Elluminate, Google Docs and Skitch - Indispensable now....

Having learned about using Google Docs and Skitch with this group, I now find these indispensable in sharing information with my distance students, along with Elluminate.

Teaching the same course on-campus as well as off-campus enables me to ensure that all students, regardless of location, are given the same learning opportunities. It is challenging though to modify in-class activities that I do with the on-campus folks for the off-campus folks. I appreciate Elluminate so much. In the first slide show below, you can view the whiteboards from the March 31 session for off-campus that relates to the slides in the previous post displaying the work of the on-campus students (March 27). On campus, the student worked in small groups to lead writing activities - the photos are included in the March 27 slides in the previous post. With Elluminate, the off-campus students were enabled to do the same activity utilizing the whiteboards. (see slides 13-23 below)


I am currently taking an class (Alaska Reading for Adminstrators) through UAS delivered through Elluminate. Unfortunately, this instructor does little with Elluminate. The first few classes included visuals on the whiteboard....now, it's become really just an audio-conference class. The instructor is able to view who is online and, as students, we can give her some visual feedback with the "faces" and ability to "raise our hands". However, for visual learners like me....only audio is difficult for me to follow. This experience as a student encourages me to learn how to use "rich media" to help my off campus students participate fully.

My progression for my visuals for each class has been:
1. Create PowerPoint Presentation
2. Save it as JPEG
For On-campus -
3. Upload to Google Docs
4. Post as an item on Blackboard to share in class

For Off-Campus -
3. Upload to Elluminate for the class session.

After the on-campus class (or even during the class!), I modify the Google Docs version and that instantly updates the slides on Blackboard. For the off-campus folks, I can't modify as easily. After class, I use Skitch to take shots of the whiteboards we created in class and then add those shots to the original PowerPoint presentation. THEN, I can save that as JPEG, load them up to Google Docs and post the slides on Blackboard for the students to view later. Without Skitch, I don't think I would even attempt to do it.

This can be very time consuming. I'm wondering if I can cut out a step somewhere along the line to streamline my work....