The Art of Web Conferencing

"I like the computer because it keeps giving you options. What if I do this? You try it, and if you don't like it you undo it. The original can always be resurrected. It raises the idea of working on one painting your whole life, saving it and working on it again and again." - Elliott Green, contemporary American artist.

Robin Rogers Cloud (pictured ) teaches art at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, California. When I first met Robin, in 2004, she had an idea about teaching online students how to paint by meeting with them online and critiquing their paintings using CCC Confer's tools. I had my doubts about this proposal, but Robin went forward with it and not only proved me wrong; she taught me a valuable lesson: never doubt a skilled instructor's ability to use technology to accomplish the impossible.

Robin invited me to one of her online Office Hour sesssions, in which she posted students' watercolor paintings to the whiteboard and used the drawing tools to show them how each painting might be made better. She drew in new horizons, showed them how the use of light and dark could be made more effective, demonstrated perspective. On a lonely ocean scene (given Saddleback's proximity to beautiful beaches, these were plentiful), she drew a sailboat or two to provide interest to the pictures. She used arrows to point to each picture's "standout" visual point, and led discussions on why that feature captured the viewer's attention. Where contrast was poorly used, she darkened elements of the picture to show how attention could be drawn to parts of the picture simply by adding contrast. As Robin taught and demonstrated, her students - all participating remotely - became excited and enthused about the insights they were gaining. The "oohs" and "ahs" - and "ahas" - could be heard throughout the class session.

Today, Robin uses more than the whiteboard to teach art to her online students. She uses the Webcam to show students how to mix colors, use brush strokes effectively, and compose a picture. By doing this "live" before her students, she is able to field questions from students and improvise according to what they ask or how they respond. The class becomes interactive, and - where visual techniques are most critical - learning can be focused on seeing the proper methods and discovering in real time the principles of artful composition and construction.

The multimedia library tool - which allows an instructor to play movies or multimedia files to students - has also become a staple in Robin's classes. Robin has created a series of digital movies that demonstrate the methods she wants her students to master. In these, she demonstrates a technique and provides a narrative that explains and clarifies the method. These clips allow her to provide lessons or demonstrations any time she finds it appropriate to do so; she simply loads the file into the Multimedia Library and plays them once the file has been loaded. Because this tool plays multimedia files on the viewer's native computer, the class sees the lesson in real time and reacts while the instructor is present and able to add information or edification.

Perhaps I'm most impressed by the innovative use Robin makes of tools anyone can access. She's an artist, so creativity comes with the territory, but her approach is especially original. She uses ordinary hardware - clamp-on lights, foil reflectors, and inexpensive Webcams - to create a home studio suitable for providing the lighting and effects she needs to provide students with online art lessons that impress and inspire. A touch tablet allows her to draw on the whiteboad quickly and effectively, and simple software like Painter and Photoshop enable her to do quick touchups to paintings.

To see Robin in action using CCC Confer, watch this demonstration. I'm sure you'll agree with me that this artist models the effective use of Web conferencing technology. Artists afraid of technology? Nonsense! Artists make this technology beautiful.

Technophilia or Infomania?

"Research recently commissioned by technology experts Hewlett Packard, concluded that 62% of adults are addicted to checking e-mail and text messages. An investigation of over a 1,000 adults, carried out by the Institute of Psychiatry at the University of London, found that 1 in 2 workers respond to an e-mail or text either immediately or within the hour. 1 in 5 people wouldn’t consider it inappropriate to interrupt a business meeting or social gathering in order to respond to a text message or e-mail.

"Victims of infomania are thought to suffer a significant loss of concentration, their minds in a permanent state of readiness to reply to texts and e-mails which distracts them from other tasks. This may result in an average drop in IQ of 10 points, more than twice the reduction caused by smoking marijuana and the equivalent to losing a night’s sleep. Men are allegedly more susceptible to infomania than women." (Macmillan English Dictionary)

Students in your online classroom may be trying to manage more information than they can handle. They see your visuals, hear your explanation, may be checking out who else is online in the roster, and may have a host of chat messages (public or private) coming at them at the same time. All of this can be a distraction from the important learning task you're intent on having them accomplish. Over time, we all get better at coping with multiple information sources and the stream of data that is constantly available, but your students may not have had time to develop skills in information management.

