The Web Conferencing Skill Set

"Ah, mastery... what a profoundly satisfying feeling when one finally gets on top of a new set of skills... and then sees the light under the new door these new skills can open, even as another door is closing." - Gail Sheehy

We've spent a lot of time in this blog discussing the tools of Web conferencing and some of the practices which have proved most effective in using those tools. As with any tool set, the level of skills in the use of these tools is a significant variable in their successful implementation. Instructors and students come to the virtual classroom with different skill levels, personalities, and experiences, all of which play a role in determining the learning climate.

Valaitas et. al. studied instructors who used Web conferencing to teach health sciences. By identifying personality types in their instructor sample - "Pragmatists, Positive Communicators, and Shy Enthusiasts" - they were able to differentiate approaches to the use of and acquisition of skills in the tools of Web conferencing. The "positive communicators" in this group "strongly disagreed" with the statement "The application sharing tool is a bit confusing for participants and presenters" and "were not challenged by the application-sharing feature." By contrast, the "shy enthusiasts" preferred the "ability to interact online by responding to multiple-choice or open-ended questions." The "pragmatists" in this sample did not show a particular proclivity to any particular tool, although all three groups were generally positive about the technology. This suggests that skills and personality may be inter-related in this arena.

The "digital natives" in modern classrooms may not be quite so "native" in the Web conferencing environment. Kennedy et. al. report that only a third of students surveyed had used a Web conferencing tool; two-thirds had not. It's clearly not safe to assume that your students know this software and will be able to help you find your way around.

Matt Bower points out the need for and variability of skills in this environment in his three-semester study of Web conferencing used for instruction. He observed "four levels of online collaborative competencies... operational, interactional, managerial, and design." He also notes that "the relative importance of students and teachers possessing the different levels of competencies depended on the degree of interactivity in the learning processes." The instructors who designed into their lesson plans greater interactivity increased the potential for misuse of the tools and the need for competencies to manage the interaction, operate the tools, and interact successfully. "Firstly, there are several tools to master; secondly, different tools need to be selected depending on communication requirements; thirdly, the affordances of tools in combination requires consideration; and fourthly, decisions about how to use tools often need to be made in real time. Failure to understand one subtle feature of a tool or its use can have a crippling impact on the learning episode, amplifying the importance that users have developed technical and collaborative competencies...."

Web Conferencing Highlights of 2013

"Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us." - Hal Borland

Another year of Web conferencing in education has almost ended, and we've learned a lot from the many educators who use this technology to connect with students and colleagues around the world. Here's a sampling from the myriad posts, articles, and stories that added to our growing insights into the Confer classroom.

January: "Where the disabled are enabled" An inspiring story from Western University shows how hearing-impaired students in Martin Zinke-Allmang's "groundbreaking first-year Physics for the Life Sciences class" use Web conferencing - with the built-in closed captioning option - to get the class caption notes along with the PowerPoint slides of each lecture.

February: "40 Tips for Webinar Success" Ken Molay shared a free resource from AnyMeeting which you can still download here. As Ken says, "what is fun about the document is not the short reminders of steps to follow in planning, preparing, and producing a Webinar. They are nice little encapsulations of best practices. It’s the fact that each of the 40 tips includes a link to an article, blog post, or recording going into more detail on that subject."

March: "Reconsidering Online vs. In-Person Professional Meetings"Joshua Kim mused for Inside Higher Ed about the value of online meetings: "We travel to meetings for the people, not the content - and people are best experienced face-to face, not screen-to-screen.... We travel to professional meetings with the best of intentions of focusing on the event, and find ourselves pulled into putting out fires by e-mail and phone, working late into the night to stay on top of things.... Lately, I've been thinking that our understanding of how to plan and run a quality online professional meeting has advanced to the point where it makes sense to always consider this option when planning our own events."

April: "The Do's and Don'ts of Using Visuals in eLearning" Karla Gutierrez provides invaluable pointers for anyone trying to use visuals in an online class. "Images and visuals done incorrectly will cause harm rather than strengthen learning. But images incorporate and integrated into eLearning effectively, will bolster learning and lead to more student engagement and material retention." Karla practices what she preaches by using exemplary visuals and accompanying text.

