Web Conferencing

Link to our recorded session as a group using WebHuddle

Our group explored WebHuddle for our video conferencing lab. We chose this media since it was free, it had recording capabilities, it worked with various operating systems such as Windows and Mac, you can have a group of people interacting using this site, and it provided an accessible link to invite others to this online meeting. Some other points that interested our group to use WebHuddle was audio and written interactions between group members.

Our group first met on Skype, and one of the four of us registerd with WebHuddle and then sent out the link for all of us to meet in our cep812 conference room. When we got there, we were able to talk to each other at the same time which was helpful to begin. However, we soon realized that the only reason we were able to hear each other was because we were still signed onto Skype. Once we logged off Skype, we found out through WebHuddle only one person could talk at a time. The leader of the meeting was called the "moderator" who started out as our group member who set up the conference room for us.

There was an icon on the bottom right that was shaped as a microphone and the moderator could give each group member privileges to speak, but only one at a time. We soon discovered that only two of the four members were able to have their voice heard. I was one of the members whose voice could not be heard. We worked together to figure out the problem on my Mac laptop. We then decided that since the audio was giving us so many problems and was taking so much time, that only the two people that could talk would then share when needed.

Even when those two people were talking the audio was of low quality since there was a lot of static, playback and inconsistent volume. Since only one person could speak at a time, the rest of the group members were typing in the chat box on the right side of the screen. The screen was very tiny and we were all writing a great amount since we could not talk, so the box filled up very quickly. It was hard to scroll up and down to review text that was written. When a link was posted into the box, it could not be copied. So when we opened a new conference room later on it had to be sent out to group members via Skype.

Most of our time was taken up with figuring out the audio. We also took turns moderating. When you are the moderator you are the only one that has the ability to hand over the ability to share audio, poll with questions, and display your screen. When I took a turn at moderator it was not too difficult to create a question and it had the option of multiple choice, type in, and true and false. When my group members were done with their responses that is when the difficult part of displaying the results occurred. I had to click different buttons until results displayed and this showed that the buttons were not very well labeled. When the results were shared it did not even add up to 100% so there seemed to be an error in the calculation.

The blank screen served as a white board where the moderator could type write and share their screen. Files are able to be uploaded and shared with the program but more searching using the user guide would be needed to learn how to share the files and also the screen of a moderator.

If I were to use WebHuddle again, I would spend a lot more time preparing and front loading the web conferencing tool to learn how to use the audio system. Also, I would want to learn how to reduce static and feedback of the audio since it was a distraction. Uploading files and sharing a screen would be other useful tools to learn especially if I would use the program with students and parents. I could see myself using this tool more with families since my students are of elementary school age. I would use it to share how to do math problems since that it the subject area where I get the most questions and concerns. Since parents say that how students are learning math now is not how they learned it when they were growing up. I could hold test review sessions from school with families and they could ask questions on how to do certain math problems. The session could be recorded and shared with families that could not make a certain time.