Increasingly our computers and smartphones are becoming the centerpiece of handheld, desktop and room-sized communication studios where we communicate our ideas, our personality and our 21st century digital literacy in a live setting. Webcam videoconferencing and microphone audio conferencing are a growing part of the social fabric of twenty-first century living which adds new elements to our social skills. This page will help presenters make a good first impression using a desktop computer camera. But the real goal of the page is to explore how to turn good impression into an ongoing reality of competence. Live communication systems should enrich one's career through invitations to share and learn. It should put the "Webcaster" in a position to confidently make effective contributions to the work of others that share common interests, no matter what their distance. This includes competence with the technology and competence with the concept of teaming, two major ideas that will be explored in greater depth.
A superb place to start thinking about the "live online" challenge is to watch the five minute clip below in which a Time Magazine writer doing a story on the topic of a webcam job interview brings in a television executive for some coaching on best web interview practices (backup link). Though the goal is a good job interview, everyone of the ideas in this videoclip has application to a wide range of Internet video uses, from live team teaching in classrooms to personal communication with friends and colleagues.
Those who are "on-stage" throughout their careers, such as teachers, have particular reason to examine this growing potential for sharing instruction and teaching practice. This page shares some beginning ideas about how to proceed through some questions that are answerable, others that need better answers and a quest for more issues to research. Your contributions towards this mission are encouraged as the page grows through research and feedback. The questions cover a wide range of topics: What is the message or concept to be communicated and what is needed to express it best live? What kind of tone of voice and audio quality is needed? What kind of visual setup creates the best impression and makes it easiest for viewers to watch? What is the best kind of webcam to use and how do you deal with built-in webcams that cannot be positioned into the ideal location? What kind of mic is best and how does one deal with the built-in mics of personal computers? How many different ways are there to share the types of compositions of the digital palette over the Web? What are the best choices of Web conferencing software and what are the options for becoming competent with the hand you are dealt whether you like the computer application or not? When is text typing useful and when does it get in the way? Finally, what are the other questions?
Try before you fly! Any form of live communication beyond face-to-face and phone use needs to be tried and tested before an actual event. Any computer activity that needs to occur needs to be part of the preparation test for the event. Get the team to show the slides. Draw on the whiteboard. Share out computer windows. Test the mic and text chat. Know how it works.
This concern is the meat and potatoes, the main course. The side dishes are always important too and can become "plan B", that is one can wave, draw pictures, share screens and textchat when the audio fails. However, failure with audio can be fatal to useful communication for many settings. The primary concerns are volume and clarity.
Is it loud enough? Use stronger computer speakers. Move closer to the microphone but not too close.
Is it clear enough? If the audio fidelity is not high enough, it becomes to hard to hear the beginning and ending sounds of words. More careful enunciation can really help in difficult audio situations.
A related concern is the tone of voice and expression. Webcams, like television, are "hot" settings in which the viewer and speaker are close to the screen and cameras which magnifies things, even things which are otherwise ignored and unnoticed. Little increases in the edge of voice along with intentity of expression can be useful, but can also easily go too far, magnifying an expression into something much bigger than what was intended.
If wearing a mic, put it on one side your head. Do not put the microphone in front of your lips. If you have a habit of self-expression through making air noises with your mouth, or whispering or quietly talking outloud to yourself while thinking, microphones magnify those sounds significantly. This can be both annoying as well as unintentionally and perhaps embarrassingly revealing.
Lighting
Bad lighting needs to be seen as something like bad breath. A small amount awareness can lead to some quick fixes. A best first step is to position the speaker's on-camera location to make best use of natural window and standard ceiling lighting and visually interesting but non-distracting backgrounds.
Our eyes and our cameras focus our attention on the stronger source of light. That is, the person on camera or the object to be displayed should have a stronger light value than other things visible in the scene. Sometimes the available light needs to be enhanced. Directed lighting such as spotlights should also be considered. This inexpensive webcam model on the left has 4 LED lights built-in around the lens. The LightintheBox site carries this product. Searching Froogle for "webcams with light" will reveal other ideas.
