Tag Archives: Web conferencing

Glow Meet PODS

Using Adobe Connect for the Glow Meet, you have a selection of pods to use in your meeting room. A pod is similar to a window, it is an area for a specific function that can be moved or resized on the screen.

This help guide aims to give an overview of the functionality of each pod and some tips for their effective use.

For every pod, you can rename them, this might be useful for example if you have a number of chat pods each with a specific purpose, by renaming them you can make their purpose clear to end users.  Double click on the pod title to edit.

Share


A share pod can be used to either share a whiteboard, documents or computer screens.  You need to have the Adobe Connect plug in to be able to do this.  Each share pod can either be a new share pod or a share pod could be reused in multiple room layouts.  More information on sharing is available here.

Attendee List

This pod’s functonality is constant in that it lists everyone who is present in a meeting room. It is a very useful pod for a number of reasons.  If you select someone in the pod you can then alter their role in the room (icon in the bottom left). You can also mute their microphone if they have left it on by mistake (menu appears to the side once they are selected).
The users are listed in order of their role in the room, however if a user raises their hand they will go to the top of the list.
As with other pods, there are further options for the pod available by clicking on the icon at the bottom right of the pod on the cog wheel.

Camera and Voice
This allows users to turn on their camera and voice (hosts and presenters only).  Hosts can switch other people’s cameras off too if they wish.  If you move from one room layout to another and the latter does not have the camera and voice pod then the cameras will be switched off.  If a user switches on their camera then their microphone will also be switched on but this can be controlled separately using the Talk button in the bottom left of the screen.  The cog at the bottom right of the pod will offer further options.


Chat


The chat pod allows text communication between users.  You can either add a new chat pod on a room layout or you can copy an existing chat pod – the latter may be useful if you wish to maintain chat over a number of room layouts.

As with other pods, the cog in the bottom right of the pod gives further options such as the ability to disable private chat between participants and also whether or not a time stamp should appear next to each entry.

Note

This pod allows set text to be shown on a room layout, useful for giving guidance to end users.  You can choose a new Note pod each time or reuse Note pods in different room layouts if required.

Poll

You can run polls during your Glow Meet.  You can have multiple poll pods and in each one, once created you can prepare the poll (one question per poll, answers are either multiple choice or multiple answers) and then open the poll in the meeting.  The cog icon offers a number of further options such as whether results should be shown as numbers or percentages or both.

Q & A

If you have multiple presenters and a few participants, it is possible to set up one chat pod to be treated as a Q and A pod.  Perhaps the most complex of pods, this would be useful if you were having lots of questions coming from participants. The host can decide which presenter will answer which question and then when the question is answered by a presenter the question and answer are shown in together in the relevant chat pod.

The Q & A pod can only be seen in the presenter only area.  (see here for more information on this).  Once seen, there is the option of linking a chat pod to the Q & A, the chat pod for this must be visible on the selected page layout.  Once linked, the chat pod will change appearance where participants can only now submit questions where as hosts and presenters can also chat with everyone or each other.  When someone submits a question the question appears in the Q & A pod, the host can select the question, choose a presenter or host from the drop down and choose to forward the question.  When the chosen host or presenter answers the question the question and answer will appear together for all in the room to see.

If no answer is required the host can choose to show the text entered to everyone by clicking on the text and clicking on the Answer Everyone icon.

This pod is the most complex one to use and it may be rare that it will be required by Glow users however the option is there for all hosts to use this if appropriate.

Breakout Pods

These are not a different kind of pod but instead the menu option allows you to bring in pods from those created in break out rooms.  For more information on break out rooms go to this help guide.

Recording a Glow meet

It is possible for recordings to be made of your Glow Meet session.  You activate the recording within Glow Meet and the recording is made and stored on the Glow servers.  You then have the option of viewing the recordig directly from the server or you could download a copy of the recording on your own local machine.

In Glow Meet a meeting can be recorded by a person who has the role of Host. To be a Host you either have to be an administrator of the Glow group in which the Glow Meet web part is located or you have to be made a Host by someone who already has the Host role.

