Teaching Online - Module 2 Sandbox Activities

Module 2 Sandbox Activities

Access your sandbox to complete these activities. You may share the sandbox with one or more colleagues. If you like to experiment on your own, don’t feel compelled to click on all of the links to see how things are done. They are there for support.

About Collaborate Ultra

As an instructor, you’re considered a “moderator” in Collaborate Ultra. Your course has a dedicated course room that is always open for use. Your students can use it even if you are not there unless you lock it. In addition, you can create scheduled sessions. This is useful when you want to ensure privacy (when having a one-on-one meeting with a student, for example) or if you want to create multiple sessions that run at the same time (for study groups, for example.)

Activity 1: Get Ready to Use Collaborate Ultra

Make sure that your browser supports Collaborate Ultra.
Watch the short user interface tour video below:

Activity 2: Join a Room and Choose Settings

Join Collaborate Ultra from in the course by clicking the Collaborate Ultra link in the left side course menu.
Click “Course Room” [Not “Create Session”]. The course room settings window will display. Note the setting options. The default settings are usually fine.
Click the “Join Course Room” button.

For more info, read Session Settings and view the video below:

Add your profile picture [Don’t worry about overriding someone else’s picture in the sandbox]
Set up your audio and video to make sure your camera and microphone are working.

By default, you are hidden and muted after you complete the setup. Select the microphone and camera icons to begin full meeting participation.

Change your status and try out the give feedback tools.
See how to record sessions. It’s an excellent idea to record your sessions.

Activity 3: Practice Sharing Content

Open the Collaborate Panel by clicking on the purple icon in the bottom right corner.
Click the Share Content Button. Try out the sharing options: Write on the whiteboard, share your screen, share an application, and share a file.
Stop sharing content by clicking the stop button in the top right corner.
Share a video that has audio

Important Points:

"Share files" and "share application" are different. There are advantages to each. How do you know when to use each? Read this.
Application sharing is not available on mobile devices and tablets. If you want to share your screen or application, you must be on a desktop computer.

For more information, read Share Content and Present in Sessions. You can also watch the video below about sharing PowerPoints in Collaborate.

Activity 4: Chat

Read Chat. There are a lot of options you might not find on your own.
Find somebody to chat with you. The people who share your sandbox can join the session. You can also invite anybody else (even non-OWU people) to join your session by giving them the guest link. You can find that link in the course room settings menu that appears when you click “Course Room.”

Join the course room. Open the Collaborate Panel by clicking on the purple icon in the bottom right corner.
Explore how to chat with various people/groups: Everyone, Moderators, and Private chat. Private chats are excellent for cooperative learning strategies such as think-pair-share!
Try other things: use emojis, see how to change skin tones for emojis, text a link to a website.

Notes about chat:

If you want to be able to peek in on private chats or allow participants to only chat with moderators, you must select these options in Session Settings BEFORE your session starts.
Don't miss any chat messages while presenting. See chat alerts when in another application like PowerPoint. Select the Browser pop-up notification in your notification settings.
If you can't find somebody to practice chatting with you, you can copy the guest link and paste it into another browser window to fake having another person in the session. You'll be prompted to enter a name. I always choose "Thor" or "Fake Roberta."

Activity 5: Manage Attendees

Read Manage Attendees.
Open the Collaborate Panel by clicking on the purple icon in the bottom right corner.
Click on the icon that looks like people to open the attendees panel. Make sure you know how to detach it so it is always open and how to merge it to put it back.

If you’re the only person in the session, it’s hard to see how most of the options work. If you didn’t follow the directions above to chat with yourself, you might want to do it now. Otherwise, these step by step instructions show you everything with pictures, so check them out. During our second Collaborate session, I’ll promote everyone to moderator status so that you can try out the controls for real.

Make sure you know how to:

Manage raised hands
Promote attendees to different roles. Here are role definitions.
View a session attendance report

Activity 6: Breakout Groups

Using breakout groups moves students into spaces that are separate from the main room so they can collaborate in small groups. They are wonderful for increasing student engagement! Each breakout group has its own private audio, video, whiteboard, application sharing, and chat. You (moderators) can move from room to room to observe and facilitate. Watch the video about using breakout groups:

Open the Collaborate Panel by clicking on the purple icon in the bottom right corner.
Click on the Share Content icon, then click on Breakout Groups.
In the menu, see how to create groups and assign people to them. You can either have Collaborate create groups and randomly assign people or you can do it manually.
Explore the commands to add and rename groups.
Click the “Start” button. Make sure you know how to:

Show the timer

Share files with breakout groups

Move from one group to another and back to the main room

Move attendees to another group

Save files from breakout groups

End breakout groups

For step by step instructions, read Breakout Groups.

Notes about breakout groups

Nothing in a breakout room is recorded, including chat.
Collaborate stops recording if all attendees leave the main room. You’ll need to start recording again from the session menu when breakout rooms end and you’re back in the main room.

Activity 7: Polling

I like to create a poll for users to take when they first join a session. It’s a good conversation starter while you’re waiting for all of your attendees to show up.

Open the Collaborate Panel by clicking on the purple icon in the bottom right corner.
Click on the Share Content icon. It looks like a square with an arrow. Click on Polling.
Use the tools to add questions and answer choices. Click Start.
Show aggregate responses to attendees.
Stop the poll. Select Polling to open the poll overview. Click the End Polling icon.

For step by step instructions, read about Polls or watch the video below:

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