature. You need Java to get it working :)(for more details read blog post by Harman mentioned above.).