Bill Mann suggests that mind maps are a useful way to overcome information overload. "A mind map is a visual representation of chunks of information and the relationships between those chunks. Starting with a central topic, idea, or theme, you create a mind map by writing a phrase that identifies the central theme in the center of a piece of paper. Next, you write words or phrases identifying key topics on the page, arranging them around the central theme. Draw lines between the topics and the central theme to show that they are related. You can also connect topics directly to each other." Tony Buzan has a wonderful video clip that illustrates the use of mind maps, along with several books on the subject.

Herbert Simon said, ""In the period ahead of us, more important than advances in computer design will be the advances we can make in our understanding of human information processing...."  You can help your students process the information you provide in your classroom by giving them advice or tips about how to handle all this "stuff." This may be as simple as providing Ross Dowson's "Eight steps to thriving on information overload" or as complex as devoting a class period to sharing and discussing how your students are handling the information they're getting in your class. As David Meyer's research demonstrates, multitasking is going to slow your students down and increase their chances of making mistakes: none of us can actually concentrate on two things at once.

We know this from experience. Let's share our knowledge with students who haven't learned it yet.

Teaching the Texters

"Viewed from the other side of the Atlantic, text messaging by adolescents in the United States seems reminiscent of the early days of desktop publishing. Once we reveled in experiments with point size, font style, and color. The results were often graphic disasters, as we failed to heed the Delphic warning, "Nothing in Excess." Gradually word processing became a workaday tool, and our documents calmed down. In Europe, text messaging (generally known as SMS) first appeared in 1993, giving young people a decade more experience with the medium than their American counterparts. What is still often a toy in America, played on with youthful abandon, has settled into a pedestrian appliance elsewhere, particularly as teens mature into young adults." - Naomi S. Baron, author of Always On: Language in an Online and Mobile World in a blog post.

Now that Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube have embraced the mobile phone - and Apple has made the mobile phone a true mobile multimedia computing device - we as instructors have to accept the fact that our students are never far from their mobile friends, in or out of class. This video, first uploaded to YouTube in 2007, challenges teachers to incorporate texting assignments in their classrooms to help engage and motivate students. It suggests, for example, that you use class time to ask students to text someone outside of class and find out what they had for breakfast, what the weather is like where they are, and what they last purchased. Bonus points might be added for text messages that come from another country and/or in another language.

Marc Prensky believes we educators must incorporate cell phones into instruction. "Languages, literature, public speaking, writing, storytelling, and history are just a few of the subjects that are highly adaptable to voice-only technology." Texting adds the ability to "conduct pop quizzes or spelling or math tests, to poll students' opinions, to make learners aware of current events for class discussion (e.g., with messages from Cable News Network's Breaking News), and even to tutor students." He goes on: "Can we create programs, or even exams, that we hand out on memory cards for students to slip into their phones? Can homework and exams get marked and annotated automatically?...Can classes and schools (or subjects across those) be set up so that all classmates are permanently connected, and can pedagogies be constructed to take advantage of this?"

The number of text messages transmitted in the United States grew by more than 80 percent over the 12 months ended in June, 2009, to 135.2 billion per month. That number - 80 - is the average number of text messages each of your students sends every day. Along with sending messages, they're reading books, watching and uploading videos, voting on game shows, learning languages, and interacting with tutors. They're learning, in other words. And we're challenged to teach them in a language they understand.

Here's part of the new lingo, in case it shows up in your chat window:
! = I have a comment
10Q = Thank you
121 = One to one
404 = I haven't a clue.
411 = Information
511 = Too much information
::poof:: = I'm gone
AAK = Asleep at keyboard
AFC = Away from computer
AWHFY = Are we having fun yet?
(For more, check this link.)

Are You an Instructor or a Friend?

