{"id":22369,"date":"2011-08-23T11:56:25","date_gmt":"2011-08-23T15:56:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/?p=22369"},"modified":"2011-08-23T11:56:25","modified_gmt":"2011-08-23T15:56:25","slug":"from-dsc-to-share-my-most-recent-learning-involving-wimba-classroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/2011\/08\/23\/from-dsc-to-share-my-most-recent-learning-involving-wimba-classroom\/","title":{"rendered":"From DSC: To share my most recent learning involving Wimba Classroom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><span style=\"color: #800000;\">From DSC:<\/span><\/strong><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #800000;\">Yesterday, one of the organizations within our college hosted a conference call using Wimba Classroom.\u00a0 For those of you unfamiliar with Wimba Classroom, it&#8217;s really a set of web-based collaboration tools that offer such functionality as:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Videoconferencing<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Audio-conferencing<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Interactive whiteboard space<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Chat<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Application sharing capabilities<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\">(Last summer, Blackboard purchased both Elluminate and Wimba Classroom and have since created Bb Collaborate 11 from these two product lines.)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\">What I&#8217;ve learned about Wimba Classroom is that it&#8217;s best used as a Skype-on-steroids type of setup. That is, when one remote person is communicating with other remote persons &#8212; and all parties use headphones with attached microphones on them for their audio outputs\/inputs. It is best when <em>none<\/em> of the participants are a<em> group of people sitting in one room<\/em>.\u00a0 I say this because when you have a group of people in one location and you want to use VOIP-related technologies (i.e. for &#8220;free&#8221; communications), then you need to have a set of speakers powerful enough to cover the room.\u00a0 However, the audio output from the speakers can present some seriously-frustrating issues with the microphone in that room &#8212; especially if <em>any<\/em> <em>participant<\/em> has the Lock Talk feature turned on (feedback\/echoing occur here).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\">I&#8217;m very disappointed with Wimba for not having innovated more here over the last 1-2 decades &#8212; they&#8217;ve been in the business quite a while before it was known as Wimba.\u00a0 Perhaps Blackboard Collaborate 11 will address some of these problems and introduce some noise-cancelling software to eliminate these sorts of communication frustrations.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Now, I&#8217;ve lost another internal customer and I&#8217;m forced into the &#8220;Have you driven a Ford lately?&#8221; mode with these folks; as any experienced Instructional Technologist or ID will tell you, this is a veeeeryyy frustrating and disappointing place to be in.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\">The bright side to this situation is our Implementations Consultant &#8212; who has been in my shoes before and knows what that&#8217;s like to be there.\u00a0 He&#8217;s been a big help through the last 2-3 years. He recommended some different microphones that may help better address some of these issues and I thought that I would pass this information along in case it&#8217;s helpful to someone else out there:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.phnxaudio.com\/index.php?option=com_djcatalog&amp;view=showItem&amp;id=7&amp;cid=3&amp;Itemid=14\" target=\"_blank\">Phoenix Audio&#8217;s Duet Executive<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\nor<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bluemic.com\/snowball\/\" target=\"_blank\">BlueMic.com&#8217;s Snowball<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bluemic.com\/snowball\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-22370\" title=\"snowball-forWC\" src=\"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/snowball-forWC.jpg\" alt=\"The Snowball microphone -- for when you have a group of people in one location and want to use Wimba Classroom\" width=\"537\" height=\"464\" border=\"0\" srcset=\"https:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/snowball-forWC.jpg 537w, https:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/snowball-forWC-150x129.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 537px) 100vw, 537px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.phnxaudio.com\/index.php?option=com_djcatalog&amp;view=showItem&amp;id=7&amp;cid=3&amp;Itemid=14\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-22372\" title=\"phnxaudio-dot-coms-Duet-forWC\" src=\"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/phnxaudio-dot-coms-Duet-forWC1.jpg\" alt=\"Good microphone for working with Wimba Classroom when one GROUP of people are sitting in one location talking to others remotely\" width=\"376\" height=\"470\" border=\"0\" srcset=\"https:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/phnxaudio-dot-coms-Duet-forWC1.jpg 376w, https:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/phnxaudio-dot-coms-Duet-forWC1-120x150.jpg 120w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 376px) 100vw, 376px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\">I must be honest though &#8212; I&#8217;m seriously considering a lobbying effort to move our college <em>away<\/em> from using Wimba\/Bb Collaborate 11 and towards WebEx Meeting Center or Adobe Connect.\u00a0 (Big Blue button and some others may be on the table as well, but my initial-but-not-completely-up-to-date guess is that<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/cgi-bin\/article.cgi?f=\/g\/a\/2011\/06\/15\/prweb8572906.DTL\" target=\"_blank\"> other products don&#8217;t offer the same level of quality as WebEx or Connect<\/a>.) <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\">In retrospect (hindsight&#8217;s always 20-20, right?), I should have not been pursuaded by Wimba&#8217;s pitch that they focus solely on the education space &#8212; as that perspective may not be worth bragging rights these days (I&#8217;m constantly reminded that the education space doesn&#8217;t innovate as well as some other sectors\/industries do).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Anyway&#8230;hopefully, this posting will help someone out there.\u00a0 Also, it is highly possible that my relevant skillsets need further enhancements here! So feel free to give me some further education &#8212; I&#8217;m always up for expanding my learning ecosystem! \ud83d\ude42<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From DSC: Yesterday, one of the organizations within our college hosted a conference call using Wimba Classroom.\u00a0 For those of you unfamiliar with Wimba Classroom, it&#8217;s really a set of web-based collaboration tools that offer such functionality as: Videoconferencing Audio-conferencing Interactive whiteboard space Chat Application sharing capabilities (Last summer, Blackboard purchased both Elluminate and Wimba [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[127,72,8,286,9,196,195,367,49],"tags":[400,633,606,570,710,571,384,670,747,593,683],"class_list":["post-22369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-collaboration","category-daniel-s-christian","category-digital-audio","category-digital-learning","category-digital-video","category-productivity-tips-and-tricks","category-tools","category-vendors","category-web-based-collaboration","tag-best-practicestips","tag-collaboration","tag-daniel-s-christian","tag-digital-audio","tag-digital-learning","tag-digital-video","tag-productivity","tag-tools","tag-vendors","tag-web-based-collaboration","tag-wimba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22369"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22385,"href":"https:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22369\/revisions\/22385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}