Socratic Monologue
I just finished participating in an online presentation with Darren Kuropatwa (audio forthcoming) which almost didn’t happen. The presentation was to my school division’s in-school instructional technology support teachers (iSITS – gotta find a better acronym). Our fearless leader, Donna DesRoches, had arranged for us to gather in Elluminate for the presentation but there were problems getting Darren into the session. It was suggested that we move on over to WiZiQ to see if we could make the session work there, which it did.
A couple of lessons emerge in my mind. First, the expensive tools don’t always work better. Elluminate, a paid for service, did not work as smoothly as WiZiQ, a free tool.
Second, feature rich tools are great if you are trained in their use. If not, you can end up causing confusion or damage. Elluminate is like a Boeing 747 compared to the Volkswagen Bug of WiZiQ. The Boeing might do more and go farther but it would be very dangerous for me to fly it. The interface for Elluminate is very feature rich but confusing for novices. The WiZiQ interface is clean and simple.
CC attribution, non-derivative license by Blyzz; http://www.flickr.com/photos/blyzz/2530816698/
Finally, it doesn’t take a lot of work to take some simple tools and use them together to produce the same result as a big, expensive, “do-it-all” tool. We used WiZiQ for Darren’s audio and chat, but we looked at his slideshow in slideshare. It met our needs in a very simple way. This combination was much simpler and met our needs much better than Elluminate would have done.
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Thanks Rob. I thought it was just me.
Thanks Rob. I thought it was just me.
Just like Boeing requires learning curve, so does Elluminate. There are two points here:
Just like Boeing requires learning curve, so does Elluminate. There are two points here:
Manish, thanks for making the point that different tools serve different purposes in different contexts. I haven’t used DimDim but it sounds like it would have been a good solution.
Manish, thanks for making the point that different tools serve different purposes in different contexts. I haven’t used DimDim but it sounds like it would have been a good solution.