In the group work for our assignment on choosing an online delivery platform, we decided to “meet” online. The idea was to set up a live video chat session so we could get to know each other a bit better and to plan out our strategy for completing the assignment – very noble ideas! However, our experience followed a trajectory that shows up quite frequently with this sort of enterprise: Novelty – Disappointment – Resort to the Lowest Common Denominator…
Novelty: I’d heard some positive reports about Adobe’s free online meeting app (Connect) and suggested that we give it a try. Setting up the meeting was easy and three of us were online, chatting and sharing video within minutes. We spent a good ten minutes or so discussing the app and trying out different features – and wondering where our fourth member was… It turns out Connect (at least the free version) can only handle up to three participants in a meeting. This is too bad, since having simultaneous video from more than two participants is an improvement on Skype’s service.
Frustration: Since Connect was out of the question, we considered Skype, and briefly had three of us chatting with live audio (no video, of course). Unfortunately, this kept our fourth member on the sidelines without a Skype install. We tried using our WebCT Vista Chat room, but it managed to freeze and crash all of our computers (several different systems, browsers)- not a useful result at all.
Lowest Common Denominator: Since we were editing our document collaboratively using Google Docs, we decided to use Gmail Chat – a similar tool to MSN Messenger or Yahoo Messenger. Gmail Chat does have video and audio possibility, but we decided not to risk wasting even more time and stuck with the text chat, which worked quite beautifully. An added bonus was that Gmail archived our conversation automatically.
The upshot is that we spent about 90 minutes in what had been scheduled as a 60 minute discussion, spending more than half the time trying to iron out the technical glitches. I imagine that users (students, teachers) who are less technologically-inclined than the average MET student are likely to get completely turned off by such technical frustrations. If we want to make good use of synchronous tools to bridge our physical distances, we need tools that are reliable and work for all users when needed. Out of 60 minutes for an online meeting, I would like to expect to spend no more than 2 minutes dealing with technical issues. Our time is too precious to waste.
Have you encountered similar issues?
What apps would you suggest, and why?
What kind of dis/advantage might there be by using a commercial provider?
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