Sample invitation to participants

Breeze can generate an email invitation to your participants, but it's pretty basic. Here's an invite that I wrote ... you can copy/paste/customise for your project. Note that this meeting used a Telstra teleconference for the audio.
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Hi there

Thanks for your interest in this project, here are the details for our first meeting. We will hook up using a Telstra teleconference and the Breeze online meeting software.

Sometime today if you have time, go to this url and have a look around - it's our Breeze meeting room - http://webconf.det.nsw.edu.au/zzzz

Click the button under "Enter as a guest" (or use your Breeze login if you already have one.)

Once you're in, look for these things:

• at the bottom of the big window titled "Share" press the play button to view the PowerPoint - it's the presentation we made yesterday at the Connecting Access Conference - it gives an overview of this project
• our agenda is in the window titled “Agenda”

Please phone me asap if you have any trouble accessing our Breeze meeting room or seeing the PowerPoint. 9715 8652 / 0417 000 000.

On Friday:

1. Find a spot where you can be on the phone and at a computer with Internet access. (If it's one or the other go with the phone.)
2. Try to log into our Breeze meeting room by about 10.20am - http://webconf.det.nsw.edu.au/zzzz
3. To join the Telstra teleconference please phone 1800 063 705 no later than 10.30, and key in this PIN number: 123456.

Barry

How to share Word documents

There are 2 ways:

1. Use Flash Paper. This converts a Word (or any document) into a Flash ".swf" file, ready to upload into your meeting room or content library.

To get Flash Paper, download from http://webconf.det.nsw.edu.au/admin/home/homepage/FlashPaper.exe and save to your desktop. You will be prompted for your Adobe Connect id (your full email address) and password.

If you're on a TAFE computer you will then need to log an IT help desk call ... ask them to install Flash Paper from the file you downloaded to your desktop. You may need to tell them that it is part of the TAFE NSW Adobe Connect licence, and that we have a site licence for FlashPaper. If you have any problems contact the Connect Coordinator in your Institute .

Pros:
Uses less bandwidth so it runs more smoothly during meeting.
You can turn "Sync" on or off just like you can a PowerPoint in Breeze.
You still have easy access to other pods in the meeting.
Participants can print the document from their end.
Cons:
You can't type into the document during the meeting.

2. Another way is to use "Share My Computer Screen..." then select your Word document under the Applications list.

Pros:
You can type into the document during the meeting.
You can hand control of the document over to other people who can then type into it too.
Cons:
Uses more bandwidth so may slow meeting down.
For the presenter, the Word document must stay on top of Breeze window, so you won't have easy access to the meeting pods.

Survey results

After meetings on 12 Dec Barry and Pieter sent the online survey to their meeting participants and we got 10 responses. Note that we used teleconference for the audio part of the meeting.

What do you think of Breeze?
1. I was impressed by the clarity of picture and sound. The document processing appeared to be very flexible, the screen changes were very smooth.
2. Much better for a meeting than teleconference
3. Having only had a brief encounter with it the other day (1.5 hours) it appears to be a very good tool. My only problem is that I didn't know alot about the software prior to participating and no hands on.
4. Fantastic tool.
5. Great meeting place. Reasonably easy to use. Would be good to try with microphones and headset rather than teleconference. Also, easy way to share files.
6. I think it is very good. Very easy to navigate through as a participant. The visuals really made it a more interesting conference.
7. really good for reviewing and discussing documents
8. I was very happy to participate usinf Breeze. It was easy to use the screen in conjunction with the phone link. I liked the voting option and the ability to download survey results. I also liked the webcam component. Even though I didn't have webcam, I very quickly got a feel for the meeting environment.
9. Interesting I haven't taken part in one of these before It was good to be able to see the different components as you were discussing them. I need to get a camera
10. Wonderful opportunity here for more frequent reference group meetings and collaboration with teachers and industry in our projects. Remote participant was very excited about being able to see us as well as the computer screen, on which I could display assets from the LRR.

Did you receive enough instruction on what to do in order to participate in the meeting?
1. yes
2. yes
3. No - i was at the direction and mercy of the technician
4. Yes
5. I had been in Breeze meetings before so I was reasonably OK with how to use it.
6. I did. It was very well organised, in a very professional and pleasant manner.
7. yes but in addition had experts nearby
8. Yes. Well done!
9. Yes
10. Didn't need much instruction as Marc was there to do it for us, but seems very simple and I'm looking forward to doing some training and using it more often.

Are you happy to participate in more Breeze meetings for your project?
1. yes
2. yes
3. yes
4. Yes
5. Yes -easier than travelling long distances for a one - two hour meeting.
6. Definitely. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
7. yes
8. Absolutely.
9. Yes
10. Yes, very much so

Survey your participants (CLI project teams)

CLI staff using Connect for project teams can using this survey to collect info on how your meeting participants found the "Connect experience". Send them this link to your participants http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=871413007109 or use our Survey Monkey account to copy and customise this survey for your own purposes.

List of people & projects

Here's the current list of people and projects in our trial. Since starting, we added Communication, Aboriginal Cultural Awareness and Facilities Management.

IT Diploma (Systems Admin)
Barry, Marc, Darrah
IT Diploma (Networking)
Kim, Marc, Richard
Animal Studies
Annabel, Mark, Louise
Communication
Karen, Chris
Aboriginal Cultural Awareness
Susan
Facilities Management
Pieter
Access to Broadband (A2B) – Aust Flexible Learning Framework
Vijendra, Barry, Marc

Upload your website into Breeze for reviewers

We found a great Breeze feature that gets around the problem of finding a site to host a preview of your product (or burning CDs). You simply zip the site and upload that into the Breeze Content Library. Then send the url to your reference group, writers, etc.

Two important things to note:

1. There must be an “index.htm” file
2. Your reviewers will need to login using their Breeze login - unless you change the permissions on that content item to "public"
   

Thanks to Chris McHarg for putting us onto this one!!

Update on Breeze response times

As you know our IT friends behind the glass wall and at St Leonards are looking into the slow response time / audio drop out issue with Breeze… here’s where we’re up to …

1. Response times appear to have improved over the past 2-3 weeks (they did some switching of buttons and swinging of cables and other technical things), so we’re not getting that dreaded orange light as much….. but…
2. We’re still getting “intermittent high latency” (ie orange light comes on sometimes, audio drops out sometimes, everything seems to run slowly sometimes)
3. Vicki Marchant confirms this is also happening to teachers in the Institutes who are part of the TOL2 Breeze trial (it would of course, they’re using the same Breeze server)
4. Network people are still running tests and measuring what’s happening around the network to identify the cause of the problem, they’re liaising with the local breeze vendors as well. I’ll keep you posted on what comes up.

This needn’t stop you using Breeze in the meantime, there are a few tricks with meeting room settings Marc and I can show you to improve response times while the network issues are being worked out. I’ll add those to the blog later, and I'll check in with each project this week.