Because cameras have automatic light metering, they pick out the strongest light value being received and adjust to make the best picture. If the lighting bouncing off the bright white wall is behind a person, and the face and body have a darker light value, the camera's adjustment to the bright wall could make the face and body a dark cardboard like silhouette.
Different kinds of light can make a person look worse than they feel or even better than they feel. Florescents can make a person look pale. Other lights send out stronger green, yellow or blue tone. Where sitting outside is possible, scenes not in the direct sunlight can provide great lighting. Once outside though, it is harder to control for background noise.
Background Setting
Authors of books and stories think careflully about the settings and scenes for their characters and events. The same applies to live communication. Think about where to stand when on camera, then stand there and look over your shoulder. Generally there is more of the background image than a person's image on the display screen so consider carefully what the background communicates. Surroundings can have their own covert and subliminal message.
It is also important to be able to control for some level of safety from interruptions if at home or the office for certain kinds of professional meetings. A cat jumping in front of the camera, lawn mowers, colleagues stopping by to share a spot of lunch are to be avoided. Tell family, friends and colleagues if it is a big meeting and then hang a sign on the door. There is a good reason those TV studios have a blinking red warning light outside the door.
What the software promises it can do and what an individual can do with it are two different things. Practice and experience will build confidence and professionalism and reveal what the software can really do and what it does poorly. Most forms of Web conferencing have free versions that can be tried before attending or attempting an actual event.
Making it part of your life and communication with friends and family will make its use in professional situation feel natural and relaxed. For example, having a webcam cooking event and/or dinner with a distant friend or family member can provide fun and practical practice.
Additional ideas will be added to this page as thinking and research proceed. Please pile on your comments, research findings and advice at the Online Live blog posting.
Teams can be more productive. Teams can improve the quality of its members' activities faster than an individual working in isolation. Note that the verb "can" was used instead of "will". Teamwork is an important life skill that needs teaching at all levels so that teams are more effective and productive. Webconferencing or webcasting will play a centrol role with 21st century teams.
Productivity is the amount of output produced by an amount of input. One hour of thinking, planning, writing and gathering resources can produce how many lesson plans that are ready-to-teach for how many hours of teaching? If three people write three lesson plans and share their ready-to-teach output, the labor of teaching productivity is increased three-fold, and the individual's efforts is one/third the original input required. If the teaching of those lesson plans is further shared so that those following someone else's lead can move among their own students to assist, then the productivity of the learning event is increased. This is easy to state. It is difficult to do. It is especially challenging when the concepts, practices and technologies required are not well known and used.
Information technology (IT) has played a enormous role in 21st century advancement and will play an increasingly important role in educational practice. The value of IT in the quality of effective organizational practice has been intensively studied. "Irrespective of how IT is measured, there is a consistent positive relationship between the use of these technologies and a set of work practices that include the use of self-directed work teams, greater levels of individual decision authority (particularly over method and pace of work), increased investments in training and screening for education, and incentive systems that reward and encourage high team performance" (Brynjolfsson & Hitt, 1998, p. 53).
Perhaps even more important than the potential productivity increase is improving the quality of the team itself through the modeling of professional practices using online webcasting systems. No one has more to benefit from this than educational with its legions of teachers who are professional isolated during the most important minutes of their professional practice.
Team skills are equally important to those we teach. "Because teams span both private and public life, individuals must be able to work and perform in a team context to function effectively in today’s society. Both the Secretary’s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS; U.S. Department of Labor, 1991, 1992a, 1992b) and the Conference Board of Canada Employability Skills Profile (1993) cite the importance of interpersonal skills (or teamwork) in work and everyday life." (Addendum, 1997).
(1997). Addendum to the ALL Teamwork Framework.
Brynjolfsson, Erik & Hitt, Lorin M. (1998, August)Beyond the Productivity Paradox. Communications of the ACM, 41(8). 49-5.
Kiviat, Barbara (2009, November 9). Resume? Check. Nice Suit? Check. Webcam? Time Magazine. 49-50. Video version at http://bit.ly/4A4D4F
Original version November 10, 2009 - Page author: Houghton