Archive for the ‘Adobe Connect Pro’ Category

Service Sheet: Adobe Connect Pro

Adobe Connect (formerly Breeze Meeting) at Penn State is the Web-based videoconferencing system centrally supported by Information Technology Services (ITS) across the Penn State community. Live, collaborative interactions including videoconferencing, application sharing, polling, chat, and whiteboards take place right on your desktop.

Our Service Sheets have been designed for you to print and share with others. It will provide you with the main details around this service and should give you all the information you may need to begin taking advantage of this Penn State resource.

Download the Adobe Connect Service Sheet.

Faculty Success Story: Patrice Clemson

Pat CelmsonPatrice Clemson at Penn State Beaver uses Adobe Connect, a Web-based videoconferencing application, to reach students at a distance and facilitate team collaboration. Over the last two years, she has gradually incorporated more of the tool’s versatile features into her information sciences and technology courses to aid communication with and among students.

In fall 2006, Clemson used Connect to hold online office hours with a student located at Penn State Shenango who was taking an individualized programming course. Because the application allows users to share their computer desktop with others, she said, “He could show me problems he was having with program code, we could work through it together, he could hand me control of the desktop, and I could help him fix his program. It worked out really well.”

In her “Usability Engineering” course, Clemson was assisted by Lu Xiao, a doctoral candidate at University Park. Xiao was developing a software application and the students were to evaluate its usability as a course project. She used Connect to teach the class her application. The students also used Connect to hold team meetings. Clemson said, “I found that when students had control over their own meeting rooms, they were doing better quality work, simply because they were accountable to each other.”

In summer 2007, Clemson used Connect to deliver a completely online course. Within the application, the meeting host can promote users to presenter status, allowing them to manipulate screen elements. Clemson decided to promote all eight students to presenters. At first, she recalled, the result was chaotic. She said, “Give IST students free access to a software tool, and they’re going to start pressing buttons to see how it works.” Rather than intervening, she decided to observe what would happen. Over the next few weeks, she found their use of the software toned down and said eventually, they developed an etiquette on their own.

During 2007-08, the Beaver campus is piloting a program to offer courses required for a four-year IST degree to students who have completed two years at the Shenango campus. Several Shenango students participated in Clemson’s “Organization and Design of Information Systems” course via Connect. She assigned students to groups, each with their own Connect room. Weekly, the groups discussed a question based on the readings, then presented their findings. Clemson said, “This allowed them to synthesize the readings and come up with their own take on the material. They came up with at least one golden idea every class. When they collaborated, the product they came up with was greater than the sum of the parts. I was happy that Connect helped them learn that important lesson.”

To allow students to devote more in-class time to group work, Clemson recorded her lectures using Connect, allowing students to review material outside class.

As a final project, the groups were asked to design the ideal collaborative machine, then create a presentation the class could view in Connect. Clemson said that after seeing the presentations, “I practically flew home. These were folks who were complaining about having to use a software tool to talk to people who were sitting next to them. Then they realized that what they could do with it was bring all of their thoughts together, to put the ’straw man’ up and manipulate it, and come up with an outstanding final project. They amazed each other and me.”

Adobe Connect Pro

VC Tag SmallETS staff continue to help support Adobe Connect Pro desktop videoconferencing software as a way to provide training and hold meetings at a distance. Adobe Presenter, part of the Adobe Connect package, allows faculty to synchronize audio with PowerPoint slide presentations and create Flash-based learning objects that can be posted to the Web, including an ANGEL course, for asynchronous use. TLT staff are also providing training opportunities, and compiling Adobe Connect models, case studies, and resources for faculty and staff at Adobe Connect Community Hub.

We are constantly looking at how to improve to the toolset and are exploring new and interesting ways it can be used to support teaching and learning. If you’d like to try out Adobe Connect or work with ETS to think of ways to integrate it into your classroom, please feel free to contact us.