Rewind: Exploring group video conferencing options

To start 2013, I thought I’d replay the five most popular blog posts from the 8 Blog and update them (if necessary).  Originally shared on May 24, 2011, this post is #5 on the 8 Blog’s all time most viewed list.   Since this was written almost two years ago, some of the fees and functionality have changed. 

Most people are familiar with Skype, which is the most popular video calling site online.  As I’ve written before, Skype is a one stop communication tool, allowing real time chat and voice & video calls to users around the world.  For the longest time, however, Skype didn’t support group calls.  You could call all of your friends in Finland as long as they all huddled around a single webcam.  While Skype worked on adding the group calling option, other sites got into the video conferencing act.  This week, I’m featuring several sites that offer video conferencing at different price points and with different features.  Each of the sites would be excellent tools for educators to foster real time conversations with colleagues and students who need to meet from a distance.  Educationally, the sites would be a great way to assemble speakers from around the world to present to a class or for an online instructor to provide tutoring to an online student.  While these sites offer educational benefits, we must also identify the economic benefits as well.  As travel costs continue to rise, video conferencing will grow in popularity and will become more standard practice in education.  Each of these sites will help get you started with video conferencing.

Skype:

While Skype only recently added group calls, I really like how they’ve built this functionality into their platform.  A Skype user needs to have a Premium account to start a group call, but then can call up to nine other people.  Skype offers a seven day free trial so users can test the feature out and a day pass so set up a handful of group calls for a specific day.   A Premium day pass is only $4.99 and a Premium subscription is only $9.99 a month.  If someone subscribes and pays for a full year, Skype only charges $4.99 a month.    These are hardly outrageous prices for what the site offers.  Skype apps are also available for iPhone and Droid devices.

ooVoo:

ooVoo has been around for a while but for some reason doesn’t have the name recognition that Skype has.  Like Skype, ooVoo offers free video calls to users from around the world.  Unlike Skype, however, ooVoo has supported free group conferencing for multiple callers for years.  Oovoo now supports up to 12 callers in a videoconference.  In addition to its free service,  ooVoo offers different subscription levels.  An ooVoo premium account costs $10 a month and supports 5 way video conferencing.  An ooVoo Premium account costs $2.99 a month which removes ads and provides screen sharing between users.

FaceFlow:

FaceFlow is still a relatively unknown video site.  It supports up to four callers and doesn’t require any downloads to work.  Users can video chat with one another or watch a YouTube video together.  My only reservation about the site is that it also supports a “random video chat system” that sounds eerily similar to Chatroulette, a site that understandably received a lot of negative press last year.  Used appropriately, however, FaceFlow would be a great way to assemble four people to video conference in an inexpensive manner.

iMeet:

iMeet is an enterprise quality video conferencing site that originally was pretty expensive ($69 a month).  Over the last two years, however, iMeet has become much more affordable.  A basic plan starts at just $19 a month and is intended for the occasional user.  An unlimited plan costs $59 a month.  The site offers a free 30 day trial, however, which might be helpful if an educator is trying to organize a group meeting with some colleagues.  The site supports up to 15 video feeds at a time and also allows users to phone into the conference room.  The unique feature of iMeet is that each video feed appears in its own “cube” which glows green when that person is speaking.  This would be a really helpful option when large groups are meeting online.

Google Hangouts:

Google Hangouts didn’t exist when the original post was shared in May 2011.  Today, however,  Google Hangouts offers one of the best solutions for people who want to video conference.  Google Hangouts supports up to 10 people in a video chat and offers integration with Google Documents.  This integration allows people to lead presentations or share documents within their video conference.  Users need to have a Google Plus account which isn’t the challenge it was when the social network was introduced in June 2011.

Celebrating Innovation in Education: An Update

Last Wednesday, I co-hosted two online sessions celebrating the innovative works of several local teachers.  The sessions were part of a week-long event called Education on Location: National Issues at Home that was organized by the School of Education at Millersville University.  The online sessions were really exciting and very inspirational.  Since many people were probably unable to attend the event due to its timing, we recorded the sessions.  If you have a moment, check out each of the sessions and watch the videos of the teachers’ projects.  You’ll see everything from Nanotechnology in an AP Chemistry classroom to Twitter being used as part of Geography lesson in an elementary classroom.

