The+C+Team

=Dean's 21C Tools Small Project=

Dean Edwards
I am using Wiggio to communicate with my Advanced Diploma of Sound Production students who I have little F2F contact with. I also see this as a very useful tool for them as they are managing the production of a recording which involves communicating with a co-producer (classmate), a team of 3 subordinate engineers & a group of approx 6-8 session muso's. I have opened a group & invited them to participate. Thee has been some traffic, mainly from me posting to them but today (Mar 25th) I will start to show them some of the features they can use for there own projects.

As a class we use SkyDrive & Dropbox regularly as a repository for larger audio files. The student groups have now set up their own shared folders with their teams Including me so I can see where they're at.

During Mondays (25th Mar) face-to-face class time we looked at a variety of Wiggio features & functionality - posting, attaching files & links, video & voice notes, calendar, scheduling, real-time chats, virtual meetings, conference calls & creating documents, spreadsheets, polls etc. All but one student was present so each group got a good handle on the functionality & given they are tech savvy, they picked up using it quickly.

Tonight (26th Mar) we tried to have a Virtual Meeting. We had arranged for 6 of us to meet online (coordinated by inviting the students to the event & polling their availability inside Wiggio) but unfortunately only 3 of us made it in. 2 of us had audio & video & 1 was initially chat only but later managed audio. We trialed video, audio, meeting real time chat, a separate chat room (another feature in Wiggio, screen & whiteboard sharing with very mixed results.

Audio & video were unstable & suffered from very, very long delays (latency) - the round trip was **//over//** 10 seconds in some cases!! Compared to BbC this is basically unworkable. 2 of the 3 of us were on ADSL2 & 1 connected by 3G wireless dongle, the latter being the slowest of all. We don't think it was related to connection speeds as Skype works reasonably well on all of our systems. Chat was much more usable both within the virtual meeting & as a separate Wiggio Chat. This was about as responsive as other chat systems such as FB, iChat or MSN.

Screen sharing was a disaster! Even after a long wait, neither of the students could see anything but a random/pixelated mess on screen. Whiteboard was considerably more successful & by making each of the students 'Presenters', they could draw, type, erase etc.

Overall, I'd have to say I was disappointed with the results especially when compared to BbC but even without that comparison, it was largely unusable. To truly prove this one way or the other we will have to retest to ensure it wasn't just a 'glitchy' night. That will happen next week. Wiggio is however proving a valuable tool for group communication. My Adv Dips are the 'Producers' & 'Managers' of a production whereby they will oversee the recording, mixing, mastering & final delivery of up to 4 songs. Having established their own Wiggio Groups they are using them as a centre point for communication with their project group & a repository for documents & other files. I think they'll make use of the chat & perhaps whiteboard sharing for layout diagrams (floor plans etc) but unless the next test is much improved, the other virtual facilities won't be much use.

I have asked the 2 student participants to give me some written feedback on their thoughts from this evening.

Below are some screen shots from tonight's session :)











__**Week 5 Update:**__
The most of the students have taken well to Wiggio, establishing their own groups within our main group & starting to upload & share schedules & other project documentation. Given their technical backgrounds & familiarity with computers, they seem to be very comfortable with driving it straight off & I've only had to field a few questions. As part of the wrap up, I'll make a questionnaire to seek their feedback & input on how else we might continue to make good use of it (or not).