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Student Advice About Using Elluminate

In January 2007, we asked students who had used Elluminate in the Fall 2006 semester the following question:

"What is your advice to students who will be using Elluminate for the first time?"

Here are many of their answers:

Getting to know Elluminate

Load Elluminate BEFORE the actual session! It takes a while – longer than you think ;) then try to log on 5–9 minutes before the class – you can just keep it open/running until class time... but sometimes it takes a try or two to get in.

I would say students should take some time to play with the Elluminate program in order to familiarize with all the tools.

Schedule a test run before any presentations and try not to be too nervous.

Arrive early.

Play with it to learn the features.

A word about sound

Use a microphone and speakers to make communication more effective.

Have a good headset and microphone (Fry's for about $20.00) and experiment.

Make sure you have a mic and your speakers handy to participate and to take full advantage of the session.

Make sure you have microphones so you can talk directly – typing is slow and laborious.

Tech talk – but not too techy!

Make sure your microphone is plugged in before you start Elluminate otherwise it won't be detected.

For some reason I had to turn off my firewall before going into an Elluminate session. This may be the case for future students.

If you know anything about other messaging systems, use it. It may be a little different, but the same general rules apply.

Keep a calendar with chat dates and times to keep track of Elluminate sessions and passwords.

Be patient for Elluminate to load – don't end up downloading two sessions at once – this does not work at all.

Make sure you install it and if you hear nothing, reinstall Elluminate. A student had similiar problem and when I told her to reinstall, it worked for her.

If you lose contact with the session, try logging out and coming back in. Sometimes there is a voice delay, but no content is lost, just wait a bit. Give yourself a few minutes to do the set up. It's the next best thing to face–to–face small group meetings because you can talk instead of type.

Don't be afraid of the technology. The directions will become clear with use.

Familiarize yourself with the screen, the icons and the process.

The feel good advice

Do it! It's dead easy and works well.

Ask questions and use the talk feature.

Give it a try – it's quite rewarding.

Never hesitate to ask questions.

Have patience.

It seemed difficult at first, all you need to do is try it a couple of times and you will get the hang of it.

Using the program for the first time may feel awkward, but ease comes with more frequent use. It is a good compromise for students who are enrolled in an online class, but still like the personal contact of a traditional classroom setting.

Gratuitous (though unsolicited) plug for tutorial sessions

Find out when the "practice" session is and make sure you are there to check it all out and that it works on your computer.

Ask for tutorials and use them.

Explore the tutorials.

Ask the professor to record it! Takes the stress out of trying to catch everything that is both typed and said during the session.

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