May: "Blackboard Collaborate Brings Web Conferencing App to Android" T.H.E. Journal covered this significant milestone for Bb Collaborate: mobile Web conferencing for all major platforms (the iOS app was developed in 2012). "The new mobile version... allows users to participate in Collaborate conferences. Participants can chat, use two-way audio, use emoticons, answer survey questions, raise their hands, join breakout rooms, and view presentations, including annotations, images, shared applications, and shared desktops."

June: "A Case Study on the Adoption and Use of Synchronous Virtual Classrooms" From The Electronic Journal of e-Learning, this research article describes how faculty at the University of North Carolina (Wilmington) reacted to and adopted a Web conferencing application that was made available to them by the University.  Survey data provided information on what influenced faculty adoption, and interview data described instructional approaches used by these adopters. A "subset of features led to ... adoption and are used frequently,"  while "perceived ease of use and usefulness of the technology may impel its use." Administrators trying to promote technology usage will find this case study useful and illuminating: it indicates the decision factors and features faculty consider when opting to use or ignore technology for instruction. "Based on the results of this case study, administrators can promote the factors and features that influence decision making to adopt the tool. Based on the interviews in this case study, administrators can also describe the ways how other faculty are using these tools in their classroom, and how beneficial it can be if adopted."

July: "Pasadena City College Classified Staff Demo of CCC Confer" and "DeAnza College Tutoring Program Presentation" In keeping with the theme of the June study (above), our June highlights include two presentations by colleges in the CCC system who describe how they use CCC Confer to accomplish teaching and meeting goals and objectives. The users are the best judges of a tool's usefulness, and these two demonstrations are user-produced and user-focused.

August: "3 Ways Webconferencing is Transforming PD" Another contribution from T.H.E. Journal describes "video learning communities" and "communities of practice" that self-generate when Web conferencing is used for professional development, connecting educators and making it possible for them to meet anytime and any place to share ideas and teaching practices.

September: "CCC Confer: Presenter Checklist" Another user-generated video from the College of the Redwoods designed to show fellow presenters how to prepare to use CCC Confer effectively.

October: "Ten Ways Web Conferencing Works in Education" Although this is a self-reflecting link, it's based on the excellent work of Beth Gallob, who is properly cited. Looking for ways to make the most of online technology? Here's a list of features you'll find it hard to ignore.

November: "Synchronous Learning: Is there a future?" Here's another academic study of adoption and innovation, using survey data to determine the thought processes of students who were exposed to instruction delivered via Web conferencing. "Eighty-two percent agreed or strongly agreed that [the technology] was 'easy to learn' and 73 percent stated it was 'easy to use.'... Seventy-three percent agreed or strongly agreed they would recommend [Web conferencing] to other persons for training, instruction, and learning. Only 31 percent of the students reported some technical problems during the three-hour session, and 55 percent reported no problems. More than 50 percent stated [the technology] was favorable or beneficial for their learning and 62 percent agreed or strongly agreed with the following, 'all things considered [Web conferencing] was a positive experience.' ”

December: "How Not to Look Ugly on a Webcam [Infographic]" If you spend a lot of time connecting to remote users and letting (or making) them see you from your Webcam, isn't it important to consider how to make that experience positive? This infographic considers lighting, background, bandwidth, noise level, what you're running on your computer, and positioning. It's easy to understand, and it will help to serve as a reminder.