“I've come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It's my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a [student]'s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a [student] humanized or de-humanized.” - Dr. Haim Ginott

We want out students to like us, of course. In the online environment, though, the social cues are different, and students may confuse friendliness (smiley faces, chatted words of encouragement, etc.) with ardor. It's important that the instructor set the tone and maintain an atmosphere of propriety, whether or not you keep a casual online profile. Consider how your students see you and how you would like to be seen in your online classroom. It's easier to relax after taking a rigid stance than it is to restore an image of toughness once you've caved in.

I generally begin with my online students by discussing the boundaries of our online relationship. This includes how they are to communicate with me outside of class (e-mail and IM), and what rights of privacy I maintain for myself and will respect for them. I'm also careful about how much of my personal information I make available to them and try to establish the guidelines for what's fair play in our online relationships. Since there are institutional policies that apply, I discuss the college or university policies that apply to appropriate behavior online and acceptable uses of technology.

In a class, the instructor is not a peer, in the sense of being an equal of the students. Friendliness is important, but friendship is a stretch: the teacher calls the shots and assesses performance. The line may move in your online sessions, but it has to be drawn.

Discipline is important in the online classroom, just as it is face-to-face. When a student behaves unacceptably, either send a private message to that student immediately or pull them aside in a private chat room to discuss the infraction. Avoid public confrontations, since these smack of humiliation and are an abuse of power that will create more problems than they solve. Similarly, shouting does not solve noise issues online: use the technology to mute students or put yourself in lecture mode.

If you treat your students with respect, give them opportunities to shine in your classroom, provide them with acceptable and fair policies, and avoid negative discussions or complaining, they'll appreciate you as an instructor and reciprocate with positive learning and responses. You'll be their teacher and the learning experience will be a friend they'll look forward to revisiting.

Those Multitasking Students!

Bill Tancer's Click laments, “with the pervasiveness of wireless hot spots and laptops that have built-in wireless capability, conference audiences have turned keynotes into multitasking events, half-listening to presentations while simultaneously answering email and browsing the web.” Most of us must guiltily admit that he's right: we don't pay full attention at conferences anymore, whether the conference is virtual or face-to-face, unless the speaker does something to grab and hold our attention.

"Multitasking" is a misnomer: we aren't really able to do several things at the same time. Joe Medina points this out on Brain Rules: although we can talk and breathe at the same time, we can't really read a book and listen to a conversation simultaneously. What we do, rather, is quickly switch from one task to another, and back again, and the speed with which we switch makes us think we're doing all of them at the same time. As I type this blog I'm listening to music, but the lyrics are escaping me until I pause long enough to give them my full attention.


We have the same problem as teachers. What should we as teachers do to keep students engaged? Should we set up rules that ban distractions? Are there attention-grabbing methods/tricks that work during those critical first five minutes of class? Can we recommend certain behaviors to our students to help them concentrate?


Here are a few suggestions, and (as always), I welcome yours:

1. Remember the 10-minute rule (See Brain Rules). You have about 10 minutes to get and hold attention before you lose them. And once they're gone, it's tough to get them back.
2. Don't blame students for having other things to do. We all have other obligations. Let them know how long you need them in your presentation/lecture, and don't keep them longer than that.
3. Archive your session so students can return to it at a later time (or more than once) to catch up on what they missed while Oprah was talking.
4. Work in engagement exercises, polls, and other interactive opportunities in your session. See previous posts for suggestions.
5. Give each student a job to do during the class.

Let's Chat!

"Many learners are accustomed to using chat for recreational purposes which is often very informal and quickly composed without reflection. Effectively adopting chat for academic purposes requires structure and effective moderation of the discussion. As a synchronous tool, chat is usually one-to-many and involves all participants being online simultaneously and often has them interacting at the same time. Without time for reflection, some instructors have found it effective to prepare students in advance with specific questions or content for them to mull over before engaging in dialogue. As a one-to-one tool, many instructors are finding [chat] to be an effective tool for conducting virtual office hours and for providing more responsiveness to student requests." (Valencia University's Office of Information Technology)

The Valencia tutorial goes on to recommend these instructional practices for using chat in class:

• Inform learners of your expectations for how these tools will be used as part of the course.
• Outline the rules in your syllabus (i.e., no harsh language, no belittling of their fellow classmates, keeping their comments relevant to the topic).  
• Decide what your objectives are for using chat. Ask how can using chat assist the learners in achieving the overall goals of the course.
• Prepare a focused topic in advance for each chat session.
• Monitor the dialogue to keep it on topic.
• Consider the number of students that can be meaningfully involved in chat.
• Establish a protocol so that learners will know when another has completed their message (i.e. ask learners to add an asterisk * at the end of their sentence).
• Be aware of those who tend not to participate. Is it due to a technological or skill problem? Some learners can type very quickly while others type quite slowly. This may affect the frequency of all learner's participation. If nonparticipation seems to be attributed to neither technological problems or typing skills, is there a way to draw them into the chat?
• Summarize the major points at the end of the chat session.

 To this list I would add a few I've seen Confer instructors use effectively:

• Quizzes. Ask a question orally and invite students to answer using the chat tool. This can be done individually or as a group (depending on the size of the group). This type of "spot" quiz is very useful for assessing the real learning that's taken place, and can be used at any time during a teaching session.
• Brainstorming. This is similar to quizzing your students, in that you're using this technique to gain insights into what your students are thinking. But in this case, you're not necessarily looking for a specific answer to the questions or ideas you pose: you're trying to get students to think for themselves and express their ideas.
• Group work. Break up a large class into smaller groups in breakout rooms so that the chat window does not overfill with information. Then, encourage your students to use the chat window to discuss a question and/or work together on a project.
• Debriefing. Chat can be an effective way to make sure students "got" what you said and accomplished what they were supposed to accomplish. What went well, and what needs improvement?

For chat to be useful and not a distraction in your class, you'll want some coping strategies like those listed above. You'll also want to ensure that ground rules (etiquette) are posted and agreed upon.

Lisa Weber and Jennifer Lieberman observe that "chat often has a negative reputation because of its potential to become chaotic since students and faculty communicating simultaneously can obscure the message and make following a conversation difficult.." They suggest some intriguing uses of chat for language instruction, including language partner exchanges, grammar review, dynamic language practice, error analysis, and non-intrusive correction. With minor modifications, any of these suggestions could be applied to other subject matter.

Paying attention to chats from your students is a terrific way to monitor their engagement in the class and to modify your pacing or presentation accordingly. When three or more students suddenly start typing in the chat area while you're making a point, that's probably a good sign that something you said caused confusion or was missed. When there's a good deal of off-topic chat, you may have lost the class's attention; it's time to bring them back into the mix with some interactive exercises.

Application Sharing for Effect

“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared." - Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta

Application sharing allows the Confer instructor to share anything on his/her desktop, and to pass control to other participants. Although most instructors use this primarily as a demonstration feature, it is most effective as a means of facilitating interaction among students.

But we've observed that this is not the most popular tool, nor is it used by a great many instructors. As Vlad Wielbut of the Alliance for Community Technology says about application sharing: "This standard feature of many Web conferencing tools can be extremely valuable when trying to explain to students how a particular piece of software works: what is better than showing this piece of softwae 'in action', even letting students take control of it for a while, so as to make sure they understand what happens when they do this or that to it. Yet, this is often one of the less intuitive features and requires at least a little bit of training to use it and use it well."

Margaret Driscoll has identified 20 best practices for using application sharing in an interesting and practical article:

1. Use the long method (don't use shortcuts your students can't follow on screen)
2. Tell learners where to look.
3. Apply window management (close unnecessary windows).
4. Optimize the visibility of the mouse.
5. Define class size.
6. Evaluate when to use and not use application sharing.
7. Schedule sessions for 40-60 minutes.
8. Probe for understanding.
9. Plan for latency.
10. Determine student viewing area.
11. Use the page up and page down keys.
12. Warm up the participants.
13. Watch your presentation.
14. Move slowly.
15. Coach participants' performance.
16. Ask permission (before assuming control of another person's desktop).
17. Assign finite tasks.
18. Monitor the other tools (hand-rasing and chat in particular).
19. Start with a moderator (have a helper).
20. Practice, practice, practice.