Conference Calls Don't Have to Hurt!

For some people, attending a conference call is about as pleasant an appointment as having a root canal. We've all had bad experiences with conference calls - noise from barking dogs or crying babies, interruptions from late arrivers, painful and awkward silences, several people speaking at once, and so on - but many of us have discovered that conference calls are great for collaborating and provide a cost-effective and efficient way to bring groups together from any distance. They're easy to set up and can be very productive, provided you take some prudent precautions.

I'm sure you'll find this Tripp and Tyler video amusingly familiar (albeit exaggerated).


What can you do to make sure your conference call doesn't go as disastrously as this IRL (In Real Life) conference went?

Take Charge and Be On Time. Someone has to direct a conference call, just as with any meeting. It doesn't have to be the boss, but everyone needs someone who will decide who has the floor, whose turn it is to talk, and what the subject is. This person should also be first on the call, so that joiners are greeted, the clock (see below) can be started, etc. If the meeting moderator does not arrive on time, everyone else is stuck with music until (s)he shows up.  It might also be good for the group if the greeter role changes hands as each new person comes onto the call. Make sure everyone agrees on the length of the meeting, and adjust the time or agenda if someone has to leave early. Here's a humorous take on what happens when someone joins a conference call after the meeting has been going for a while.



Who Are You? When you speak, identify yourself. This looks silly in real life, but - especially when conference calls are starting out - it's important to know who's doing the talking when you can't see them. And if you haven't spoken for a while, listeners may find it difficult to recognize you.

Noise. Close your door. Put your rustling papers out of reach. Don't move the phone, and put your pen down if you're a pen-tapper. Make sure your keyboard is quiet (if you insist on typing while Conferring). Take a cough drop if you're prone to hacking. That takes care of you, but how do you control those noisy participants calling in from airports, cars, or nursery rooms? The same way: insist that they either mute themselves or move to a quieter environment. In some cases, it's best to ask the caller to hang up and try again from a quieter phone. To avoid unnecessary embarrassment, ask callers to avoid cell phones and cheap speakerphones: they "buzz" or produce static that annoys everyone else, and their signals are prone to dropping. Also, make sure everyone knows NOT to put their phones on hold: doing so may result in unwanted music that will tempt everyone to regret that dental appointment they could have been attending.

Don't Interrupt. It's rude, for one thing. For another, it's very hard on call participants to understand what's going on when several people are speaking at once.

Call on People. Instead of asking if anyone has an opinion - which will lead to several people speaking at once - call on each person individually. You can do this with a single sentence: "I'd like to hear from Phill, then Michelle and then Chris." Also, don't let any one person speak longer than 10 minutes. Attentiveness and listening become compromised when the same voice dominates, and your group members will begin to multi-task (read e-mails, respond to IMs, make grocery lists) as you let this continue. Some moderators use the "Clock" method for directing discussions: the first person is one o'clock, second is two o'clock, etc.

Stay on Track. As with any meeting, a conference call needs an agenda and the call will be successful only if you stick to it. If all participants have a copy of the agenda prior to its start, you'll find it easier to bring them back to it when they begin to stray (and it will skirt the problem of people trying to listen and read at the same time). It's a good idea to prime the conversation by letting participants know in advance what question(s) you hope to have answered when you meet. Another helpful accessory - if you have time to prepare it and send it to participants - is a brief bio of each participant, so that everyone will know something about the person who's talking. If there are any pre-conference call tasks you need them to do or materials you want them to have for the call, make that clear in your invitation (boldface, ALL CAPS, etc.).

Grin and Bear It. Smile. No matter what. You sound better when you're smiling, and everyone will feel better because your voice comes across as friendly and happy.

The Key to Lively, Productive Meetings

We've spent a lot of time and energy working with our users and vendor to make Confer a great tool for online instructors, with good results. The Confer classroom is equipped with assessment tools, interactive tools for collaboration, and terrific content presentation options. You can teach comfortably and effectively with this toolset, and I'm happy to report that they're getting better as we listen to and respond to your feedback.

At about this time last year, though, I started thinking about how CCC Confer is used by our community (myself included) when students aren't involved. Half of our business comes from Meet & Confer and Call Confer sessions. What have we done to make their meetings more effective? Are there tools we should be adding that will make life easier for those of us who meet regularly online? Is it possible to use technology to enhance meetings, inspire creative idea sharing, sort shared ideas, move people toward consensus, produce action plans, and record proceedings? Can we do for online meeting facilitators what we've managed to do for online instructors: make their jobs easier and more productive?

We think so. We've just added a new tool - CCC Brainstorm - to bolster our online meeting tools. Here's a short (one minute) introduction:



The software is powered by FacilitatePro and licensed to the California Community Colleges through an agreement with CCC Confer. You can use it online or face-to-face, synchronously or asynchronously, according to your meeting needs and circumstances. You can learn more about Facilitate by downloading this document, but I'll summarize some key features here.

