URL: vyew.com
Type of tool: Communication
Description: Vyew is a Web 2.0 tool that allows individuals to work together in an online meeting room. By navigating to a designated URL, multiple online user can communicate by instant message or by teleconference with a webcam and microphone. The user can collaborate within the meeting room using a whiteboard. Vyew allows the users to draw freehand, create shapes, and add text like a basic graphics program. It also allows the users to add "sticky notes," which my be text, or audio if the user has a microphone. Users may also share items in the whiteboard, including jpg images, Word documents, screen captures and web pages (although you cannot browse the web within Vyew). There is also a function by which one user can share his or her screen with the others. If you are a registered user, your room will be saved in Vyew for you to access later. Free accounts are limited to up to 10 users and up to 4 microphones in a room at one time.
Here is a screencast, made with Screenr, of me going over some of the features of Vyew:
http://youtu.be/pQXgv_6v8pw
Trial run: I used Vyew to conduct a helproom session with my students in BIOL 1407 General Biology II the night before a lab practical test. I had announced to my class that I would be available in Vyew from 9-10 that night, and that I would post the link to our Moodle page when I was ready to start. At 9PM, after tucking the kids in bed, I went to my laptop and logged into Vyew. I then started a new room and clicked the "share" function to get a link to share with my students. I refrained from using the webcam andmicrophone because I did not want to wake the children, and communicated entirely through Vyew's instant message function. It wasn't long before a student joined me in the room.
After we said our hellos, she asked me about what she needed to know about flower structure, and also about pollination. To help her with pollination, I found an image of a carpal being pollinated using Google image search. Before long three more student entered the meeting room and I quizzed them on various specimens in the shared images. The user are identified in the chat box, but I have concealed their names with red boxes. I made the screenshots with the "Print Screen" button, and used Corel Paintshop Pro to make the red boxes.
The students and I stayed in the meeting room for about an hour and a half discussing the material in their upcoming lab test. They said they appreciated the extra help.
What do you need to know before using this tool? You need only basic computing skills to use Vyew. To get the most use out of the whiteboard, it probably helps if you are used to using basic graphics editing programs (like Microsoft Paint).
What do you need to have before using this tool? To use Vyew you need a computer with an internet connection and a web browser. A webcam and microphone are necessary to use the teleconference feature.
How do you use this tool?
1. Navigate to vyew.com.
2. Log in. You can log in through a Google account or a Facebook account, or you can register a login and password within Vyew.
3. After logging in, you have a choice. There will be buttons for,"Start Here: Getting Started Tutorial," "New Room," and buttons for previously used rooms (if any). Click the choice you want the proceed to the meetign room.
4. To get other users into your meeting room, go to the "Invite" button in the top bar and open the drop down menu. Click "Get link to share..." This will automatically save the meeting room's URL to your clipboard for pasting.
5. Paste the URL where your intended partners will find it so they can copy and paste it to their address bar to navigate to the meeting room.
Using this tool in a teaching environment: This tool can be used to conduct office hours without the teacher of students having to leave home (at least if they have internet access at home). In a fully online course, Vyew could function as a synchronous virtual classroom for interactive lectures or possibly group discussions. Paying accounts can allow at most 100 users per room at this time, but Vyew's website says that with future upgrades the limit will be much higher.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of using this tool in a teaching environment? Vyew would be very useful for synchronous collaboration (where the teacher and student are online together at the same time). It is much less useful for asynchronous interactions.
Some other shared whiteboards, like Twiddla, allow user to share a web browser within the the application. Vyew does not have this feature, although it does allow you to share a URL in the whiteboard as a static page, but the buttons and hyperlinks in the webpage do not work when shared within Vyew.
Would you recommend this Web 2.0 tool to others, or suggest that they explore a different tool? I would definitely recommend this tool to other instructor, and I intend to use Vyew in the future for tutoring. The only caveat is that is a user needed to share a functional web browser with other users, they would need to use a different tool, such as Twiddla.
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