Learning2gether Episode 262
On Sun Feb 22 1400 GMT LEARNING2GETHER met CALL-IS TESOL to find out all about Bb Collaborate Elluminate in a hands-on live online sandbox, hosted by Jack Watson, organizing the webcasts at the TESOL conference in March in Toronto, http://callis2015.pbworks.com; and Vance Stevens explaining what he knows about Bb Collaborate / Elluminate.
What was this?
This was an introduction and refresher to Blackboard Collaborate, formerly known as Elluminate. It’s been set up as a sandbox practice session for CALL-IS volunteers who will be simulcasting sessions using BbC from the TESOL conference March 26-28 in Toronto. In this practice we’ll make anyone who wants to be one a moderator. Moderators can see the complete tool set for BbC, and we’ll explain, demonstrate, and practice with the tools that moderators will likely use in Toronto.
BbC runs from servers at institutions where someone has bought a license and then allows authorized users to host webcasts from that server. LearningTimes at http://learningtimes.com pay for one such license and have been renewing their grant to the Webheads in Action community of practice for use of a Webheads Virtual Office each year for over a decade now. Jack Watson’s institution also owns such a license and Jack is authorized to use a UBC room from Toronto as well. It’s worth noting that different versions of BbC might have slightly different interfaces, but the basic functionality will be the same.
The session today will be held in the Webheads Virtual Office. To connect, visit the link below
Where?
- To be held in Bb Collaborate (Elluminate) http://learningtimesevents.org/webheads/ thanks to an ongoing grant from LearningTimes
- as announced here: http://www.brownbearsw.com/cal/eslhome_conferen
If you have trouble connecting, or need help outside Bb Collaborate, try this back channel
- Vance will monitor http://chatwing.com/vancestev
- You need to create an account here, or log on with Twitter, Facebook, or Google
Don’t forget the Tech Check
Bb Collaborate recently went over to a start file with a different extension (.collab) than the one before (.jnlp). If you haven’t used BbC in a while you must run the Tech Check which will place the correct installation on your computer. Failure to do this could delay your entry to a session if you don’t allow sufficient time in advance. On a PC, the Tech Check works like magic. I’ll try and check it on Mac and iPad before the session, but we may simply get feedback from others who join us from those devices.
To do a Tech Check simply
(1) click on the Tech Check tab and then
(2) click Check Now and
(3) hold on to your hat 🙂
Finally, be sure and have everyone run the Audio Wizard
- This is essential practice!
- Lets everyone select the correct speakers and mics, and troubleshoots them for sound and levels.
All participants were made moderators and were each issued an imaginary shovel and a virtual bucket full of sand
This image is free to use or share (public domain actually, no attribution required) but for the record, it’s from http://pixabay.com/en/sandbox-toys-beach-play-bucket-295256/
What happened, where is the recording?
During the session we made everyone a moderator and invited them to break the tool if they could. I’m afraid someone did. At the end of the session, no recording came down as it normally would. I have written LearningTimes about it but have not received a reply, which probably means as far as they are concerned everything is working fine and there should have been no problem. In fact I just made a recording there to test that things are working and it came back to us fine.
We had multiple moderators. Some odd things were happening. Breakout sessions were opened and possibly not closed properly, though they should have closed automatically. The recording stopped during the session but we resumed it. It could have been that someone did something else inadvertently that caused the problem. I did everything I usually do, made sure the room was empty, stopped the recording, ended the session with an empty room. The fact that we lost our recording is without explanation at this point.
Meanwhile Robert Wachman has offered what he thinks is a good tutorial on Bb Collaborate http://youtu.be/fXcXDGEeNsg
Announcements
- http://taedtech.ning.com/events/learning2gether-about-bb-collaborate-elluminate-hands-on-live-onl
- https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/evonline2002_webheads/conversations/messages/31640
- https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/multilit/conversations/messages/2063
- https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/learningwithcomputers/conversations/messages/7017
Earlier this week
Sun Feb 15 EVO2015 Closing Webcast with Nina Liakos, Vance Stevens, and Jeff Lebow
Sun Feb 15 1600 GMT EVO Flipped Learning end of session wrap up
https://plus.google.com/u/0/events/c3ndpgjnkgt93kea7klregmfgbc?authkey=CK_339L_8e_3eQ
Learning2gether 
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