Greetings,
Some interesting topics were presented during our past class. Some were "old" such ODBC while others were "leading edge" such as Cloud Computing. These new technologies do lend themselves to improved tools such as for communication & colloboration. Last year I used two very productive tools that made use of the Internet while enabling our team work on an intense school project. Both tools were new to me but easy to learn.
Skype and Dimdim are the Internet-based tools. Price is well... free! So your money back if you are not satisfied. Here are some links: http://skype.com/ and http://www.dimdim.com/products/dimdim_integrations.html
The primary use of Skype (for us) was to have group conversations while we as individuals were using computers and/or planning our work. Now this can be done differently depending upon personal perference but I prefer to use a headset with a microphone. So I did incur a cost in buying a nice headset. I do recommend buying a premium headset so that you are comfortable and can use the headset for the long haul. Back to Skype - the primary benefit is that your team can work together but not have to be in the same location such as the endearing GSU library.
The other tool is Dimdim. Dimdim has multiple uses but our primary use was to have one person displaying his or her computer session over the Internet to the group. This simplifies the ongoing conversation by allowing everyone to have a simultaneous experience with a single computer session.
Dimdim does offer a wealth of other group possibilities; much more than sharing a single computer session among a group. Both voice and video can be streamed to many places. Dimdim's focus is more of web conferencing, webinars, Internet classrooms and such. I may be taking the wrong path but Skype seems to be superior with its streaming of audio.
While we are on the topic of Dimdim, you should know that it is a good example of various topics discussed during the API & Cloud Computing presentation. Topics such as API, Open Source, Mashups... From the Dimdim web page: Dimdim is the world’s only open source web conference with a completely open & free API. This means you can integrate or mashup Dimdim with your own stuff, web application, directory, email system, even Facebook or your website.
Good luck with these tools. One circumstance that provoked this discussion was the use of the Google Presentation Tool by Mega Hot Pot. Perhaps this seminar thing is working. Cheers!
Bill Stephens
Mercury Group
I am thinking my next posting will be about some additional Internet tools but with other uses for your group. Maybe the same price => free.
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My first time heard about Dimdim. And I took some time to listen their vidio tour.It is pretty convenient for web conference and webpage sharing. Thank you so much for sharing with us.
ReplyDeleteE-Learning using Collaborative Tools
ReplyDeleteJust an extension to Bill’s post
Hey Bill I am going to mention some tools which are not Free!!
So what is E-Learning?
It can be termed as virtual environment created for learning and sharing knowledge using innovative technology tools. Students and teachers can communicate from any part of the world without being in the class or without having a face to face conversation. Interaction forms a very important element of learning. Today there are many collaboration tools in the market that allow students to interact using audio, video or any multimedia that you could think of. E-Learning tools facilitate synchronous class sessions as well as asynchronous communication. For example Synchronous tools would be chat, whiteboard, videoconferencing, document and application sharing etc .In a chat session the students can ask questions or doubts and the teacher can answer them and this can benefit the entire class. Examples of Asynchronous tools would be mail, discussion forums, workspace for documents etc. So even after a class the teacher can keep the power point presentation as shared and the students can view it from anywhere …this can act as a knowledge repository. Students can form group and have group discussions on their project work, assignments etc. E-Learning tools can also be extended to organizations to conduct meetings, training sessions etc. This will allow location independence and also a good way to socialize and meet new people from all over the world without spending too much. (Like bill mentioned a good headset would not be too much to invest in)
Just a thought!...May be these collaborative tools provide a sort of cloud computing(really liked the Cloud Computing presentation given in class by group Nucleus Inc) by allowing multiple users to be connected over a network, share various resources and the same resources are deallocated when the user logs off!!...many of these tools which are available have a fee to use them. Example: CISCO Webex
Another Thought!! Collaborative tools strongly support the concept of web 2.0 which is related to my next presentation topic i.e. “SOA and web services”. The basic idea of web 2.0 over web 1.0 was to allow the user to read and write over the network. Web 1.0 allowed users to have access to vast information available on the network whereas web 2.0 allowed user interaction i.e the concept of Facebook, Linkedin where users can publish information over the web and it can be viewed by anyone at any time and from anywhere. Hopefully my next post would be on something that I have been using for long and suddenly realize Oh its cloud computing again!! (As mentioned by Sangeeta in her post WRT Cloud Computing)
Source of E-Learning concept:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Learning
This is a very interesting blog, Bill. Skype has been around a long time, but I never heard of anyone using it for internal business communication. It seems natural, however, since most businesses use Google Talk, MSN, or some other free IM!, then why not use Skype?
ReplyDeleteNever heard of Dimdim either.
Is there a free solution to tie these two tools together? Do you find it cumbersome that you are not integrating the Skype with Dimdim? There are some tools like Elluminate for example that allow you to talk and show your desktop, but I don't know if any are free. What do you think?
In response to Michael commnet, I did not find it cumbersome to run Dimdim and Skype at the same time as opposed to running a single application that would address both needs. For my needs, it was simpler to always run Skype to maintain the flow of conversation & maybe run Dimdim IF there was a need to share the single computer session. Typically we would begin with all using Skype and as we needed Dimdim, bring up Dimdim. I will add that people sometimes conduct themselves with set routines that are not necessarily the best practices. Remember that both tools are free for use given our small number of users. Also both tools are very stable. Thanks for the interaction. Note that these tools can be a way to leverage group resources. My regards.
ReplyDeleteBill, first of all thanks for starting this post about webinars.I know about skype but never heard about Dimdim.Its awesome that it serves all purposes of skype plus can display the computer session of a person in a conference.
ReplyDeleteHEre are some other popular and potential tools in competition with Dimdim: WebEx and GoToMeeting
hmmmm...But WebEx and GoToMeeting are not free.But the features provided by them are incredible.Its amazing that 1000 members can attend a webinar through GoToMeeting for just 49 bucks.I really wonder how 1000 people can manage to participate in a webinar.I guess so it might be a clumsy way of discussing.I think nobody can best utilize this product.The technology is far away from what we really require...
More on Dimdim Vs WebEx Vs GoToMeeting @
http://reviewofweb.com/tools/online-meeting-webex-vs-gotomeeting-vs-dimdim/
Waiting for Bills post on free tools of this kind.
Please come up with some more tools of this kind.
Asha,
ReplyDeleteGood follow-up with news about these related tools provided by other companies. My next blog will be about tools where Cloud Computing is also involved (however these additional tools are of use to teams in "other ways"; group communications is not their focus).
-Bill
thanks for the info on DimDim .. didnt know such a service existed .. its a very good example of the use of cloud computing .. google too is coming out with its collaboration tool ( google wave:http://wave.google.com/ ) in some time .. curious to see how the services offered by google would differ from those offered by DimDim and WebEx
ReplyDeleteIt is good to know such a wonderful software which offers realtime and multimedia collaboration and meetings. Perhaps I need suggest my boss using it and dump IBM Sametime connect. :)
ReplyDeleteSo it might be a good tool not only for training purposes and for business purposes. I did a small research on it, and found it is awesome that it is made available as a virtual machine application and also have open sources for the public. Free meetings for up to 20 users. I am looking forward to more topics on Cloud Computing and DimDim.