A couple of weeks ago I wrote an article about some of the new features available in Vista for Education. Today I finally found some time to test out one of those features, Window’s Meeting Place. This article reviews the features, pro’s, con’s and possible educational uses of the program.
Features:
- Users – A complete list of users is shown on the right hand side
- Note – Double click on a user and send them a note. (Note: does not function like a chat screen… only one way.)
- Share your entire desktop or just one program with the whole meeting – each participant can share their desktop too, but only one at a time. You can also give control of your desktop to any participant!
- Attach “Handouts” – The rest of the meeting can open a copy and edit a local copy (will not affect the original).
- Ability to connect directly with a projector with an IP address (not shown above).
Set-up:
Setting up a meeting or joining one was super easy!!
- Start up Window’s Meeting Space
- Click Start New Meeting (or join a meeting already in progress – shown on sign in screen)
- Give your meeting a name and a password and hit the little arrow button.
After you have started the meeting you can invite others via e-mail. The invitation will include a small attachment that the participants
only need to double click to join. You can also invite people directly if they are in the local network. They just accept the invitation and join in. Nice!
Pro’s:
- Easy and fast to set up a meeting and connect with other’s around you.
- Works both in an online environment or just connecting computers together where there is no network connection.
- Great way to share files with a class in real time.
- You can’t beat the collaboration ability! The response in instantaneous! No lag.
- FREE! Need I say more!
Con’s:
- Only supports up to 10 people at a time.
- No voice support, so another option (Skype… Skypecast?) would have to be employed for those not in the same room.
- No integrated Chat options… although the note is a beginning.
- When sharing program the content on everyone else’s computer goes blank when you navigate away from the shared program.
Educational Uses:
- The best and most obvious use would be in a classroom. If you had a small class and you wanted to share a presentation, but didn’t have a projector you could just all meet there and present. Not only could you present, you could share documents and the whole class could share content they found with each other! Great for a lab class!
- Document Collaboration. Have you ever tried to huddle around one monitor as several people tried to edit a document. Just log into the meeting room and edit the document together. (Con, only one person can have control of the mouse, but all could see it).
- Small Group Projects. Have students inside of a class set up their own meetings and collaborate on a project.
- Remote Assistance. Although this is probably not what it is meant for, you could set up a meeting and send a student an invitation. They could then share their desktop and give you the control if they need help configuring something on their computer.
- Remote Class. Although it would be hard without the audio integration, you could certainly set up a remote classroom and conference call (using Skype or another program).
I’m sure this is just the beginning. What other ideas do you have? How will you/have you used Microsoft Meeting Space?
By Jeff
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Posted on: February 14, 2007 at 3:51 pm
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“Memex” is a device that records everything to do… literally EVERYTHNG. Video, audio, temperature, weather, what programs you are using on your computer… EVERYTHING. It is a virtual memory of types.
My Introduction to Memex
I first heard about this intriguing device about six months ago in a lecture given by John Oberlin (Associate Chancellor of Information Technology at UNC) specifically for our staff. Today my ‘real’ memory was jogged by an article published on our University’s research site. Here is a picture of the device as it stands right now.
Potential and Pitfalls
When I first heard about this amazing device I was intrigued, but also a little scared. To be able to go back and search through EVERYTHING that has happened in life could really be a useful tool. I did however, ask about the ramifications of having EVERYTHING you said to everyone else recorded. I know there are some things in my life I would rather not have remembered.
We are already often challenged with managing our “online identities.” Many people can not get jobs because of some of the silly things we did back in college that show up in search results or on social networking sites. A variety of websites have popped up like claimID that provide tools for managing the positive things about us, and hopefully moving the negative things further down on the Google search results.
Conclusion
I must say I am still intrigued about the whole “memex” idea… but a little wary. What do you think? There are obvious amazing uses for education. For one, teachers won’t have to be trained to record themselves and post it online. Each student could do that for themselves. What other possibilities do you forsee?
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Technorati Tags: memex
By Jeff
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Posted on: January 26, 2007 at 8:03 am
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This afternoon I went to a meeting of the techie minds here on campus to discuss the implementation of Vista. There were quite a few people that acted like the implementation of Vista was a terrible, but necessary evil. A lot of the discussion focused around the new Office 2007 suite. From a support standpoint I can see how this upgrade could be a nightmare. The changes in Office navigation are quite significant, especially for long time users of the suite, with little apparent added functionality.
On the other hand, I have been using Vista and the Office Suite for several months as my primary machine and have not had any significant problems. I left the meeting trying to reconcile my experience with what I had just witnessed. I decided I was going to look for what was different/good about the upgrade.
All I.T. people tell you Vista is more secure, and it does have a multitude of security features that make it more safe, but an every day educator cares more about it working and functioning that how safe it is. I decided to look at specifically at how the upgrade to Vista helps us out as educators? What specific traits does it have that would be make it advantageous for us to upgrade to Vista? What added functionality will help me educate better? Here is my list:
- Organization
There is no question that the biggest reason to upgrade has to be the added search capabilities. Since installing Vista on my machine I no longer use the cumbersome start menu to get to programs. I just click start and type in the program I want.
Microsoft (taking a lesson from Google Desktop) has now created an indexed catalog of your computer so you have instant search results that include inside of documents. Great for finding that paper you wrote 5 years ago.
- Instant Information
Vista has a built in Gadget and Sidebar Engine that let’s you add little modules to your desktop with real-time updating information about ANYTHING. Time, Stocks, Calendar’s, anything! Yahoo and Google both have these already, but they take up a lot of resources and slow down your machine.In an awesome move Vista has added native RSS feed capabilities to Outlook and their integrated Gadget’s. As I discussed in an earlier post, this added feature is a must have for any educator who needs to keep up on current events and happenings!
- Collaboration
Collaboration is a must have as a good educator. As educators we often need to share files with students or colleagues as we work on programs. If we are not comfortable using an online program like Google Docs then Vista gives us the added capability of sharing a folder in public space.Vista has a new ‘Meeting Space‘ feature that allows users to create a space for up to 10 users to meet and collaborate in real time. I have not been able to test it out yet, but a software like this would be great for meeting with your class or between students working on a project.
- Backup
There are added protections to help you not lose data. You can read about them all here in detail, but my favorite is the windows backup and previous versions of documents that are available should you accidentally change something you didn’t mean to.
- Multimedia
Vista has added functionality to the photo manager, media player, movie maker and media center. As video becomes more and more prevalent in education, users will need ways to edit those easily.
This is just a short list of some of the improvements Microsoft has made to their windows platform. You can read a whole lot more on their Vista website if you have interest.
Disclaimer:
I realize that most of these additions are already available on through second hand software or on the Mac. (There has even been discussion about Microsoft just copying Mac’s.) That being said, there is something to be said about integrated technology. 90% of our campus used Windows, so it is going to happen.
Homework:
What other added functionality do you see as benefiting the academic community?
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Technorati Tags: microsoft vista, office 2007, microsoft education
By Jeff
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Posted on: January 23, 2007 at 4:06 pm
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