The new mobile version of Collaborate for Android allows users to participate in Collaborate conferences. Participants can chat, use two-way audio, use emoticons, answer survey questions, raise their hands, join breakout rooms, and view presentations, including annotations, images, shared applications, and shared desktops.
Read more at http://thejournal.com/articles/2013/05/08/blackboard-brings-web-conferencing-app-to-android.aspx?=THE21#VcLODto0zA0xsB04.99

Blackboard Brings Web Conferencing App to Android
Read more at http://thejournal.com/articles/2013/05/08/blackboard-brings-web-conferencing-app-to-android.aspx?=THE21#VcLODto0zA0xsB04.99

Blackboard Brings Web Conferencing App to Android
Read more at http://thejournal.com/articles/2013/05/08/blackboard-brings-web-conferencing-app-to-android.aspx?=THE21#VcLODto0zA0xsB04.99

Ten Ways Web Conferencing Works in Education

I came across Beth Gallob's slideshow (below) earlier this week and was inspired to elaborate on it with our experiences at CCC Confer. We are always discovering new ways to use this great tool by watching and hearing from our users - instructors, administrators, trainers, even students. These ten suggestions are the "easy finds" in the great barrel of options Web conferencing provides. Share your own!

Top 10 Ways to Use Blackboard Collaborate from Beth Gallob

1.  Live Instruction. In the CCCs, we call this "Teach and Confer" and literally hundreds of instructors use this tool every week to deliver live online instruction to students throughout the state (and, sometimes, the world). Classes are scheduled and links posted either within the college's Learning Course Management System or on the Confer Web site (see the schedule I captured from today's (October 11 list). As with Beth's case study example, we've had several instructors and researchers report on the effectiveness of this synchronous online instruction in reducing attrition, improving student success, and providing an effective means for students who might not otherwise be able to complete their educational goals to attend college and get their degrees. See, for example, Research on Online Spanish Classes, Case Study of Online vs. On-Campus, Grades and Attendance at Online Lectures, and Almost 95 Percent Retention.

2. Meetings. With 112 colleges spread across the state of California, the California Community Colleges is a large geographical system that requires thousands of meetings every week to coordinate activities, check on progress, communicate goals, convene groups and subgroups, and simply operate as a system.Travel costs for these thousands of meetings would be prohibitive, to say nothing of the expenses incurred for meeting space, food and beverage, A/V materials and other incidentals. I've added another screen shot of some of today's (10/11) meetings, which are not atypical: a group of math instructors, IT meetings, librarian meetings, counselor training, various committees, a work group on data governance, online educators from a single college, department meetings, several task forces, student organizations, and many more. There's no question that millions of dollars every year are saved in the CCCs because these and hundreds of other groups elect to meet online instead of traveling to campus, other campuses, or to hotels or office buildings to accomplish the same goals: collaborate and get work done.
3. Recorded Content. Students who miss class or who need to review lectures or class sessions have it easy in our system if instructors record their sessions with CCC Confer. Archived sessions are converted to MP4 format and posted to the system's YouTube channel and to 3C Media Solutions, where they can be viewed, added to playlists, embedded into syllabi or lesson plans, and even downloaded. Where captioning has been requested, captions are included and can be viewed from any device. To see how recorded lectures can be used to help students and instructors, see Using Confer to Extend Face-to-Face Classes, Archives for Students Who Miss Class, Face-to-Face Students Love Archives, Confer for Lecture Capture and Video Lectures, Archives Serve Diverse Learning Styles, or Using an Archive to Extend Class Time.
4. Online Conference. Not everyone can attend every conference for a variety of reasons. Budgets are short. Other duties conflict with the time and date of the conference. Space is restricted or there may be other physical limitations. With Confer, it's easy to capture, preserve, and distribute conference presentations to both participants and to non-participants who are nonetheless interested in the subject matter. Perhaps our best known conference of the year is the Online Teaching Conference, which captures roughly a third of its presentations this way and makes them available in real time to online attendees and as recorded videos for everyone else. We've done this for several other system-wide conferences with great success, and many organizations within the system have been able to offer online conferences using similar methods.
5. Mobile Web Conferencing. Now that Blackboard Collaborate has apps for both iOS and Android devices, attendance and participation in online classes and meetings has been extended to the mobile users in our system, making it even easier to connect while on the go.
6. Virtual Office Hours. Instructors need to meet with students, and these meetings often need to occur outside of class sessions as student are engaged in their studies, assignments, or research and need guidance or feedback.Some campuses and institutions require that these office hours be held in offices that
are physically located on campus, but those policies are changing as the realization grows that travel to campus is difficult and unnecessary, and that the virtual office is often better-equipped than the average faculty member's office (to say nothing of the office-sharing or office-less adjunct faculty member). The screen at left shows my capture of today's Office Hours schedule. As I looked these up, I was surprised to see so many on a Friday, but many also on Saturday and Sunday this weekend. This points out another great advantage to virtual office hours: since they don't occur on a campus, no other staff (custodians, campus security, etc.) are required to work so that the instructor can meet with his or her students. This makes it a more flexible and affordable service for the institution.
7. Student / Parent Orientation. As online education gains in popularity, the requirement that students enrolling in an institution physically attend an orientation session is becoming increasingly unpopular and suspect. Providing an online orientation for online students makes sense, as does the popular practice in our colleges to use Confer to orient students to online classes, the virtual classroom, the library resources available online, the availability of online tutors and other support services, and to their fellow classmates. So many students become acquainted with their college experience by meeting online via Confer, and it's also true that some of them graduate and attend commencement ceremonies online via Confer!
8. Remote Guest (Speaker / Virtual Field Trip). This is another natural implementation, and we've seen it used in very creative ways. One music instructor attended an opera and allowed her class to virtually attend from her computer, including an after-performance interview with the performers. Another instructor taught her northern California Spanish classes from Costa Rica, where she introduced locals and gave virtual tours from overseas. We've seen instructors from different institutions take turns guest lecturing in each others' classes, and conduct inter-institutional debates and presentations by students separated by physical miles but connected virtually by the Confer classroom.
9. Professional Development. The CCCs have practiced online professional development for years, and it is built into our infrastructure. Nearly every organization that serves the system uses Confer to

