Thoughts on Multiliteracy #5


Robin Good:
"Synchronous Collaboration Tools for the Academic World"

Last night I started a long summary (seven pages of notes) of Good's rather long (45 slides plus audio) presentation but was too tired to finish it. Tonight I resolved to finish it, but I'm already tired and don't have the energy to keep going for another two hours or so. I've decided, however, that a long summary isn't really necessary—so this will be my shortest entry in this blog to date.

In a nutshell, Good's presentation consists of a set of mini-reviews of "new-breed" online presentation software. The software is "new-breed" because it's been produced by companies which are both new in terms of when they were started and also new in that they have a different orientation from that of much larger, more established online presentation providers (such as Elluminate, LiveMeeting, and Horizon Live).

Good characterizes "new-breed" providers as small companies that are

• more interested in communicative and collaborative competence than (at least at this point) in making money and building an empire;

• able to offer free trial versions of their products and are willing to do so without requiring long-term contracts or (for the most part) making it necessary to speak with a salesperson;

• typically (though not always) usable by a variety of operating systems—Mac, Linux, Unix, and others, as well as Windows;

• more apt to have customer service which is quick and provided by real prople;

• able to offer products with attractive features, yet are not so feature-overloaded that they are confusing to learn to use.

Good also divides the "new-breed" software into a number of types—that is, software which primarily offers the following:

• screen sharing;
• live presentation capability;
• videoconferencing;
• full collaboration (i.e., making use of a large number of features);
• web conferencing;
• grass-roots conferencing.

Further, Good provides a short list of guidelines for selecting the most appropriate software:

• should be easy to use;
• should feature quick response;
• should have an attractive array of default features;
• should feature live mark-up and/or annotation capabilities;
• should be useful across platforms (PC/Windows, Mac, Linux, Unix, etc.);
• should have real people supplying quick customer service;
• should be attractively priced;
• should feature free trial use.

In addition, Good shows the main features of products in each category and also gives the price and a user rating for each. Moreover, he gives the URL for Kolabora.Com, where more detailed information is available.

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The information Good presented was fairly straightforward and easy to understand.

But what did it have to do with multiliteracy? —Nothing directly and nothing mentioning multiliteracy by name. However, in order to understand what Good was describing, one needed to have a better-than-average level of tech literacy (in order to understand the different categories and the features they provided) and one also needed to have some familiarity with the more familiar established providers (e.g., LiveMeeting, Horizon Live, Eluminate) and what their products provide.

Good didn't really help me understand multiliteracy better, but he gave useful information—except for one key consideration: cost. While the fees asked by nearly all the "new-breed" providers were much less than the those asked by established providers, they were still pretty spendy from my point of view—at least for individuals. For entire school districts, universities, and the like, the costs might seem considerably more affordable, however.

I suppose Good's presentation made me realize that the more technologically literate the reader, the more sense the presentation would make. Other than that, it was much less informative vis-a-vis multiliteracy than what was said by both Downes and Siemens.









D. O.