Last week:  I spent part of the day today looking at Blackboard Communicate. We will be having some sessions using this software as part of the Masters course and it is useful to be able to see what its capabilities are. As with any organisation at the present time, cost-cutting is on the agenda and we are looking at ways of delivering some of our courses by distance learning.

Today: Had our first proper session using Elluminate and it does have some exciting possibilities. A little slow at times, it was a good way to bring together the class and for us to have a brief discussion about progress. It was made interactive through the use of the ‘poll’ facility, allowing us to vote on a couple of questions. We also took turns in using the audio. I found this a little strange in that you are ‘on’ and it is difficult to gauge the feedback from the group with no facial expressions or comments. A little impersonal. Video could improve that but slows the bandwidth and given that it was a little broken even with just the audio, this is not yet feasible with home technology. I shall look forward to exploring this technology further through later sessions.

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