train employees and colleagues, and the fact that training sessions are recorded allows for new employees or transfers to catch up with their colleagues quickly by viewing the sessions online. A glance at today's and future Webinars shows the diversity of this popular service: a presentation on revitalizing education, training on online research methods, a session related to legislated adult education planning requirements, training on applications to four-year institutions, an orientation to the California College Guidance Initiative, Open Educational Resource training, a library training related to integrated library systems, a Webinar on how to flip the classroom, training on Board policy for course pre-requisites, software training for specific educational applications, and sexual harassment training. The money, time, and resources saved by having these trainings online instead of at physical locations is immeasruable.
10. Virtual Help Desk. By providing an easy way to connect with experts or support people online, colleges can better support students, especially (but not necessarily exclusively) online students. Counselors, librarians, and tutors have been especially attracted to this use of CCC Confer. For a sample playlist of testimonials from some of these professionals, follow this link.

Thanks to Beth for creating the list and to the many thousands of Confer users who've shown us how to use this tool to support education. Please feel free to share your own ways to make Web conferencing work.

A Commitment to Accessibility

The Talking Communities video above (unfortunately, it isn't captioned) shows two meeting planners who realize just before their Web conferencing session that their audience will include blind and deaf participants. They speculate that the blind people will be able to hear the conversation and the deaf will be able to see the slides, but conclude that "there must be something better." Indeed!

CCC Confer and the California Community Colleges have always been committed to making technology accessible to all of our constituents, regardless of disability or the severity of impairment. When our first RFP (Request for Proposals) was released for a Web conferencing vendor in 2001, our requirement of compliance with the Section 508 Amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 eliminated all but one of the vendors then providing the service. We selected that vendor because it mattered to us that ALL users be able to access and enjoy this technology. Our current vendor conforms to Section 508 as well as to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 Priority AA (issued December 2012) and has received Gold level certification for non-visual access from the National Federation for the Blind NFB).You can find this vendor's Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) here. (The VPAT is a standardized way in which developers can report on their compliance with Section 508 requirements.)