Shared Agenda. Brainstorm lets everyone see the agenda you've prepared from a Web browser. The advantage here is that the agenda is interactive: by clicking on each agenda item, they can view the ideas that have been shared, react to them, and add their own.

Brainstorming. Everyone in the meeting can add ideas - at the same time - without raising their hands or waiting for anyone else to finish. The ideas dynamically appear on the screen as they are added and generate a sense of collaboration and interaction that is often difficult to produce in overly structured group meetings.

Expansion and Elaboration. As ideas are added, meeting participants can add their own comments and explain, enlarge, or develop those ideas with comments that are added in line with the original ideas. Imagine trying to do this with a standard flip chart! The ideas might end up on a separate page or "shrink-written" on the margins, with the predictable and all-too-common result of being incomprehensible to anyone trying to make sense of it later.

Sorting into Categories. An active and engaged meeting can generate a lot of ideas. These can be sorted into categories as they are added or later, allowing the participants to recognize emerging themes or to distinguish and appreciate how the ideas fit into possible solutions.

Building Consensus. It's easy to take a list of brainstormed ideas and ask meeting participants to "vote" on them or rate them according to some criterion. For example, you can ask them to indicate their degree of agreement about a proposed strategy, and even to comment about why or why not this idea makes sense. This happens in seconds: it's amazing how quickly the software allows a group to recognize its own voice and come to agreement about the issues being discussed.

The result can be graphed - again, instantly - and shared in real time with the group. This is far more effective than the Confer polling tool, which is great for impromptu questions. This tool actually presents a detailed vote breakdown, statistical results, and graphs for your entire list of ideas. The summary table shows overall votes, weighted averages, and standard deviations.

Action Planning. As great as it is to generate ideas and come to consensus, a good meeting isn't complete unless it results in action. The CCC Brainstorm software includes an on-screen action planner, which makes it easy to set goals, give them start and finish dates, assign them to individuals or groups, and display the action plan in a time chart. The software includes standard project management features: responsibility, start and end dates, status information for each item, and a graphical time chart display. It's not meant to replace project management software, but it will export your action plan into those applications once you've got the group to focus on next steps.

Complete Meeting Report. No need to take minutes or transcode illegible flip charts! With this tool, you - or anyone in the meeting - can instantly print a report that will include, in an attractive package, tabulated results and every one of the ideas and plans your group has produced. It's also possible to import this report into a word processor so it can be incorporated into a larger document.

We're just getting started on the video tutorials for this product, but you'll find enough to get started on our YouTube playlist.

Meanwhile, here's wishing you better meetings this year!

CCC Confer: Where Do I Start?

Another semester and you're still not ready for online real-time interaction with your students? It's not that hard! You can do it! Let's get you started with some simple suggestions.

1. Try It Out! You don't have to start blind with your students or anyone else. There's a simple way to get your feet (or at least your toes) wet without having to feel embarrassed or under pressure. Try our practice rooms for free. You can sign into the rooms any time, from anywhere, and see how this thing works. Try the whiteboard, upload a PowerPoint or some image files, share your desktop applications, go on a Web tour. No one will see you making mistakes, and you'll soon discover exactly which tools make you comfortable and which you might want to practice with more before using them with students.

2. Get Some Training. You can get live online training from our expert (and oh-so-understanding and patient) Client Services team, or you can choose recorded training or self-paced instruction. It's a painless way to pick up the tips and techniques that will make it possible for you to be successful online with your students.

3. Sign up for an Account. If you're an instructor in the California Community Colleges (any of them), you're eligible for a free account. Follow this link to register for a MyConfer account, which will make it possible for you to schedule classes, office hours, conferences, etc. whenever you like. With this account, all of your meetings and archives will be available to you when you login.

4. Review our Videos. The "Two Minutes to Better Confer Meetings" series provides quick reminders and tips for the most common Confer uses: application sharing, file sharing, polls, privacy settings, recurring meetings, the timer, uploading PowerPoint and image files, Voice Over IP, Web cameras, Web tour, and the whiteboard. And our Confer channel features real instructors (like you) demonstrating and explaining how and why they use CCC Confer in their online classrooms.

5. Record a Trial Session. Before you schedule a live session with your students, schedule a session without an audience. Get everything ready in advance (PowerPoints, activities, polls, Web sites, and so on), login to your session, and press the "Record" button. Deliver your lecture or presentation as if you were doing it with a live audience, pacing yourself and pausing in appropriate spots for student feedback, and stop the recording when you're through. When the archive becomes available (generally in a few hours), look at it critically for mistakes or things you'll want to change the next time. This is an excellent way to improve your online teaching skills: see yourself as your students will. You may want to repeat this step a few times, and even to allow students or colleagues to view the archive and give you constructive criticism or feedback.