I’d like to thank David Solon, Instructional Technology Coordinator at the Lancaster-Lebanon Intermediate Unit for co-hosting the event and partnering with Millersville to organize these sessions.  I’d also like to thank all of the teachers for agreeing to participate in the sessions and for being such excellent models for innovation.

Elluminate! Session 7:30 a.m. Wednesday Sept. 28, 2011
(Note:  You’ll want to pause the presentation using the buttons on the lower left of the screen while the teacher videos play)

Teacher project videos from the 7:30 a.m. session:

• Classroom Newsletter using Google Docs  (Ms. Kari Miller from Central York School District)
• Twitter in 4th Grade Classroom   (Ms. Regina Peckmann from Central York School District)
• Google Docs for Language Arts    (Ms. Barbara Wagner from Hempfield School District)
• Videoconference for ESL Students  (Ms. Vicki Reed from Hempfield School District)
• Digital Storytelling Timeline   (Mr. Kevin Bower from Penn Manor School District)

Elluminate! Session 3:30 p.m. Wednesday Sept. 28, 2011
(Note:  You’ll want to pause the presentation using the buttons on the lower left of the screen while the teacher videos play)

Teacher project videos from the 3:30 p.m. session:

• Digital Storytelling Timeline  (Mr. Kevin Bower from Penn Manor School District)
• Music History with Web 2.0  (Mr. John Gabriele from Derry Township School District)
• Voicethread for Foreign Language Development  (Ms. Lisa Butler from Derry Township School District)
• Technology in Kindergarten  (Ms. Lindsay Boeckel from Central York School District)
• Nanotechnology in the Classroom  (Ms. Carlyn Fryberger from Ephrata School District)

Capture lessons on your iPad and flip your classroom

I’ve been playing around a lot with my iPad 2 lately and exploring different ways that I can incorporate the device into my teaching. I teach instructional technology to preservice teachers and utilize screencasting with my students. I typically use Jing and Screenflow on my laptop and was hoping to find a similar app for the iPad to demonstrate app usage to my students. While there is no easy screencasting solution for the iPad at this time, I found three great apps that would be excellent tools for capturing lessons. Consider using the apps to record a lecture and having your students watch the lecture BEFORE class. You can then use class time in other ways. Maybe the students could discuss the material in small groups or debate different concepts addressed in the lesson. This process is called “flipping the classroom” and is gaining some popularity with educators. In a flipped classroom, students attend to record lectures on their own (and at their own pace) and come to class to collaborate with their classmates and socially construct meaning of the content. “Flipping the classroom” changes the role of the instructor from someone who delivers of information to someone who facilitates learning. To get started, consider using one of these apps.

Screen Chomp:
In its easy-to-use interface, Screen Chomp offers a white erase board and several markers. Users can import photos from the Camera Roll but cannot pull in Powerpoint or Keynote slides. Though it is limited in its functionality, it would be great tool to create a lesson that walks through a math problem or for annotating some diagram. Screen Chomp is free on the App Store and it would be ideal for younger children who want to record a story or for anyone to create and capture short lessons. My only criticism is how Screen Chomp shares its captured lessons online. Users can only share their Screen Chomps at www.screenchomp.com or through a Facebook account. To see how Screen Chomp works, check out the following tutorial:

Show Me:
Like Screen Chomp, Show Me is free and easy to use. It offers a simple white erase board with several markers. Unlike Screen Chomp, however, Show Me offers even less sharing options online. Once you’ve captured a lesson, your only option is saving it to the Show Me Community which houses all of the lesson captures created with Show Me. That being said, the site allows you to embed the screen captures from showme.com to other locations online.

