Firstly there was a bit of setting up time involved. Cormac had advised to get there a bit earlier and I think most of did this. Certainly at 5mins to the start when I joined most people were already there. One of the participants joined later on via phone which was an interesting experience - her voice signal was better than all but we also had to consider her lack of senses while we used Wimba's mixed model mediums. There was a bit of time spent at the beginning of the class were Cormac welcomed us all one by one and encouraged us to use our webcam or Talk button to introduce ourselves to the session. there were participants there who were distance students with whom I had not talked to, in a way that's a pity. I guess that this scene setting is important.
It was interesting see other participants in their own environment. I would imagaine that most had spent some time (if they intended to use their webcam) in dressing the environment. Cormac at one point apolagised because he blew his nose but again this might be one consideration as he does not have a room of people seemingly in front of him it's something to consider.
It was really good with Cormac leading a small presentation. I loved having the chatroom there. It was like having a running commentary/conversation on the course of the lecture without feeling as if we are being rude. I thought that it allowed us to have a joint consciousness on interpretation of the resources that Cormac was using. There was an element of peer support and chat which was good. Sometimes I felt that with such a lot on screen Cormac would regulalry loose the plot of the presentation to read the chat. I wonder what it would be like as a presenter - would he be looking to use the chat window in much the same way as he would look to his in-class students for their level of comprehension or interavctivity. It was really good, and I think it brought us to a deeper level of understanding. I think that it would have been difficult to have followed a really long presentation particularly if it had of been a 'less interesting' subject (luckily Cormac's lecture in a/sync comms was good like all of his lectures!).
There wasn't much chance for non-listening, discussion activities, for example to set tasks. By having a smaller group size I suppose that throughout the course of the lecture we were carrying out what would be a discussion activity, and again there were benefits through people being able to contribute via text chat. But not much scope for break out rooms.
There was talk about weither this would work in sharing a live event, or for students in class sat next to each other. It would be interesting to see groups present via this method.
There was a lot of analysis of the use of Txtspeech and ways of abreviating. Maybe we could talk faster and use the language we would normally use in this mode of comms.
We were excited to use this new medium and it would be good to do this again now that we know what to expect.
The group size was small. I wondered if people interacted in the same wasy as if we were holding the class face to face. People who would normally be vocal in class were also also active online. I noticed that practically all had responded and raised points using one of the methods provided by wimba. I wondered if thos that would be more vocal in class were quieter online, as if they gave everybody an equal chance to speak. I'm not sure.
Overall a very positive experience. I only lost the connection once thanks to a colleague moving me on. But I feel totally nourished by the exp.
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