Online communication tools for events

Link to above eLearning presentation tools site

Here's the question: how are online communication tools used to facilitate online?

As far as using tools to facilitate online events there really has to be a short list of requirements. The tool has to be available to most people, easy to use and allow a range of ways to present data. A couple of years ago I would have said too that it would have to be able to project images of people talking but after having used Elluminate I think just aural communication can be quite engaging and do the trick. It means a lot of facilitating depends on picking up non-obvious, non-visual cues from the audience.

There's not much to choose between the biggies of the online facilitation world: Elluminate and Adobe Connect. Having used both recently, I think I'm drifting towards Adobe as it has a better interface that works for me.

During the event presentations I sat through several people, via recordings that I could play back in my own time, speaking about their favourite on-line tools. There were message services like texting and Twitter, chat stuff like MSN even book marking services that allow us to collate and organise highlights of our Internet journeys. Although these are valuable tools they have some limitations compared with, say, Adobe Connect when it comes to an on-line event. It might be interesting to try an email conversation with a group who are simultaneously broadcasting to each member and commenting on received mails. Almost synchronous.

If I were asked about Internet tools as opposed to event facilitation tools, I'd talk about my three current favourites: Chrome, Googledocs and Evernote. Chrome is easily the best browser for me and I find surfing a pleasure and not a fight with clutter now. I use the others: Firefox, Safari, Explorer, Opera and some funny ones I found on the iPad. However I always come back to Chrome that is clean and fast and easy for me. Googledocs is a revelation about the way you can work. Just use the cloud for everything. My third fave is Evernote that collects up all those things you can't quite delete and saves and organisies them for next time you visit and remembers everything.

Back to event software I've not tried WebEX or Blackboard collaborate and my aim after this course is to get good at our Adobe Connect product for which we have an institutional commitment. The difficiencies in online tools of this nature can be compensated for by best teaching practice and student engagement.