Online Meetings
From StcWiki
Contents |
[edit] Introduction
Online Meetings is a project of the Online SIG. The team has determined that podcasting is the quickest way to distribute educational programming on a regular basis.
The SIG has been posting podcasts as well as video and slide files on the Events page of Hyperviews Online. Education Lead Tom Johnson also posts podcasts regularly; "Online SIG Leads" in the Hyperviews Online right navigation has a link to his site, Tech Writer Voices.
In the spring of 2006, the Carolina chapter planned to post a podcast audio overview to go with the chapter's RSS presentation. If that is well-received, the STC Carolina chapter planned to try recording the regular monthly membership meetings to pair with presentations for the benefit of remote chapter members.
The Carolina chapter's Trends & Technology LSIG used Yugma to hold a "virtual" meeting. In addition to the folks attending at the actual site, several people attended (and participated) online. Read more....
[edit] Podcasting References
Lou Quillio on a Tech Valley Chapter podcast
Lou Quillio on sound editing software
Podcasts and Online Meetings topic on the STC Forum
How-to information from Tom Johnson
[edit] Information Gathered by the Team
The Instructional Design and Learning SIG held the first-ever STC SIG-sponsored webinar on March 15, 2006 and is holding a second on October 18, 2006. The IDL SIG has developed a process and procedures for offering webinars, briefly described on Online Meetings Process and Procedures.
STC offers webinars using WebEx.
[edit] Information of Interest
It would be of interest to identify all the tools and technologies that we might use for online meetings and online learning, including those that allow interactive training and conference call options, or comprehensive listings of those tools and technologies.
Factors of interest include cost, limit of logons, whether the conference option is included or separate, and for interactive video options, whether we get the video and/or audio captured for later distribution.
[edit] Looking Ahead
The current trend among Web practitioners for quick and easy posting of meetings, conference presentations, and workshopsis to distribute the audio as podcasts and provide an accompanying slide presentation (in one format or another), which the user can follow along with manually. This trend has become popular for at least three reasons:
- It's easier than using other technologies that were intended for such things.
- It's inexpensive compared to other more robust systems.
- It largely grew out of a cult-like love for Apple's i-pod, and the creative minds that make up the Apple user community (as opposed to a profit-driven solution or product). Funny (interesting) how things work.
In any case, there's one big problem with delivering information this way--it's not accessible as defined by the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiave, particularly as defined in the Web Content Accessbility Guidelines 1.0. One of the main problems is a lack of synchronicity between the audio and visual components (the podcast audio and the slide presentation).
SMIL, an XML-based language, is the W3C's standard format for deliverying multimedia online (post-processed), and can be viable for delivering synchronized media elements. SMIL has been around a while but it's been rather slow to be adopted, largely due to the rapid acceptance of Flash, which took over the multimedia market with its much easier-to-use development platform. SMIL has no platform for developers that works as easily. However, SMIL is not difficult to understand and produce, and there are emerging tools that can help with the authoring phases.
For more information, see SMIL Resources. (You can use the signature button, the second from the right with the cursive writing, to sign your posts like this): Destry 18:57, 26 May 2006 (UTC))
