Day 17: Choosing the Right Tools for the Job

Today I had the opportunity to hang out with Nancy Power at Midland Secondary School and her great leadership class. Two of her students, James and Sage have taken on the task of hosting virtual sessions for local grade 7 and 8 classes.

When we first sat down, I asked the gentlemen to explain what they had planned and wanted to achieve. They told me:

• firstly, we want to ease as much stress as we can
• we want grade 7 and 8's to understand how high school works 
• we want them to hear from this years grade 9's (video interviews)
• we want them to recognize some of our faces to make them more comfortable asking for help
• we want to give them the opportunity to ask lots of questions 
• we want them to know how fun MSS (or high school) is
• we want them to enjoy and look forward to our short webinars 

After some discussion we decided that from a technological point of view we needed: 

• classes to be able to join in as easily as possible
• the ability for participating classes to type in questions and potentially move to asking questions with a microphone if the technology works well 
• the ability to show a video in the webinar
• the ability to have the webcam show the hosts while talking
• the ability to share links and resources
• the ability to record sessions for classes that cannot participate

We compared three different products that we have access to. All three options have the ability to record sessions. Our board has excellent Polycom video conference equipment. These are amazing products and great for two-way video and audio communication. We decided that for this particular case, the requirement of ensuring every school had video conference equipment available and knew how to use it was not worth the quality benefit. If each participating school was presenting something back to us, we may reconsider this. Our next option was Google Hangouts. Google hangouts are great for a few users. There is a cap on how many can participate and the students ability prepare or "set up the room" ahead of time is limited. This left us with what we decided was the best balance of features, quality and ease-of-use, Adobe Connect. Adobe Connect is a tool that creates an online virtual classroom. The hosts can set up the room with files (videos, images, presentations) pre-loaded and guests can join in without having to login. We have access to Adobe Connect through a Ministry and board license. 

Adobe Connect

James and Sage have decided to run the webinars using their teachers notebook and a usb HD web camera. In a few months, after running a few of these virtual sessions we'll report back any tips and tricks that James and Sage have learned for running effective webinars. 

every school has a web cam

Thanks Nancy (@mssmspower) and class for inviting me into your class to participate in the discussions around choosing the best tool. I got the chance to learn with students how to match up goals with the right tools. 

webcam plugs into USB on computer