Awareness
I have communicated online in both classroom and work group settings. I have used Skype to collaborate with fellow students on a class presentation. I have used FaceTime as well for communicating with friends and family. When I was part of a virtual sales team, we used GoTo Meeting and Adobe Connect. This company also utilized Salesforce.com for some online communication. Most of my experience has been as a participant and not a presenter.
Exploration & Filtration
I spent a fair amount of time exploring the links that were posted by Dr. Kymes. I focused on the Instant Messaging and Social Networking tools. I found that many of the sites were not free...I filtered those out to and explored only the ones that offered a free service. I finally narrowed it down to Zoho Chat after I watched a few demonstrations and YouTube videos. The reason that I picked Zoho was that it offered an entry level platform at no cost and it had a good amount of utilization as well as a user friendly dashboard.
Learning
I signed up for the free site and proceeded to navigate the home page as well as the add ons. I added a profile picture and personalized my background. I then tested out some of the functionality such as setting up a meeting, sharing my desktop, and personalizing fonts and colors. Before our assigned team meeting, one of my team mates and I chatted a bit. During this chat we exchanged information about other online communication tools such as Google Hangouts (my team mate is much more familiar and very comfortable with this platform). When all three team members met, we chatted about databases in Chapter 8. There was a good exchange of information about how databases could be used as a modeling tool. On Zoho, I started a meeting in addition to the chat. On the meeting, I tried out the desktop sharing feature. All of my team mates had no problem seeing my desktop. I also allowed one of my team mates to control my desktop (pretty scary). I played a YouTube video as well. My team mates reported that it was pretty choppy though.
Application
I can see how Zoho Chat might me a good tool for one-on-one instructor assistance. The free version is limited to no more than two participants per meeting. I can see good value in being able for the student to view my desktop as I walk him or her through a specific issue or problem. I do want to explore other tools such as Google Hangouts though. Also, I see value in being able to take over my students website and walk them through a website or internet search. Zoho has some positives and negatives. Positives; user friendly, customizable dashboard, ability to print out a transcript of the chat, and it portals the chat to the meeting. Negatives; need yet another login/password, free version limits meeting size to 2, and video is jerky.
I have communicated online in both classroom and work group settings. I have used Skype to collaborate with fellow students on a class presentation. I have used FaceTime as well for communicating with friends and family. When I was part of a virtual sales team, we used GoTo Meeting and Adobe Connect. This company also utilized Salesforce.com for some online communication. Most of my experience has been as a participant and not a presenter.
Exploration & Filtration
I spent a fair amount of time exploring the links that were posted by Dr. Kymes. I focused on the Instant Messaging and Social Networking tools. I found that many of the sites were not free...I filtered those out to and explored only the ones that offered a free service. I finally narrowed it down to Zoho Chat after I watched a few demonstrations and YouTube videos. The reason that I picked Zoho was that it offered an entry level platform at no cost and it had a good amount of utilization as well as a user friendly dashboard.
Learning
I signed up for the free site and proceeded to navigate the home page as well as the add ons. I added a profile picture and personalized my background. I then tested out some of the functionality such as setting up a meeting, sharing my desktop, and personalizing fonts and colors. Before our assigned team meeting, one of my team mates and I chatted a bit. During this chat we exchanged information about other online communication tools such as Google Hangouts (my team mate is much more familiar and very comfortable with this platform). When all three team members met, we chatted about databases in Chapter 8. There was a good exchange of information about how databases could be used as a modeling tool. On Zoho, I started a meeting in addition to the chat. On the meeting, I tried out the desktop sharing feature. All of my team mates had no problem seeing my desktop. I also allowed one of my team mates to control my desktop (pretty scary). I played a YouTube video as well. My team mates reported that it was pretty choppy though.
Application
I can see how Zoho Chat might me a good tool for one-on-one instructor assistance. The free version is limited to no more than two participants per meeting. I can see good value in being able for the student to view my desktop as I walk him or her through a specific issue or problem. I do want to explore other tools such as Google Hangouts though. Also, I see value in being able to take over my students website and walk them through a website or internet search. Zoho has some positives and negatives. Positives; user friendly, customizable dashboard, ability to print out a transcript of the chat, and it portals the chat to the meeting. Negatives; need yet another login/password, free version limits meeting size to 2, and video is jerky.