Teaching Journal: Using Wimba

Posted by
On September 22, 2008
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Today
I helped Angie Hammons teach Dr. Bih-Ru Lea’s class enter the Wimba
Live Classroom
virtual environment on Blackboard. Dr. Lea teaches a
course about strategic enterprise management configurations. As part of
the course, students are required to use a variety of different remote
conferencing tools that allow them to collaborate in real time with
people half-way around the world. Dr. Lea herself uses WebEx to include
distance students in her on-campus course. WebEx is officially
supported by the VCC here on campus, but EdTech has some exposure to it
as well.

As it turns out, WebEx and
Wimba don’t play nicely with each other. Apparently they compete for
Java Runtime Environment (JRE) resources if they are both being used. However, it is possible to
get them to cooperate once Wimba is finally opened.

Now that I have seen how Dr.
Lea uses Wimba for her class, I hope I can get it to work properly for
Dr. Jacqueline Bechsel of the Psychology department. She will be using
Wimba for the first time on Wednesday of this week. I have agreed to be
on hand to facilitate the use of Wimba in her classroom. She will be
using Wimba in UC 105 (now Centennial Hall 105), also known as the
Technology Classroom. I will have to find a time to go in there
(perhaps early in the morning since I am usually on campus a little
after 7 a.m.) and make sure Wimba works properly. 

I think I will also take the
opportunity to ask Dr. Bichsel if I can observe one of her courses. She
teaches Psych 140 (Experimental Psychology) and Psych 50 (General
Psychology). She probably wouldn’t want me to observe the class on
Wednesday, but maybe a later class.