proceedings of Student Mobility and ICT: Can E-LEARNING

Notes from the Choice of Applications
In making decisions about the applications to use, some important points to reflect upon while
making selections emerged. The most salient would be:
• Choose what you know, and know how to use. Choosing an application that has an unfamiliar
interface, even if it promises more features, or to do a better presentation will probably detract
from the final presentation.
• Know the limits of the transport medium and the presenter
• Configuration – By changing roles, the presentation may be smoother. In other words, by
choosing the site where the audience was to be as the server, and having the presenter connect as a
remote client, the presenter saw the screen scraping and not the audience. Thus, changes appeared
jerky for the presenter and the not the audience.
• Consider the amount of time it takes to get everything running. Some applications take longer to
start, and get connected. There should be ample time for both the presenter and the facilitator on
the audience side to get the applications open and running before the presentation begins.
Choosing the simplest applications for login and starting can significantly improve the chances for
success.
Configuration session
After selecting the technologies, and making the initial tests, both the host and presenter met for a
session a few weeks prior to the presentation to configure Skype, Eluminate and the audio/video input
devices. The session was conducted on machines plugged into the same subnet in the same room.(1) Tests
were conducted as to quality of the video feed resolution and sound for Eluminate. Based on the tests, it
was decided to use Skype for the presenter’s audio/video.
The university uses a deprecated version of Skype which cannot supernode, and it was not initially
possible for the two Skype clients to see one another. While the two users, who were sitting next to one
another, and whose computers were plugged into the same switch could not find one another in the
contacts, they could make Skype calls to other people from their contact lists that were outside of the
University. After making the external calls, then it became possible for the two Skype clients to add the
new user, and make a connection.
Boot time to go live
Even with a fully configured system tested and in place, one should still plan that on the day of the
presentation to establish connections and open all of the applications takes a certain amount of time. Note
that actually, at the minimum there is at least three times more work to be done than a normal presentation.
Each application must be opened on each side, and then the connection tested. All applications which will
be used during the presentation should be opened on both computers. This includes a copy of the
application which used for physically making the presentation such as Microsoft powerpoint or word. One
may ask, why should a copy of Microsoft word be opened locally on the presenter’s computer, if it will be
shared from the host computer via the Eluminate vRoom? While the point may seem counterintuitive, the
step provides a failsafe.
As will be shown, having the presentation open locally for the presenter may have saved the
delivery by providing the audience a relatively seamless production when in fact connectivity with one of
the applications had been lost temporarily. The presenter could continue to read from the local copy and
explain the points, although it was entirely impossible to control the application remotely.
The Setup
Part of going live is getting set up. There are some physical details such as configuring the angle
of the camera, and checking the background that are best done without the stress of an impending live feed.
For the presenter the key details are quiet space with low background noise, and a neutral
background. The camera should be mounted in such a way as to make the presenter appear to be looking
into the camera even when they are looking at screen and reading.
Conference proceedings of Student Mobility and ICT: Can E-LEARNING overcome barriers of Life-Long learning?” 118