From the beginning, when we offered Web conferencing, we decided that the option for captions would be available at no charge to the end user. The California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office, which funds our project, has always made it possible for us to make good on that decision. Recently, in fact, we've been able to divert the costs for instruction-related captioning to the Distance Education Captioning and Transcription (DECT) project, also funded by the CCCO. All of our captioning happens in real time, and we have been able to preserve this captioned content in our recorded archives. We also provide screen reader support for the blind and visually impaired, keyboard shortcuts, built-in speech-to-text support, features for changing text size and controls, and navigation options for menus and tabs - all of which are recommended by the National Consortium on Deaf-Blindness. Our vendor provides a downloadable Web Conferencing Accessibility Guide which is extensive (86 pages) and very helpful for anyone presenting to an audience of differently-abled individuals.

I hope you as a presenter are as committed to accessibility as we at Confer are. Consider some of these suggestions to ensure that all of your students (or audience) can access your presentation:

1. Don't assume that all of your students know how to use CCC Confer or have ever been in a Web conference before.
2. Prior to your session, ask your students or audience if they have assistive needs and - even if no one reports any - become aware of the options available.
3. Send files (handouts, agenda, slides, etc.) as attachments before the meeting/class session begins. You can also send them during the session (File Share), but having a backup plan is wise. If using PowerPoints, consider creating a text version.
4. Practice in advance so you know how to share your screen, mute your participants, etc.
5. Come early to your Confer room and pre-load your content/slides.
6. Decide how to handle questions (chat, verbal, at a specific time?)
7. Tell your online audience what you're doing as you do it; it will help them understand what they're seeing (or hearing or reading).
8. Give participants the Computer Readiness link well in advance of your session so they'll know whether or not their equipment is compatible with the Confer software.

It's also important that some rules of etiquette be followed in your online sessions to maximize accessibility. Tell your students or audience:

1. Mute phones when not speaking
2. Find a way to take turns (I like the virtual hand-raising icon)
3. When you're speaking, tell everyone who you are (voices sound alike, and the captions will be more useful if comments are attributed to their authors)
4. When or if you arrive late, don't interrupt the session by introducing yourself

For more information about accessible Web conferencing options, see:

Where the Disabled are Enabled, in which Web conferencing "allows students with disabilities — as well as distance-studies students and those who just want a refresher — to access information in their own time."

How to Add Captions to Blackboard Collaborate Recordings, in case you are not a CCC Confer customer or forgot to pre-order captions.

Using Blackboard Collaborate to Provide an Accessible Environment for Individuals with a Hearing Loss, in which a 37-year veteran Deaf Educator explains why "especially important to me are the options that Blackboard Collaborate provides for offering students with a hearing loss the same equal access to information that their hearing peers enjoy."


Leaving No User Behind, in which Shannon Forte declares a commitment to "be sure that virtually anyone and everyone can fully engage and participate in your online classroom."

Say What? Why Audio is Vital to Good Online Lectures

Here's an observation: students will forgive bad video long before they'll forgive bad audio. They'll watch presentations of lectures with fuzzy slides - or even no slides! - as long as they can hear what's being said clearly and (apparently) imagine for themselves what's being shown on the screen. Reverse the situation - with stunning visuals but terrible audio - and they'll quickly give up in disgust. (Thinking back on it, I attended many a lecture from the back of the room, where I couldn't see - or be seen - much, but was perfectly able to hear what was being said and take decent notes.)

Here's a video from Mari Smith with excellent tips about online audio enhancement:




She includes here some inexpensive microphones and connectors that will even work with smartphones to bring your audio up to snuff. Other resources for recommended microphones for Webcasting can be found here.

Audio enhances learning outcomes, especially when it involves narration that explains a complex visual, formula, graphic, or video  with which students are unfamiliar. Research indicates that adding audio (as opposed to text) to this kind of material can improve learning outcomes by as much as 80 percent. Simply by adding phonetic memory to visual memory, the brain is able to process the information more efficiently. If students are trying to understand a drawing or math formula you've presented to them, adding more text - which increases the strain on their visual processing - won't help as much as explaining to them with audio (your voice), which allows for audio processing to work with visual processing to produce understanding.


