Guest blogged by Roxanne Glaser

Because our philosophy of using videoconferencing is based on interactiveness, today’s post will focus on how to manage your site to maximize the quality of the audio that you are sending.

It is truly amazing that I get to work everyday with technology that I watched on cartoons. The technology of the codec takes audio and video and moves it to distances near and far. The trick is to learn to wait for the technology to work its magic and not talk too much when you should be waiting. It takes a few milliseconds longer for video to switch if you are in a multi-point, bridged call like we use for Texas History Mystery or MysteryQuest connections. With these 7 tips, you can make the connection run much more smoothly.

7 Tips for Better Audio in a Videoconference

1. Use pauses. Say what you have to say and then mute your microphone.
2. When asking questions, ask the question and show a visual of the question (if possible) and then use teacher wait time. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.
3. If participating in a challenge or a multi-point event, always go in the same order. A good facilitator will tell you the order in the beginning and follow it throughout the connection. Write this order somewhere for the students to see so that they will know when their turn is coming.
4. Place the microphone on a hard surface near the student speaking area. (If you hear a weird echo, the microphone might be too close to speakers in either the television or the videoconferencing system.)
5. Assume that we can see and hear you. When you first check in, state, “Hello, this is ______ from ______ school in __________.” Then mute your microphone. The other site(s) will respond back to you.
6. Mute the microphone before you move it. ALWAYS!
7. Keep all paper away from the microphone. This includes copy paper, butcher paper, tissue paper, newspaper, candy wrapper paper and any other kind of paper that you might have in the room with you. For some reason, microphones magnify paper noise about 1000% in a videoconference. (If anyone knows an engineer, ask them if that is the exact number!)

Here’s an old post by Janine on Planned Pauses

Comments–What are some other tips for improving the audio quality in videoconferences?

How do you teach your staff and students about effective use of the microphone in a session?

Guest blogged by Roxanne Glaser

In any survey that we conduct, one of the main roadblocks to implementing videoconferencing in the curriculum is the time crunch felt by building coordinators. Most coordinators are classroom teachers, campus instructional technologists, media specialists, or even the district technology director.

10-Minute Organization

1. Create a binder to keep organized. Divide it by months. Print out copies of the confirmation emails that you receive. Don’t print out an email until you have an agreement on the project. Highlight phone numbers, dates, and times.

Here is my binder that I used to manage my 56 Read Around the Planet connections in 2007.

2. Conduct all your test calls on a certain day of the week / time that’s good for you. Always ask first for the test call to increase the chance of it fitting into your schedule.

3. Give two choices when communicating with content provider or partner. “We can connect with you on April 15 or April 18 between 9:00-11:00 Central time.” Instead of saying, “What time is good for you?”

4. Check out the time zone for the other site. Use this handy online planner to see the times for the date you are planning a connection. Remember about daylight savings time! http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/meeting.html

5. Add time zones for all participating sites in written communications.

6. Use manila folders to manage data that doesn’t change much and you need to access quickly.  (This is for information that only you need!)

I make a manila folder for projects that have 20 or fewer classes. This is the one I use to help manage Bluebonnet Conference.

7. Pick up the phone! If it is going to take a long paragraph to explain something in an email, call the other person. Janine wrote about the efficiency of the phone during Read Around the Planet connections. (Make sure your phone number is included on all your emails.)

Bonus Tip for Advanced Collaborators:
Use Google Docs or Zoho or a wiki to manage data that you AND your partners need to access.

Challenge for today:

• Make either a notebook or a manila folder to start your organization.
• Find the last email that you sent related to a videoconference.
• Check your email for the following: time zones, dates, and your phone number. If you received that email, would you know what the next steps are? Would you have any questions about it?
• Add an organization or time management tip that makes your life easier in the comments section.

Guest blogged by Roxanne Glaser

Our challenge today will focus on some visual aspects of videoconferencing. Showing signs, objects, and students in a videoconference does take a bit of planning ahead. We run many curriculum videoconference projects each year and have learned some tips about how to present content in conferences. A few small adjustments can significantly improve the visual quality of your connections.

7 ways to improve what others see from your site during a videoconference

1. Site Identifying Sign: large PRINT, san serif font and BOLD can be on 8.5 x 11, but needs to be stable.

Advanced: include contact phone number and a map of your location

2. Use a document camera to show objects or 8.5 x 11 documents clearly to other sites. This is an essential tool if you are teaching a class via videoconference because you can write as you teach.

3. Fake a document camera. Zoom in and create a preset.

• To create a preset on a Polycom, move the camera so that it captures the document.
• Press and hold one of the numbers on the number pad.
• Watch the screen. It will tell you when the preset is activated.
• Next, move the camera to where the class would be sitting. Press and hold a DIFFERENT number.
• Watch the screen. When it tells you that preset is stored, you are ready to test your presets.
• Press the number of your first preset and the camera should move to the document area.
• Press the number of the second preset and the camera should focus on the whole class area. Keep practicing!

Don’t be afraid to either zoom the camera in tight or move the document or object close to the camera. Zoom in on a smart board. This was used for an interactive Mad-lib during our Holiday Challenge.

Here are many more examples of the power of a great zoom from our Monster Match and Landmark connections this past year.

4. Seat your students appropriately for the type of connection. A presentation where students are just listening is different than a Gadget Works connection where students work in groups. Always check to make sure how the partner site would like for your students to be seated.

5. Have a place for student speakers (with your sign for bonus points). This is a great place for students to stand to ask questions. It seems that the students take the preparation to a higher level when they stand rather than when they remain seated next to their buddies and ask questions.

