Video conferencing from the iPad using GoTo Meeting

As part of a trial for an invited speaker into a lecture at UCS the Elevate Team explored the use of an iPad 3 using the GoTo Meeting application. The link below walks through the version which uses audio only. However, the latest version includes video conferencing using the camera. Initial thoughts findings were very impressive in terms of the speed of the connection and the quality of the audio and video. The web cam worked well, the audio was good as was the text chat area.

This type of technology offers great potential in teaching and learning. A recent JISC Good Practice Guide (http://www.jisc.ac.uk/elluminateguidance) identified the benefits as including;

• It can be used to support a wide range of teaching/learning methods and styles, potentially in highly engaging and collaborative forms


• It allows external participants to cost-effectively participate live in sessions e.g. external experts, external examiners, mentors, supervisors, assessors and interviewees

The benefit of using the iPad is the ease of use. Within the current version, there are some feature limitations, for instance, you can start (host) a meeting from the iPad, you need to set up the meeting on a computer, also, you can't share you desktop (present from the iPad using keynote) or interact with the hosts computer when they share the mouse. Still, for a first go, very impressive.

The following video by GoTo Meeting gives you a sense of how it displays, and the interactivity on the iPad. Note it does not include the video component. See >>>

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8pzgUDoK7o[/youtube]