Since audio is so important, you as a speaker (presenter, lecturer, etc.) should do your best to optimize the quality of the audio you're providing to your audience. Prepare your environment for any unexpected sound (noise) that will interfere with your narration. Turn off  your cell phone (muting doesn't always eliminate all the alerts your phone wants to send you). I use a sign on my door (the current one reads "GET A ROOM...") to let others know you're not to be disturbed. Ask someone to take your dog (or baby) for a while - somewhere else. As e-learning guru Ruth Clark advises: "

Avoid ear candy. Background music and environmental sounds create unnecessary cognitive load and distract from, rather than increase, learning. Indeed, music, over longer periods of time can be incredibly annoying. Note that this also applies to sounds, such as beeps or applause, that reinforce right and wrong answers. This may be appropriate in a games, but not for most online learning. Ear candy is as bad as eye candy."

Online Teaching 2013: The State of the Art

The 2013 Online Teaching Conference in Long Beach, California encompassed myriad topics that reflect the major trends and concerns of the profession: MOOCs, legislation related to distance education and open educational resources, YouTube, the rapid changes in the educational environment, hybrid options and design, collaboration, faculty training, social media, online student services, digital textbooks, tutoring, disruption, and innovation. Thanks to the great work of the OTC professionals, here's a sample of the recorded sessions.

Be There Now (or Later): How to Be Present When Your Students are Somewhere (or Somewhen) Else

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In 1971, Ram Dass published Be Here Now, a life-changing book for many of the Boomer generation. The book emphasized spiritual truths and the admonition to be present at the only time that matters - now - and in the only place that matters - here. With quotes like "the next message you need is always right where you are," it brought many readers to an awakening based on the present moment.

Teachers in the virtual classroom often have a difficult time with the concept of "presence" and "here and now." They miss the eye contact with students that the traditional classroom provides, making it difficult to hold the audiences' attention or even to know when they are holding it. Non-verbal signals (facial expressions, body language, hand gestures) are also missing online. Students who wish to can get up and walk around, turn their backs on the instructor, switch screens, feed babies, etc.: there is little physical control granted to the instructor over the virtual classroom. Distractions - barking dogs, incoming text messages, e-mail, Facebook prompts, etc. - are difficult to control and have the potential to destroy instructor presence. We've all got horror (or humor) stories about that: one that recently appeared in The Chronicle's Wired Campus spoke of "barking dogs, wailing babies, and a naked spouse" as intruders in the virtual classroom.

The potential for disconnectedness or distraction is so great that virtual classroom instructors have to be proactive, just as the readers of Ram Dass's book were urged to "wake up" and "be here now." They must pay attention to what they're saying, how often they pause to ask questions and wait for answers, and how they recognize opportunities to solicit feedback and participation. They regularly check the class roster and call on students to contribute thoughts or materials. They know that injecting humor or surprise is an effective method for breaking the ice and getting everyone's attention. They find ways to personalize their presentation, often by using the Web cam judiciously to show themselves and/or their environment or by inserting personal pictures (of themselves, their garden, a pet) onto slides or whiteboards.

Where synchronous collaboration is possible (i.e., where you have an online audience now), it should be encouraged and planned for. I like to make my students believe that they can be called on anytime to do something - and then prove it by calling on them randomly and often. If more than three minutes go by without my pausing to engage my online audience, I'm in danger of losing both them and myself in the lecture, not the present moment. I like to insert a PAUSE slide about every 10 slides in my presentation to ensure that I use it and "wake up" to my audience. The chat back-channel is a great way to reinforce presence and engagement, as long as you pay attention to it and encourage student participation.

Vicki Davis cites 12 healthy habits to grow your online presence in her Cool Cat Teacher Blog:

1. Share.
2. Respond.
3. Comment.
4. Link Generously.
5. Read (or Listen) Prolifically.
6. Distribute Yourself.
7. Beware of Flattery.
8. Live Life Online and Off-line.
9. Latch Key Your Legacy.
10. Laugh (a lot).
11. Take Every Presentation Seriously.
12. Expect Criticism.

Be there!