Collaborative Tools Project

Sara Perry ( Archaeology ) wanted to run a mini-conference as part of her Gender and Digital Culture work using Hangouts. The plan was to have two presentations, one from Sara in York and one from Lucy Shipley and Jim Osborne from the University of Southampton. The presentations would be screen-shared. The audio was amplified so everyone in the room could hear it ( of course ). There'd be some general discussion ( between everyone ) time and then we'd split into teams that discussed the issues raised and add ideas and questions and solutions into a shared Google Document. The participants, at both York and Southampton were given an iPad that was already logged into the document. Potentially, the "general public" could have "tuned in" via the YouTube stream and if anyone had have been watching it via Google+ then they would have had the opportunity to ask questions of the speakers. They used Twitter for the backchannel in this case though. ...

In my previous post , I asked if I was missing something ( shut  it you) with regards to using Hangouts for presentations.  +Eduardo Carrillo  put me right, thanks! The trick is:  In another window have your Slides presentation ready.  Click "Present" and instead of clicking "Exit fullscreen" from the top of the screen, which exits the Present mode, you exit fullscreen from the little black toolbar at the bottom left.  I additionally changed View > Always Show Bookmarks Bar in Chrome Now, back in your Hangout select Screenshare and choose the window with your presentation in it I think that's it. I guess at this point, one could go full screen so that the people in the real world audience get the bestest, fullest screen experience... and it wouldn't matter that you lose access to the Hangout ( from an interface point of view ).  Having got this working, I'm not completely convinced by it. My heebies are jeebying. I can...

In recent posts I've described how we've been using Google Hangouts to stream Archaeology seminars. These have been simple  point-the-laptop-at-the-speaker-and-press-go  affairs. Because we had a real live and remote audience at the the last seminar I've been wondering if we could do a better job of displaying the presenter's slides rather than just the webcam video of the speaker. At first glance it would seem that there are two ways of displaying the speakers slides. The first would be using the Google Drive tool. But when you select that tool, you are sharing the "editing" view of your slides. Not what you want at all. If you choose "Present" the app goes full screen and you lose the Hangout you're in. The other option might be to use the Screenshare tool, but the same thing applies. You can see my slides below are being shown in a shared window, but it is with the addition of the slide thumbnails, the speaker notes and even the b...

+Sara Perry  wanted to use Google Hangouts to quickly and easily record seminars for students that can't make it in person and to help with promoting the work of the Archaeology dept.  We decided on using  minimal tech intervention . No requirement to use a certain presentation tool. No microphones etc. Many presenters are easily spooked by extra technology, especially when speaking,  but we also want this to be an easy enough process that Sara will be able to make sure it happens without needing any preparation.   This cheap and cheerful approach also guides the aesthetics of the video, we aren't planning to add titles, idents, logos etc. We tested a MacBook Pro that was close to the presenters pedestal and found the internal mic in that was "good enough" for a small presentation room.  We did buy a cheap webcam and a long USB cable so that we didn't have to use the camera on her laptop. This means the video capture can "step back" a little a...

Last night, Alice Watterson   (Glasgow School of Art)  presented Digital Dwelling at Skara Brae to a packed room K/111, Kings Manor, University of York about her collaboration making digital reconstructions. Here she is (above ) from the "stage" with Sara Perry. Alice was also watched by a roomful of researchers at Southampton University, who tuned in to the Hangout and managed to ask questions in a short Q&A at the end. We're still experimenting with how to get the best from Google+ Hangouts whilst keeping the recording process speaker-responsibility-free and technology-minimalist  in that we don't want the speaker to have to do anything special to be streamed, and we also don't want Sara, who hosts the seminars to have to set up heaps of scary equipment. We may have to compromise though. For example, if the speaker would be willing to send us their slides beforehand and willing, instead of using Powerpoint - to use the Hangout tool...