6. You're Ready: Schedule Your Class. If you've taken these five steps, you're ready to "go live" online with your students. Does that mean your first class will go smoothly, without a hitch? Maybe and maybe not. I belive, however the first class goes, that it guarantees you'll know what to do when the unexpected happens, and that you're likely to keep going despite minor setbacks.

Be sure to let us know how things go!

When Travel Budgets Disappear, Teamwork Grows

"Too often travel, instead of broadening the mind, merely lengthens the conversation." -  Elizabeth Drew

World Wide Web of Informatin

"The most important trip you may take in life is meeting people halfway." - Henry Boye 

Colleges and organizations throughout the state and country are slashing travel budgets to save money. We've done the same thing here at CCC Confer, and I have to admit that I don't miss the hotels, restaurant tabs, tips, airports, toll roads, car rentals, packing and unpacking, lost items, or germy travel environments as much as I thought I might. And I'm getting more done - with more people - by staying in my office and meeting with them virtually. Now that more people are foregoing statewide trips, I'm getting more opportunities to introduce them to the quickest, easiest, and most effective way to bring teams from different geographical locations together. 

I recently helped to host an event at a local college that required speakers and attendees to drive to the event, food to be prepared and served, tables to be set up, equipment to be arranged, and a sound and video system to be tested. It took two hours to set up the room, ensure that the microphones and projector were working properly, skirt and decorate the tables, and work with the caterers. The keynote speakers each drove more than 100 miles to attend, so they also needed two hours advance time to get to the meeting and another two hours afterward to drive home.

For the same event, if it were to be held virtually, it would require less than five minutes to order the meeting and send e-mail invitations to all attendees. Loading the speakers' presentation might take another two minutes, and testing the audio connections might add another minute. In less than ten minutes, we'd be ready to go, and no one would have had to leave the home or office!

In the large room where my local college's event was held, there were corners of the room where it was difficult to see and read the speakers' slides, and even the P-A system was unable to bring an equally clear signal to all participants. The sunlight streaming through the windows reduced the visual clarity of the content, making it even harder to make out all of the images on the screen. In a Confer presentation, everyone sees exactly the same images and hears the same audio signals: there are no "cheap seats" in this environment and no problems with lighting. One of the speakers, anticipating potential problems with the room and presentation, brought more than 100 paper copies of his presentation, which had to be distributed throughout the room. In the Confer meeting room, a single click distributes a file instantly to all participants (even those who aren't in attendance but are able to view the archive later). 

I'm not celebrating the budget crisis or decrying the virtues of travel. After all, I've got a collection of school gear from California colleges that can only be complete if I'm able to visit more schools. But there's no question that we waste a lot of time and money with face-to-face meetings that can easily be saved by taking the meetings online. With a good agenda, a prepared moderator, and motivated team members, you can accomplish more in a virtual meeting than is possible in most face-to-face conferences. I'm just happy that so many of my colleagues are discovering this for themselves and coming away from Confer experiences pleasantly surprised.

Using Students Experts

"An expert knows all the answers - if you ask the right questions." - Levi Strauss. "Have you heard of this new thing called the internet? It's giving people new expectations. It's allowing them to become their own expert. Knowledge lies anxious at their fingertips." - Roy H. Williams


Angie Thompson's "daily experts" technique is a simple way to encourage student participation - both in traditional and online classes. "I list five or six students’ names on a PowerPoint slide at the beginning of my classes.... These individuals, assuming they are in class, then become my daily experts—the first ones I ask questions to or opinions of before opening discussion to the whole class. " Thompson says this technique breaks the ice and helps students realize that she is approachable. Other benefits she cites are providing for one-on-one interaction in large classes, encouraging class preparation, allowing all students at least one chance to speak in class, helping the instructor to learn names, and offering engagement to the entire class. I suspect that the accountability for class attendance - knowing that your name may be on the board today - may be positively affected as well. 


Anonymity in the Confer classroom is both a good and bad thing. It's good when students don't feel embarrassed about their opinions or lack of skill. It's bad when students become disengaged, alienated, and feel that their performance and/or participation are unimportant or ignored. Having a technique like "daily experts" - which reinforces accountability - allows you as an instructor to make sure that your students feel individually responsible for paying attention, coming to class prepared, and participating in their own learning experience. 


Since you have a class roster with the names of students always available, you don't have to prepare a PowerPoint slide before class with the names of the day's experts. Instead, you can select from the list of those present. Using the whiteboard tools, you can have the experts posted (see the image above) as an initial class activity, which will add to the intrigue and anticipation of the session. Doing this acknowledges students' presence and helps you (and the other students) get to know them as individuals. Students will begin to appreciate that there is no "hiding" in your classroom. And you'll benefit from the insights they give you into how well the material is being absorbed and understanding is growing.

