Web Conference Pilot

On June 3rd 5:00 PM CST, I took part in an educational experiment for my class this five week session called, Multimedia and Video Technology at Lamar University. The experiment was really a web conference pilot to test and get comfortable with the Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro web conferencing interface.
The conference started at 5:00pm but the room was to open at 4:30pm. I got set up early at 4:21pm. I think I jumped the gun and selected to be added to the meeting too early. I waited and waited… nothing happened... I looked closely at the screen… it now said that the meeting had been canceled. I knew this couldn’t be correct.
I clicked on the link again at around 4:45pm and I was now in the course room, “Success” I thought. I was able to see the professor, Kay Abernathy. I could hear her and others in the course room. Everyone was very excited and happily chatting asking if they could be heard and doing some brief introductions.
I ran the microphone and web camera wizards, everything seemed to run okay. I could hear the playback from the test of recording my voice. I could hear everyone clearly but I did not see the microphone button that others were talking about for me to select so that others could hear me.
Also after running the webcam install I could see myself on the cam but all the other options on the page were grayed out. I had to close out of the webcam so I could click around on the webpage.
After several minutes of not being heard, I decided I would log out and then log back in…that was a big mistake. I was not able to get back into the meeting and missed out big time. It kept saying that it was waiting for the host to allow me back in. Then it said the meeting was over.
I think it is a good tool and will help learners who are used to in classroom learning feel more connected to their classmates and professor. I think over time it will be more finely tuned.

I hope next time I will be heard, after all isn’t that what we all want?

Cheers!

Sandra Villarreal