Collaborate is a live, collaborative space that provides the ability to chat, screen-share, share audio and video, poll students, collaborate using a virtual whiteboard or group participants into small 'break-out' spaces. Using the Collaborate activity
in a topic ideally consists of the following 5 stages.
Any Collaborate session can be recorded for playback at a later date. If enabled, participants and moderators are also able to download the recording (subject to the settings being changed) for offline viewing (or reuse in a subsequent year). Session
recordings record all collaboration, sharing, chat messages, voice and video.
Recordings are accessed through the Collaborate link within your FLO topic and are processed shortly after the recording session has finished. The processing time varies depending on the length of the recording, but it is typically under 30 minutes.
Share files - recommended for best overall experience for users on low bandwidth. Can share PowerPoint (each slide
is optimised during upload), PDF files, images (gif, jpeg, png)
Users with limited bandwidth can experience difficulty in sharing or viewing the content. If planning to show a video, consider sharing the video through FLO instead, for students to watch before / after the class. For more information on how bandwidth affects content sharing, access the Network Connect support material.
PowerPoint presentations can be shared in a collaborate session by either sharing a file or sharing an application. When
sharing a file, your presentation is converted to a series of images and hence slides are 'flattened' – animations are removed. Files are also pre-loaded, which generally provides a better experience for people with slower internet connections. Sharing
a PowerPoint application will keep animations but will use more bandwidth. Animations in your PowerPoint can be simulated by a series of slides with increasing content for use with the share files method.
Engagement insights
The Session Engagement Insights Panel is a companion for moderators that shows with data how the audience is engaging while the session is occurring; opening the space to think on actions that may help keep or improve the energy of a session.
Manage recordings
Re-using Collaborate recordings in my topics
If you wish to reuse a recording from one topic availability to another, you'll need to download the recording and upload to your My Media and publish to your topic's Media Vault.
If the recording is not capturing any collaboration or participation, it may be worth considering desktop video recording tools such as the Kaltura desktop recorder or
Camtasia.
How do I rename my recordings?
Open the Recording options and select Recording settings. The recording name always begins with the session name. Edits to the name change the text after the backslash (/) only.
How do I download my recordings?
You must allow session recording downloads for each session. Open a session's Session Settings and check Allow download recording. Any recordings made in this session
can be downloaded.
If your once-off session has finished and you have forgotten to allow downloads, you can edit the session settings, change the end date to a few minutes into the future and tick the box that allows downloading. When the session expires, you will
be able to download the recording. Please be aware however that students can access the session before the new end time.
If you have forgotten to allow downloads for your recurring session, there is no way to retroactively allow downloads (to prevent confidential discussions from being disseminated). You can make future sessions downloadable by deleting any upcoming sessions
and creating a new set of recurring sessions with the download settings enabled.
Live captioning
The below actions need to be done for each individual Collaborate session.
Captions entered during the live session are included when the session is recorded. If your session had more than one caption track, only the first available one is captured.
Moderator actions
Open the right panel and select Attendees.
Click the 3 dots next to the Participant name who you are promoting to Captioner
Select Make captioner
The Captioner will need to accept the function to start. Once accepted a CC will be place in front of their name.
No other action is required after this.
Closed captioner actions
Login to FLO and navigate to the Topic Collaborate session
Enter session
Make yourself known to the Moderator and what your role is either via voice or chat window.
Request to be promoted to captioner.
Accept captioner function
The caption window will open at the bottom of the screen.
You can change your name in the caption window if you want. Click your name and type new name eg. Closed captions
If you want to see the presenter talk and not the presentation, click the picture-in-picture button (bottom right) to swap your view.
Begin to type captions. Text will auto wrap, or you can press Enter for new lines.
This will become a scrolling window as more text is added.
Participant requiring captions
When you enter the room an option to accept/decline captioning will be available. Click Yes.
Captions will automatically appear at the bottom of the screen. Any captions typed before activating captions will not be viewed but could be viewed later if the session is recorded.
Add captions or subtitles
Captions and subtitles make the session more accessible and allow for student diversity.
You can upload Video Text Tracks (VTT) caption and SubRip Subtitle (SRT) files to add or replace captions in recordings. From Recordings, find the recording you want, open the Recording options menu, and select Add caption source.
Invite someone from outside your topic
Use the guest link to invite people from outside of the FLO topic into the Collaborate session.
Join a session via phone
Please note: You must allow users to join their session using a telephone before attendees can dial-in. This is setting is on by default, but can be disabled.
If you are having audio difficulties you can use your phone for audio.
If you are in the Collaborate room, open the session menu and select Use your phone for audio. You will be given a phone number plus a personal PIN. You can still stay in the session to see the presentations and use the chat, but your
phone provides the audio. Note: the PIN is unique to you for that session only.
You can also call into a Collaborate session without joining the session. From your list of sessions, select the name of the session you want to call into. Select the Anonymous dial-in information from the menu. You will see a phone number
to call and a PIN to enter to join the session.
For further instructions, visit Collaborate's official user guide
When you use Anonymous dial-in, your phone is not paired with your account or session avatar. You appear in the session as an anonymous caller to other attendees.
Tips:
Copy the number and PIN from the settings menu to put it in a calendar item.
You can set a timer for everyone in the session or make it just visible to other moderators. Open the Collaborate panel, select Share Content and start the Timer.
You will also find screen reader support for whiteboard activities and uploaded files, but as a presenter you should avoid 'share application' and use 'file share' instead. The use of file share is
also helps to optimise performance for users on low bandwidth.
Collaborate also supports live closed captioning, if there is someone available to live caption and this is
an option for you.
