Yacking and Supporting

Well, it's been quite a day! Going backwards, I've been reading up about YackPack, signing up for an account and experimenting with it. I was introduced to it by Chris Woldhuis, one of my colleagues on my USQ course. YackPack is a very useful application that is so easy to use. Users can have live synchronous chat sessions and for those members who are unable to attend, they can sign in later and pick up a recorded voice message! There's nothing like the sound of a voice - the intonations - the emotions, and I find this application would be extremely useful in our Office Procedures course. I notice that it is integrates with Facebook so now users can have live chats with the help of the Walkie Talkie widget. I recorded a message and sent it to Joyce and also invited Chris to join in my Yack room! As you can see, I've also put the Walkie Talkie widget on this page. I am excited about this software and have commented on Chris's facilitated page. I was originally looking for Chris's room so I skyped Joyce and asked her for it. She was at work! Every day I am amazed at the people I communicate with all over the globe.

Today was a great day at work. The students really enjoyed the Angel orientation and I received some very positive feedback by email. They liked the IM feature and the Live Office Hours and Chat features. It'll be great to use the virtual classroom on Tuesdays - then we all can stay home.

There's an article in The Record about Facebook. Can't believe how much has been written about Facebook. Apparently the University of Guelph is using it as a marketing tool. They have 22,000 registered users. The benefits of using Facebook as a marketing tool is that it takes less time to set up than a college portal, and although it has the same amount of information, it reaches a far wider audience!

All for now - too many late nights so I'm going to have to quit now. Didn't even get time to tweet. Which reminds me - it was a balmy 12 degrees today, the snow is melting and the geese were in the pond. Oh....Joyce signed on to Skype and suggested we Yack. We used the Walkie Talkie widget on her PB Wiki site. It works/sounds much like a Wimba session in that you have to hold the button down to talk. But it' works well - sound is clear - it's just strange talking into a wiki!!