A new "Vyew" of online chat

Today my classmates and I conducted a group chat session using Vyew, a free online chat room tool for meetings and collaboration. Based on my experience with online chat, meeting and collaboration tools, I can best compare Vyew to Adobe Connect, which I use regularly at my job. Vyew has several favorable features or "strengths" such as:

• Multiple ways to communicate synchronously. Users have the option to use the chat, microphone, webcam or call in to a free phone conference line. Chats can be recorded.
  
• Vyew has a large presentation area that can be used for document sharing or as a white board. This presentation area is made up of pages that the users can create and the flexibility of this area is what makes it useful for student collaboration. For instance, one page can be used as a whiteboard, another can be a screenshot, another a computer file; as well as any combination of these on a single page.
• Each person can easily customize the screen for their viewing preferences if given the appropriate permissions. A user can move back and forth through pages, zoom if needed and choose to show or hide specific features or screen elements. Alternatively, settings allow the instructor or main presenter to “sync” so that everyone sees the same screen.

One of the most significant features of Vyew is how it can be used asynchronously or synchronously as a learning and/or collaboration tool and it is real-time. Because of this ability, Vyew can effectively be used to collaborate on group assignments and host presentation sharing. The instructor and class would have a fairly authentic experience of observing the collaboration or presentation as if the group was in class together.

Weaknesses include some compatibility issues with Macs. The screensharing mode caused our computers to lock up. However, when I tried this on a PC, it worked well. There are so many features on the screen, it can be tempting for students to play with them when learning should be the focus. Though, this weakness can be overcome by setting permissions or assigning certain roles with limited functions. A tool like this would work best when students are given some time to “play” with the features and maybe even do something fun at first, before jumping right in to an assignment. Also, it is important to determine the reason for using this tool and share the guidelines and expectations for use and etiquette.

I enjoyed this assignment because of the opportunity to connect with a small group of my peers, which gave me a stronger sense of community. It allowed me to learn, discuss relevant questions, share similar experiences, questions and concerns about the assignment and our journey as online students. What would have made this experience better, more meaningful or more effective? If my peers and I had logged on together just to explore all the features for about 30 minutes before our chat. We believed that getting the interface navigation "out of the way" would make it easier to focus on the learning. Finally, although there were Vyew tutorials right in the program, a screencast or two of the available features and uses might have also helped shorten our learning curve.