This posting is normally found at my blog My ESL Friends which is a diary of the exploits and experiences for anyone at WIZIQ. I posted it here also to help you guys share in the learning curve a few of us are experiencing when we get together every Saturday on WIZIQ.
The recording seems to be a new format. I will be citing
references by slide number to take these notes for the
class/meeting. The class appears to be broken into 2
minute segments called slides.
slide 1
George arrives late for class (again), more on this
later.
slide 1-5 (5 slides x 2 minutes = 10 minutes)
introductions and commo (slang for communications)
checks.
Slide 6 Scope of class, and first tip. George arrived
late for class because he was fidgetting ( not sitting
still) and he accidentally turned off power strip. Tip =
Sit still or move power strip out of reach.
Note: that there is already a 5 second +/- lag in
whiteboard vs. audio.
Slide 8 Note that the "whiteboard" begins to move around
a lot. This due to allowing most attendees to have
"writing controls". While this can be distracting and
counterproductive , this particular class is for
experimenting and allowing newbies (slang for persons new
to a given group or technology) to experience the wiziq
platform.
slide 9-11 Tips and Tricks - Discussion of using the
pause/record function during class. Some teachers have
had good luck with it others not. It may simply be that
you must be sure that you press the record button after
pausing. In any case it would be good to experiment in a
"private test" class to be sure you are comfortable with
its functionality.
Note (slide 11 15 seconds in) also that some of the chat
begins to go beyond the expected extraneous discussion.
We begin to see there is an attendee who may be attending
with no interest whatsoever with the class' purpose.
George is completely oblivious as he is focusing on the
class. This is why it is nice to have a dedicated
moderator (Momen) to maintain minimal decorum.
Slide 12-16 Played with "upload from desktop" function.
Pictures from attendees were brought into whiteboard.
Note that when to many have writing controls it becomes
rather chaotic for all in trying to control whiteboard
viewing.
Note it seems that it would be desirable to ensure
students upload pictures of smaller size to allow for
easier presentation of several pics at once. By using
"selection tool" (most upper left arrow tool) you can
click and drag pictures on whiteboard.
Slide 17-19 How to upload content from your WIZIQ
content library.
Note that synching problem (Ben seems to talk out of
turn) was due to a problem during the class, not due to
recording. Ben probably had a long lag time due to
internet issues.
Slide 19-21 Marian shows how to upload your content
(docs, ppts, videos, etc.) from the WIZIQ dashboard, into
your "content library".
Note that George finally took away writing controls from
everyone so we could have a stable whiteboard. (oops, as
George was removing extra whiteboards he deleted Marian's
slide during his explanation ;-0 )
slide 22 Attendee misuses the chat box. Momen (moderator)
warns about behavior. George chooses to remind everyone
about etiquette for class, fortunately it stopped. I
think in a regular class I would have immediately blocked
that user.
Note, there will need to be a simple censure feature for
recording in the future at WIZIQ. Much like you see on TV
where offensive behavior can be blocked out in the
recording rather than having to delete the entire session
from the archives.
Slide 23-25 Discussion of Kirsten and the E teachers conferenece ETCon03 here is
the link. Slide 26-28 Discussion of wiziq and moodle.
slide 29 Exhortation by George to all attendees.
Particularly ESL students who think they are not worthy
to share due to their limited English.
Closing note: This new recording format is pretty nice, however the platform no longer takes on the form of the original class. As you may have noticed there were several times I drew arrows and lines to icons and tools during the class, they are no longer meaningful during the recorded viewing. This probably means that we will have to rethink how we want to relate to the "recorded viewing" audience. It seems that using the desktop sharing mode may be the most logical choice if we want to showcase a given feature/function.