CourseCompass provides two collaboration tools for instructors and students to communicate in real-time: the Virtual Classroom and Chat. Chat is the text messaging tool within the Virtual Classroom that can be accessed on it own.
You can use these tools to set up real-time online classroom discussions, extra-help sessions, and office hour question-and-answer forums. Your CourseCompass course contains two default collaboration sessions: a Virtual Classroom Lecture Hall and a Chat Office Hours session. You can filter or search for sessions, use these sessions "as is," modify these sessions, remove these sessions, or create new sessions.
You can create a recording of everything except private messaging that occurs during a Virtual Classroom or Chat session by recording it. Archives are saved by date; if two or more collaboration sessions occur on the same day, they are included in the same archive. You can create recordings, browse recordings, and remove recordings.
When working with either collaboration tool, consider the following:
Virtual Classroom is a Java applet and therefore may take a few minutes to load into a browser window.
To participate in a Virtual Classroom session, all participants (instructors and students) must have the Java plug-in. If the Java plug-in is not installed on your computer, it will automatically install from within CourseCompass when you join a Virtual Classroom session.
Unlike the Discussion Board, collaboration sessions are synchronous (occur in real time). Be sure to notify students about a scheduled collaboration session to ensure attendance.
Sometimes a collaboration session can be overwhelming if there are too many users. Consider dividing students into groups to keep the conversation manageable.
You cannot print from within the Virtual Classroom Java applet. However, you can print an archive for a Virtual Classroom session by selecting File > Print from your browser's menu.