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Virtual Classrooms

What is it?

With virtual meeting tools like Skype or Adobe Connect you can meet online with people anywhere in the world provided they have access to the internet or a mobile device. You can talk, use text chat, broadcast video and share documents or applications. Amongst other features participants can show presentations, use a whiteboard, share their desktop or applications they use. Meetings can be recorded.

Who uses it?

ENGG1200 lecturers and tutors use virtual meetings for:

• Guest speakers from around the world:
  Shawn Jordan and Micah Lande from Arizona State University’s Engineering department introduced some of their Engineering design projects in a Skype conference and gave their views on what it takes to be successful in a design project. Student feedback on the session was very positive.
  Out of the 243 students who responded to a brief survey on surveymonkey, 92% said they would like to see more live Skype speakers.
• Project support meetings
  Tutors offer Adobe Connect Q&A sessions for team projects. They respond to questions (chat, voice), use the whiteboard to sketch ideas and diagrams and run quick polls for feedback.
  Live video broadcasts of the testing equipment and rigs in Engineering labs from mobile devices help illustrate design issues.
• Assignment Preparation
  Carl Reidsema and Lydia Kavanagh use Adobe Connect to provide students with guidelines for their final report by opening up a meeting with a group of students to the course. Students can join the conversation from the online space.
  In the discussion they cover what should be in the report meta-level sections, talk about formatting, report length, validation and verification, what constructive criticism looks like, the inclusion of quotes from reflections, the use of tables, and other topics. The break down provides students with an opportunity for clarification and helps them understand expectations and priorities.

How does it work?

All UQ staff have been allocated a perpetual meeting room based on their UQ username. Each room is accessed via the URL meet.uq.edu.au/<your username>. You can send this URL to invite meeting participants to a session.

More information

The EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative. (2006). 7 Things You Should Know About Virtual Meetings.
Retrieved from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7011.pdf

Virtual Classrooms at UQ
Retrieved from http://www.elearning.uq.edu.au