Time on Task

"Time plus energy equals learning. There is no substitute for time on task. Learning to use one's time well is critical for students and professionals alike. Students need help in learning effective time management. Allocating realistic amounts of time means effective learning for students and effective teaching for faculty. How an institution defines time expectations for students, faculty, administrators, and other professional staff can establish the basis of high performance for all. " (Chickering and Gamson)

Time in the synchronous online classroom is critical. Students who wait for the instructor to load materials, prepare polls, or master the necessary technologies will be diverted by other distractions (e.g., e-mails, Facebook feeds, private chat messages) and may not be able to focus once the instructor is ready. This puts a burden on the online instructor to prepare delivery as well as content so as to minimize delays and control time in the online classroom. With Confer, using the Plan tool - which allows you to pre-load multimedia content, polls, quizzes, slides, and Web pages - is an excellent way to manage the pace of your instruction.

It's also your responsibility as the instructor to reinforce time on task in your classroom. Students need help in learning effective time management, and you can provide this by giving them realistic time expectations during the class. The "Timer" tool - which presents a visible running clock on the desktop of each participant - is a great option in this context. Give students a task - for example, list what you know or think about X issue - and set the clock for five minutes, with an audible alarm option selected. This lets the students know that they have a job to do, in a limited amount of time, and that the "clock is ticking" for them to accomplish the job.

You can also help your students by reminding them of deadlines throughout your teaching. Use part of your lecture time to post reminders on the Whiteboard, or post announcements in the Chat area (you can post an announcement message here that pops up with an audible alert). These messages help students organize their time and focus on their required work.

One tool that helps reduce the time students sometimes squander searching for assignments or syllabi is the File Transfer tool. Using this simple tool, you can transfer your assignments to every student (even those who are viewing your archived session) in real time. This eliminates the concern that your Course Management System may be down when students are trying to access assignments, or that they won't be able to find the assignments you've posted. "Hand out" the assignments in real time, and let students know when and how you expect them to be completed.

Speaking of archives, remember that your recorded sessions can be paused and resumed. It's a good idea in longer class sessions to allow for breaks and to pause the recording so that viewers of the archive don't have to navigate through "dead time" to find the point where you resumed teaching.

Carl Sandburg wrote, "Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you." This applies to students as well as instructors, in all learning environments.

Develop Reciprocity and Cooperation Among Students

"Learning is enhanced when it is more like a team effort that a solo race. Good learning, like good work, is collaborative and social, not competitive and isolated. Working with others often increases involvement in learning. Sharing one's own ideas and responding to others' reactions sharpens thinking and deepens understanding. " (Chickering and Gamson)





If your Confer class is large, consider using the Breakout Rooms feature. Virtual “rooms” can be created into which you can distribute participants, and from which you can return them at will. This tool allows small groups of learners to work together or hold a discussion in which everyone has ample opportunity to participate.

As Ruth Clark observes, “Spending a few minutes in a breakout room allows a group of three to five participants to actively engage with each other in ways that can lead to greater individual participation and consequent learning.” For one thing, there are less voices to contend with, so each student's audio time is more accessible. For another, research seems to indicate that group cohesion is a by-product of this kind of virtual separation and group formation.

Like every educational tool, though, breakout rooms are only effective if they're used appropriately. Since we know that this feature is designed to facilitate collaboration, we should use it to promote group activities: create a situation in which "students introduce each other, work on homework, problems, projects, research, brainstorming, and other related activities in small groups and then share the materials from the group sessions with the rest of the students” (Zeina Nehme).

Assign a group leader and/or a group scribe before you send students to breakout rooms. The scribe can enter group responses on the whiteboard and summarize group discussions when everyone reconvenes. Find a student who's comfortable using the Confer technology and ask them to lead in the breakout room.

Remember that your ability to control what happens in the online classroom will be compromised when you send students into breakout rooms. PLAN, PLAN, PLAN ahead of time to make sure you haven't introduced chaos into your well-ordered session. Create your breakout rooms ahead of the session, with all relevant information pre-loaded. Explain everything to the students before you send them into their rooms, and even consider having technical and exercise instructions on a file you transfer to them so that there are no misunderstandings. Migrate between rooms so you can be sure students are interacting and collaborating as you would hope.

Jennifer Hoffman recommends these participant "ground rules":

• If you run into technical problems, contact the facilitator or producer. Don’t waste a lot of time trying to solve them yourselves.
• Assign someone to manage the exercise, someone to capture information, and someone to report back to the larger group.
• Don’t leave the breakout session just because the trainer isn’t "watching' you.
• When using collaboration tools within the breakout rooms (whiteboard, chat, application sharing, web browsing) the ground rules for those tools apply.

I'm interested in how you use (or why you don't use) the breakout rooms feature. Feel free to share your experience here.