6. Set up a couple of desks near the microphone.

7. Use tape to mark the spot that coordinates to the preset.

Now for today’s challenge. Make your site sign. Practice with your presets. Add an idea to our list. We need four more tips about improving what we see from each site.

Guest Blogged by Roxanne Glaser

Most videoconference project coordination is done via email. Even when you register online for a project in CAPspace or for a session of Weather With Rusty, there is always some detail that needs to be confirmed or an adjustment to a schedule. Time for an email tune-up. Estimated time for this challenge 2-10 minutes.

Email Tune-up

1. Set up an email signature if your system does not automatically add one.
2. Include text from previous messages
3. Copy all recipients on the project

Setting up and email signature takes about 5 minutes and can help your partners be able to contact you more easily. Don’t assume that they know your area code for your phone number! Here are step-by-step guides for you to follow if you use Outlook or Gmail. I know it seems unnecessary to some, but include your email in your signature as some email clients do not show it and if you are not the original recipient you might need it. The comments to this post from 2006 on LifeHacker do a great job of listing some tips for what not to do when using email.

What to put in your email signature:

Full name
email
Title | School | City,State
555-555-5555

Including text from previous email messages is critical as you work with teachers, content providers, or other coordinators to hammer out the details of a project. It enables everyone to follow the flow of the email conversation. This requires a setting in your email client that includes the previous messages in each email. (Yes, it can get annoying with the signature in it, but we deal with that!)

In Outlook, go to Tools->Options->Preferences Tab: Email Options (You have different choices about how exactly it will look, just make sure that it includes the original message!)

Use the REPLY ALL button when working with partners to develop a project or confirm videoconference details with content providers. We all acknowledge that it does take a great deal of coordination to make sure that all sites agree to the same date and time. It is crucial to summarize the details and communicate them to all parties involved. This will help make sure that your technical support people or bridge personnel will have all the details that they need.

Example of confirmation email reply to all teachers and coordinators for a collaboration:

All,

We have finally agreed on the time and date for our cultural exchange. Each fourth grade class will be presenting a song, a poem, a piece of artwork and a short skit to share the heritage of their community. We will have a map to show our location and a brief introduction to our school and class.

Date: May 8, 2009
Time: 8:30-9:30 AM CDT (9:30-10:30 AM EDT)

School A: (insert name and technical details and contact info here)
School B: (insert name and technical details and contact info here)

We are looking forward to working with your class and learning more about your school and community.

All the best,

Roxanne Glaser
rglaser @ esc12.net
555-555-5555

Your mission today is to check your signature and if your email includes the original message. Already completed that task? Then your challenge is to add another tip for email etiquette in the comments section for us to share with other coordinators.

Day 1: 20 Days to a Better VC Coordinator
Happy New Year! And welcome to a new challenge! After participating in Steve Dembo’s 30 Days to a Better Blogger Challenge in November, I thought it would be fun to create a challenge for VC coordinators. I invited Roxanne Glaser to join me, so we will be collaborating and cross-posting each day’s challenge on our respective blogs. Since I believe in balance to our lives, we’ll only be posting on weekdays – hence the 20 days. Join us for the new year to improve your skills in coordinating videoconferencing in your area!

We’re targeting school level coordinators as our primary audience, but we know district and regional level VC coordinators will benefit from this exercise too. To get the updates, you can subscribe to either of our blogs in your favorite reader (Roxanne or Janine ), or via email.

Setting Up
This week, we’ll focus on setting up for videoconferencing – settings, email, using the system, etc. Each week we’ll have a different focus.

Today’s challenge is to check two little settings on your videoconferencing system. Beginning coordinators, you may have someone do this for you instead! or just use it as background information. I promise the other challenges won’t be this in depth on your system!!

Mute on Auto Answer
I support 70 videoconference units, and one thing that really bugs me is unmuted mics in multi-point conferences.

Why is it a problem?

A multi-point call has more than two sites in the call (also referred to as a bridged call). If mics are unmuted, the video usually switches to whoever is talking. Side conversations, shuffling papers, sneezes and coughs can all cause the video to switch to your site when you didn’t mean to talk. The solution is, mute your mic!

If your system isn’t muted when a call comes in, all kinds of interesting audio gets broadcasted to everyone else in the call. This is sometimes amusing at the beginning of meetings, but very annoying in events like COSI’s expert interviews and Megaconference and Megaconference Junior. Watch the Videoconference Zone video for some hilarious examples.

Many of my school VC coordinators can’t be in the room all the time for the videoconference. If you aren’t in the room when the VC starts, it’s best to have the mic muted. This way, I can connect the room on the bridge and everything is ready to go.

So, a great way to avoid many of these problems is to check your settings! Here’s how to set two of the more common systems to mute when it auto answers a call:

• Polycom VSX: Go to System, Admin, Audio Settings, check Mute Auto Answer Calls.
• Tandberg MXP: Go to Control Panel, then the General category. Choose Autoanswer On + Mic Off. (Thx, Arnie!)

On other systems, look in your settings for Audio. Please comment and add instructions for any units that we didn’t include here.

System Name
While you’re in settings, check your system name (usually under general settings). It may also be under H323 settings as H323 name. I’ve written before about the value of an accurate name for your videoconference system. Make sure it’s a name, not just a number. This makes it much easier for bridges to manage the call and know who you are! Also, some bridges show this name at the bottom of the screen when the video switches. I know some authors and specialists in the ASK programs watch that to help them remember which site they are talking to.

Comment
Please join in the discussion during this challenge. Here are some ideas for your comment:

• If you agree or disagree with these suggestions and why.
• Step by step settings instructions for another system that we didn’t list.
• If you were able to do the challenge and how it went.

Comment image by Mark James under Creative Commons 2.5 Attribution License.
Polycom microphone image by sschaufe on Flickr.