The document available below gives you full details of how to make a recording and also on how to view it online or download a local copy.

Glow Meet-preparing mode

A host in a meeting room can go into ‘preparing mode’.

When you are in preparing mode, your screen layout will change but everyone else in the room will remain as they were.  This means you can navigate to one room layout and make changes there whilst everyone else looks at the first layout.

To go in to preparing mode you can either click on the icon which resembles a pencil and ruler (to the left of the room layouts) or go to the Present menu and choose Preparing Mode.

An alert will warn you that you are entering preparing mode and a small icon of a pencil and ruler will remain at the top right of the screen to remind you that you are still in that mode.

In Preparing Mode you can carry out tasks like moving or resizing pods, uploading PowerPoints or getting a whiteboard ready without the other attendees’ screens changing.

To exit this mode and return to controlling the room click the ruler icon and select Exit Preparing Mode or click again on the icon or menu option – all result in the same output.

Breakout rooms in Glow Meet

The Host in the meeting room can create breakout rooms for the attendees. You might want to do this if the main meeting room has too many attendees to allow good collaboration or if you want different groups of attendees to consider different issues at a point in the meeting. Breakout rooms are separate from the main room and have their own selection of pods to work in. The Host can visit the breakout rooms during the session to facilitate activities.

The document above will give you the details of how to create, start and end the break out rooms.  Some other key points are:

Breakout Room Layout
The layout of the breakout room will take the format of the selected room layout in the parent room at the time of the breakout room being created.  Therefore, if you are going to create a number of breakout rooms that you wish to all look the same, the quickest way would be to create that layout in the parent room, open up the break out room section, delete any rooms that are there then create new break out rooms (Add Breakout)

Breakout Room Number Limitations
There are limitations within Adobe Connect which result in 5 breakout rooms being possible and 50people can be assigned to any/all breakout rooms at the one time.

Reviewing Breakout Room Outputs
If you have people in a number of breakout rooms, once they all come back to the main room, you may wish everyone to see what went on in each breakout room.  You can do this by adding a new pod to the main room, from the pod menu you will see a sub menu to the pods from each break out room which you can now add like you would any other pod.

Hosting a Glow Meet

The Host role in Glow Meet is assigned automatically to Administrators of the Glow group where the Glow Meet room is situated. It is

the key role in any meeting room as the Host controls how the room operates for everyone else attending.  To find out more about being a host then you have 2 options:

A video available on the URL below will show you in more detail how to be a host

Use the document available below to find out some tips on how to be an effective host:

Video available here

Sharing in a Glow Meet

In many Glow Meets, people share content which could be documents or powerpoints, computer screens or whiteboards.  The Share pod in Adobe Connect allows you do to this if you are the Host or the Presenter.

In a Glow Meet room you could have one share pod to share all content or you could have multiple different Share pods each sharing its own content e.g. if you have 2 presenters you may wish to have 2 room layouts each with their own share pod.

The document available below shows you the various options available for sharing content between users.

Glow Meet

Why Use Glow Meet?

Glow Meet is Glow’s web conferencing tool. It has been upgraded and now uses a globally-popular software- Adobe Connect. The tool allows you to share documents, talk to a presentation and has collaborative tools like polls, surveys and chat. Glow TV uses Adobe connect, so a good start would be to watch one of the many recordings in Glow TV and see how it is used.

Here’s a video guide to Adobe Connect for e-learning from Adobe themselves:

And here are some help guides, specifically for Glow:

This help guide assumes you are joining a Glow Meet that someone else has set up and you are joining to take part without worrying about how to set the room up.

If you are setting up a Glow Meet room for others to join then this guide will help you with that.

The role you have in a Glow Meet is determined by the permissions you have in the Glow group where the Glow Meet room is situated. Users with Reader or Readers with Discussions permissions in the group will be Participants in the Glow Meet room.

The meeting will be managed by a user with Administrator permissions in the Glow group. They will have the role of Host in the meeting room.

The document below outlines how to join the Glow Meet and get yourself set up and ready to work with others.

If you want to find out more about the room layout and how the Glow Meet links in to the Glow Group then the document below will assist with that.