Explain Everything:
Explain Everything is a full-function lesson capture application that is honestly much more robust than its $2.99 price would suggest. Besides having a white erase board, Explain Everything offers text, shapes, and easy integration with DropBox and Evernote. You can pull in Keynote and Powerpoint slides and record yourself walking through a presentation. Explain Everything even offers several saving and sharing solutions (YouTube, for instance). Once you’ve captured a lesson, you can even save the lesson to your Camera Roll and edit it with iMovie. To get started, check out this Explain Everything tutorial:

Students Assess their Profs’ Tech Skills

I found this video interview last week on the Chronicle of Higher Education’s website.  In the interview, the moderator talks with four students from different schools about their professors’ use of technology in the classroom.  The interview highlights the good and the bad in terms of technology integration.  One student talks about how his professor held office hours through Skype to allow more access to students.  Another student complains about a professor who was totally dependent on her Powerpoint slides, saying “PowerPoint is the apple in the Garden of Eden I think, to be honest. It leads down the line of temptation.”  With Powerpoint, the student explains, some professors are tempted to dump text onto a slide without students being able to know how it all fits together.  While the students’ opinions are being debated on the Chronicle website, I think their viewpoints are interesting and educational.  As educators, it can help us to know our students’ point of view.

On a side note, the video also demonstrates GooglePlus’s Hang Out feature, where a group of people can video chat with one another.

Exploring group video conferencing options

Most people are familiar with Skype, which is the most popular video calling site online.  As I’ve written before, Skype is a one stop communication tool, allowing real time chat and voice & video calls to users around the world.  For the longest time, however, Skype didn’t support group calls.  You could call your all of friends in Finland as long as they all huddled around a single webcam.  While Skype worked on adding the group calling option, other sites got into the video conferencing act.  This week, I’m featuring several sites that offer video conferencing at different prices points and with different features.  Each of the sites would be excellent tools for educators to foster real time conversations with colleagues and students who need to meet from a distance.  Educationally, the sites would be a great way to assemble speakers from around the world to present to a class or for an online instructor to provide tutoring to an online student.  While these sites offer educational benefits, we must also identify the economic benefits as well.  As travel costs continue to rise, video conferencing will grow in popularity and will become more standard practice in education.  Each of these sites will help get you started with video conferencing.

Skype:

While Skype only recently added group calls, I really like how they’ve built this functionality into their platform.  A Skype user needs to have a Premium account to start a group call, but then can call up to nine other people.  Skype offers a seven day free trial so users can test the feature out and a day pass so set up a handful of group calls for a specific day.   A Premium day pass is only $4.99 and a Premium subscription is only $8.99 a month.  These are hardly outrageous prices for what the site offers.

ooVoo:

ooVoo has been around for a while but for some reason doesn’t have the name recognition that Skype has.  Like Skype, ooVoo offers free video calls to users from around the world.  Unlike Skype, however, ooVoo has supported free group conferencing for up to three callers for years.  In addition to its free service,  ooVoo offers different subscription levels.  An ooVoo premium account costs $10 a month and supports 5 way video conferencing.  An ooVoo Premium account costs $30 a month and supports 6 way video conferencing.    If adding one extra caller sounds pretty expensive, a Premium account also offers additional features like screen sharing and increased storage capacity.  If you’d like to take ooVoo Premium for a spin, the site offers a free 30 day trial.

FaceFlow:

FaceFlow is relatively new video site.  It supports up to four callers and doesn’t require any downloads to work.  Users can video chat with one another or watch a YouTube video together.  My only reservation about the site is that it also supports a “random video chat system” that sounds eerily similar to Chatroulette, a site that understandably received a lot of negative press last year.  Used appropriately, however, FaceFlow would be a great way to assemble four people to video conference in an inexpensive manner.

iMeet:

iMeet is an enterprise quality video conferencing site that is pretty expensive for educators ($69 a month!).  The site offers a free 30 day trial, however, which might be helpful if an educator is trying to organize a group meeting with some colleagues.  The site supports up to 15 video feeds at a time and also allows users to phone into the conference room.  The unique feature of iMeet is that each video feed appears in its own “cube” which glows green when that person is speaking.  This would be a really helpful option when large groups are meeting online.