Intro by Chris Higgins after the Wimba connect Conference (view presentation)

A few years ago, the Office of Information Technology was approached by the libraries with an offer of space to expand campus technology access in the libraries. As our team started down this road, we discovered a great need for group study and collaboration space. With limited physical space, we turned to technological tools to meet the need. Our goal was to allow for group study to happen at a distance by the creation of virtual group study spaces. To do this at a distance we purchased Wimba LiveClassrooms. With multiplatform access and an easy connection into our learning management system, it provided a way for our students to share their desktops and collaboratively work on projects. The recent addition of video into the mix of capabilities has added a great deal to the experience for students.

The virtual group study spaces are designed to be student run spaces for students. This stretches the limits of the software as it is designed. It also stretches the limits of our users’ concepts of such spaces delivered in Blackboard. The understanding of the spaces as completely open spaces for all campus users is one of the primary differences for our faculty and students. At the same time, other challenges such as etiquette, scheduling, and control need to be addressed. The development of student-focused training materials affected the initial launch since most material had to be worded appropriately and developed in the context of the university’s Policy on the Acceptable Use of Information Technology Resources. Using Wimba as a virtual group study space has presented us with a number of challenges; some successfully overcome while others continue to hound us.

The primary focus of this presentation was to share our experiences and lessons learned using this tool as a virtual group study space. Time was also devoted to the selection and implementation process.

Part of the lessons learned came from the announcement of an expanded tool to be offered by Wimba in the summer. The new version of Pronto (an IM chat tool built into the Wimba structure) adds the desired group study capability of desktop sharing. Pronto already had voice and group chat capabilities but with desktop sharing students could hold truly ad hoc sessions without the need to verify if someone was using one of the open Live Classrooms. The announcement of this tool at the beginning of the conference, somewhat altered the presentation because Wimba had heard our requests and incorporated them into this new version of Pronto. This new version of Pronto essentially changes our need for Live Classrooms as a virtual group study space.