Feb 25 2008
Trans-Tasman Tokbox
JoMcLeay just blogged about our Trans-Tasman collaboration this evening. Much happier experience for the Aussies than for Amanda S and myself on the Kiwi side. By Twitter invitation from Sue Tap aka sujokat, we played with Tokbox, a free online videoconferencing system, which doesn’t require an account for those invited, just gives you a url to share. Should be easy-peasy.
Unfortunately it kept echoing, even with echo regulation on, sometimes hearing yourself back a minute and a half later. And the others’ volumes kept alternating between crystal clear and deathly whispers. Predictably bad when people were talking at the same time. We concurred that Tokbox could really use a chat function, to exchange advice about improving settings when sound is off. Now we were polluting the twitter-stream (sorry tweets). As the Aussies were chatting happily, Amanda and I left early.
Simon B said”different – random strangers on a video call”. To me being on Tokbox tonight was reminiscent of when you were 11 and your parents took you to an acquaintance’s house on a Saturday evening. You’d be introduced to their children and expected to just get on with it. Like then, there were some initial moments of just staring at each other. Then a little bit of shy laughter, followed by more staring. But once you discovered your shared interest (Lego back then, now Ed Tech – still playing with toys) the ice was broken and you felt totally comfortable with the others, to the point that you were happy to make a fool of yourself.
Very lo-tech communication
I’d be up for trying out some more tools across the Tasman. Tools Tuesday anyone?
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Hey Joyce, what a great idea – Tools Tuesday. It was great to see you and we need to hear both the upside and the down sides of our experiences. Maybe we should contact TokBox about the chat feature…
Jo
Joyce, you didn’t make a fool out of yourself! We all managed pretty well.
Hey Jo, I sent some feedback to Tokbox about the echo and they’ve already gotten back to me to say they’re working on improvements. So they are open to suggestions.
Pretty sure that communicating in rather sketchy sign language and hand-written notes didn’t make me look like the epitome of sophisitication, Simon. But that’s half the fun of these tools, testing them with others.
Am in the middle of moving house and not sure internet will be hooked up by Tuesday. But otherwise, I’ll be online to test some more…