CHAT TOOLS

From Vance Steven's description of Hangout:

It's incredibly simple to start, record, and stream a Google+ Hangout. You simply start a hangout, get it set up to your liking, and when ready -- start the recording.  The moment you've started the hangout you get embed code.  This is the same embed code that allows you to play the video once it's been recorded, the kind you are familiar with for embedding YouTube videos on your blogs and web sites.

With Hangout, while you are recording, the embed code streams the recording.  So if you embed it in a website you can invite people to that URL and they will be able to see and hear the event as it is happening.  If you then provide some way for them to interact with you in text chat (we use the Etherpad clones) then you have a means of:

• accommodating up to ten in the hangout for live interaction
• accommodating any number of people in the stream with ability to interact with them in synch with the webcast
•  finding out who would like to join the hangout and rotate people out who have become non-talking heads so you can bring conversant heads in 

See Vance's article for futher details on streaming a Hangout through YouTube:

Stevens, V. (2013) Tweaking Technology: How Communities Meet Online Using Google+ Hangouts On Air with Unlimited Participants. TESL-EJ, November 2013–Volume 17, Number 3. Available http://www.tesl-ej.org/wordpress/issues/volume17/ej67/ej67int/

To Use the Webheads Virtual Office for Video and Audio Chat: 

1. Be sure to first sign up on the timetable to be sure you are not in conflict with other sessions (first-come, first-served).
2. Well before your session try it out at the Webheads Virtual Office.
3. Enter your first and last name and your location. This is mainly to make you recognizable to others in the session. This information is not recorded or re-used.
4. If you have gone to a training session already, use the blue link at the bottom of the page:  Session Moderator Login. This will reveal all the tools in Blackboard Collaborate.
   

               If you are new, use the Enter Now! button.

               If you are a co-moderator, you might want to use Enter Now! and the moderator will give you Moderator status from the Tool bar.

      5. Always experiment and try things out well BEFORE your session starts. If you run into trouble, exit or close the session, wait 2 minutes, and re-enter. That usually solves most problems.

BlackBoard Collaborate (BbC) has changed (like most things this year!) It now works well on a mobile if you download the collaborate app. which is of course free, both for android, and for iOS. On windows8 or 10 you have to download and install the launcher - which then sits on your machine like an app  You have to do this only the first time you go to BbC. With the launcher installed on your machine, each time you enter the room it tells you to "download the meeting" (which sounds strange) In fact, that some sort of applet, plugin or whatever, which is a little 11kB applet which you open with the launcher, previously installed. (that's when you have to wait a little for the room to open on your machine) All of this of course assums that you have installed and allowed whatever java whatsnot they asked for on the way!

Good luck - once you're in it works really well now ;-)

You can pick and choose among various files at Blackboard/Collaborate Demos to get an idea of what the interface does.

NOTE: these demos load very slowly!

For Participants

   You may wish to give your participants the link to the YouTube Participant Guide video:

You will find this video very helpful to YOU as a Moderator, too!

->-> WiZiQ has recently introduced new features, so be sure to try out a demo of the new Virtual Classroom and also attend training classes by the trainers to understand the full functionality of all features.

Getting Started in WiZiQ

Making a ppt for WiZiQ

Video tutorial of a live chat on how to use WiZiQ

Video tutorial of how to schedule and conduct a WiZiQ class

Video tutorial: How to share content inside Wiziq

                                             There are also many WiZiQ tutorials in Spanish.

Some problems have been reported in the Getting Started video above, so you may wish to try some of the videos on YouTube. The following seems quite straight-forward and tells you what to expect and what tools within the interface are most useful:

What is a backchannel and why use one? 

    What happens when something goes wrong in a live audio or video chat?

It's usually a good idea to have a way to communicate with your participants OUTSIDE the chat venue. You can help them adjust their microphones or audio, or stop them from texting inappropriately, or help them find the tools to write on the whiteboard -- without disturbing others in the chat room.

So give everyone the address/location of an alternate communication venue like Skype or Today's Meet so that they can get in touch with you when something goes wrong.

Click on the image for instructions

For more information on Google+  see the link in "Hangouts on air" above

and EVO suppléments :

How to Control information on Google+

A hangout is not just a video call