reflections on using AdobeConnect in a tutorial

Recently I went to a couple of seminars/tutorials on using AdobeConnect in teaching & learning. As I vaguely remember saying somewhere else, this bit of software looked a bit like panopto might, if it were on steroids, & I could see how it could be a very useful tool for use in my classes. Not least because (as you'll have gathered from my last post), there's some concern around student engagement, particularly among those who don't actually come to lectures, & AdobeConnect seemed to offer a means of enhancing engagement even if students aren't physically present.

I decided that I'd like to trial it in the two pre-exam tutorials I'm running this week (my class has its Bio exam on Friday – the last day of the exam period. No prizes for guessing what I'll be doing for most of the upcoming weekend 🙁 ) I would really, really like to use it during lectures, so that students not physically on campus can still join in, but, small steps…

So, first I set up my 'meeting'. Work has made this easy by adding an AdobeConnect widget to the 'activity' options in Moodle, so that was pretty straightforward; I just needed to make the session 'private' so that students signed in using their moodle identity. The harder part of the exercise lay in deciding what to actually do when in the meeting room. In the end I set it up with a welcome from me, a 'chat' area, so students could 'talk' with each other & ask questions, and a 'whiteboard' so that I could draw (& type) in response to those questions. And, when the class actually started, I spent a few minutes showing everyone there (the 20 or so who were there in the flesh, & the 8 present via the net) what each of those 'pods' was for & how to use them.

You certainly have to keep on your toes when interacting with a mix of actual & virtual class members! My thoughts & observations, in no particular order:

remember to press 'record' right at the start, if you're intending to record a session!

next time (ie tomorrow) I'll remind those physically present that they can log into the meeting room too – this could, I suppose, be distracting, but it also means that they would be able to participate in polls, for example. I did it myself, at the launch of our 'connect week', just to see what everything looked like from the on-line perspective.

it was really, really good to see the 'virtual' students not only commenting & asking questions, but also answering each other's questions. I hadn't expected that and it was a very positive experience.

but do make sure that you encourage this cohort to take part; they need to know that you welcome their participation.

the rest of the class seemed to quite enjoy having others interacting from a distance.

next time, I'll bring & wire in my tablet, & use that rather than the room computer. This is because I do a lot of drawings when I'm running a tut, and while you can draw on the AC whiteboards, using a mouse to do this is not conducive to nice smooth lines & clear, precise writing. I <3 touchscreens!

it's very important to remember to repeat questions asked by those in the room: the microphone's not likely to pick their voices up, & if you don't repeat the question then the poor virtual attendees won't have a clue as to what you're talking about.

with a pre-exam tut it's hard to predict what resources might be used, in terms of powerpoints, web links & so on. For a lecture I'd be uploading the relevant files right at the start (ppts, video links & so on), but today I was pretty much doing things on the fly. However, I'm running another tut tomorrow & have put links to a couple of likely youtube videos into the meeting page already.

Internet Explorer seems to 'like' some AC actions more than Chrome; the latter wasn't all that cooperative about 'sharing my screen', which seemed to me to be a better option than uploading at one point in proceedings.

as a colleague said, doing it this way meant that overall I had more people in class than would have been the case if I'd only run it kanohi ki te kanohi (face to face) – what's not to like?

for me, the whole session was quite invigorating, & I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of learning to use a new piece of software to improve the classroom experience.

Mind you, on that last – it was my impression that the classroom experience was improved. And you'll have gathered that I truly did have fun. But I'm not a learner in the way that my students are. So I asked them for feedback (interestingly, so far I've had only one comment + my response on Moodle, but as you'll see we've had a reasonable dialogue on Facebook) – and here's what they said:

So next year I will definitely be using this during lectures, and to interact with my Schol Bio group & their teachers – and I think we'll definitely have one tut a week (out of the total of 6 that we offer) that's via AC, so that students that can't come onto campus can still  get the benefits of that sort of learning environment.