November 19, 2011

TUBEIT - developing a discussion with Teachers

I've posted about TOKBOX many times before, and it used to be my favourite site for video messaging. However, with the changes that happened to the site and their choice to focus on the chat feature, I ended up giving it up, at least for teaching purposes.

This afternoon, I invited some teachers from CULTURA EDTECH (online course I facilitate) and a couple of friends from facebook to join me in a new trial.

The site we tried was TUBEIT . It allows you to create an instant chat room where participants have access to their webcam and microphones and also watch a selected YOUTUBE video chosen by the person who sets up the room.

Today, I chose a video interview with Marc Prensky, where he discusses about the ROLE OF TEACHERS TODAY.


I guess there's a limit of participants for the session (I"m not sure) as I could see the possibility of 7 webcams in the room. It's extremely easy to use. You just go to http://tubeit.opentok.com/ write your name, paste the video URL (from Youtube), grab the link to the room in TUBEIT, share with invitees via twitter, facebook or e-mail and start your discussion.

This is how I planned it:
1. I greeted participants.
2. Participants had the chance to introduce themselves (webcam)
3. Pre-question to start the discussion. ("What's the role of teachers?")
4. Participants gave their opinion.
5. We watched the video interview.
6. Used quotes from the interview to promote discussion.

Problems: well, the sound wasn't 100% (some speech breakdowns) but we managed to develop a discussion.

These are the screenshots I took of the session with Roberta Righetto (Mato Grosso), Gildeta (Campinas), Ana Lucas (Uberlandia), Nina (Ukraine),  Angeles Berman (Mexico?).

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