Uses and Alternatives

Name Department Role (faculty, staff, GA/TA) Experience Expectations

 UMConnect (Adobe Connect)  Strength: Powerpoint presentation; live with ability to archive  Weakness: absolutely dependent on ‘Net connectivity; cannot edit or download product  Adobe Presenter  Strength: Allows generation and publication of slide show with soundtrack. Local files with central ‘publication’  Weakness: It’s a glorification of Powerpoint

 Skype (free video conferencing software):  Strength: fairly robust audio and video conferencing  Weakness: No application sharing; some security and resource-use cautions  Polycom PVX sofware  Strength: good rendition of H.323 video conferencing with desktop sharing  Weakness: cost; single-user most effective

 Video only  UTube? iTunesU? Web site?  Strength – Can be very simple to do  Weakness – not interactive… but can be quite effective. Time to produce depends on a wide series of factors  Audio only  podcast? iTunesU? Web site?  Strength – Can be very simple to do. Extremely portable product!  Weakness – not interactive… but can be quite effective. Time to produce depends on a wide series of factors

 Can have multiple ‘hosts’ or presenters  That tiny video window? It can be expanded, and may or may not work (bandwidth concerns)  Ethernet spirits willing, you can have multiple computers in the same room  You CAN video conference if all goes well

 Live conference with Powerpoint slides  Live conference video conferencing  1 st choice would be dedicated system ($$$)  UMConnect can work very well… it can also not  Live conference desktop sharing or whiteboarding

 The problem is not always in your set  Success depends on available bandwidth  This is NOT something you can control  Best times are before 11am and after 5pm  Wireless will [sometimes] work. Etherjack is highly preferred  HOWEVER, pay attention to your cable length… stringing long lengths to get to that Etherjack is a bad idea  If possible, test the configuration (place, time)

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 Consider your needs. UMConnect is best suited to deliver a Powerpoint presentation (or multiple Powerpoint presentations), live with the potential to save.  LIVE. POWERPOINT. Other uses can work but are not as likely to succeed.  Share the Powerpoint(s) ahead of time and use Skype to conference (or even a phone conference)  REMEMBER THE TELEPHONE!

 Share the Powerpoints and the recorded audio from the live session (asynchronous solution)  Adobe Presenter (asynchronous solution)  Podcast (nothing beyond the audio)  Higher end productions (asynchronous) can be dealt with in video editing solutions… time consuming

Example - Class orientation: Example - A class lecture: Go get it:

For Information: For Production:

Allow adequate setup time – It is possible to create a site and be ready to go in 15min including time to upload your presentation. Are you sure this is how you want to do it??? Check you sound setup… and check it again Keep Powerpoints simple – no video; make sure that the presentation uploads and functions correctly (it IS a conversion) If you are recording – Break it up separate recording of introduction, presentation, questions You are transmitting a presentation – If your speaker has no ‘slides’, get a pic of the speaker and create a slide to use for that talk!