Collaborate - main entry

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 'breakout' spaces. It is also compatible with a growing number of classrooms. Using the Collaborate activity in a topic ideally consists of the following 5 stages.

1. Plan  |  2. Build  |  3. Test  |  4. Administer  |  5. Review  ||  Support 

Collaborate icon

This entry relates to the Collaborate tool.


Good practice guides and tip sheets

Good practice guides and tip sheets have been developed to support quality in both curriculum design and teaching practice. Good practice guides provide a pedagogical overview and tip sheets provide you with practical strategies and ideas for implementation. Links to Collaborate-related resources are provided below. 

Using online teaching tools to optimise face-to-face time | Communication, interaction and collaboration tools in FLO | Considerations associated with planning the creation of videos for teaching | Engaging students in a synchronous session | Facilitating Student-Teacher interaction in FLO | Running hybrid classes | Authentic and Active Learning | Online topic orientation

Disabled features

To help increase the stability of the system and increase performance, the following features are temporarily disabled by the vendor:

  • Timer (a countdown timer)
  • Chat typing indicator (a visual indicator that someone is typing. Chat is otherwise functional.)
  • The number of videos showing at any one time in some browsers has been reduced from 4 to 2

Collaborate is the official web conferencing tool for learning and teaching at Flinders University.

     

    1. Plan

    The following provides information on best practice and use cases for Collaborate, along with guidance on adding and creating Collaborate sessions within your FLO topic.

    In the Collaborate planning guide, explore the key topics associated with planning to use Collaborate, such as:

    You may also want to check out our guide to using Collaborate in hybrid classes.


    2. Build

    You have planned your use of the Collaborate virtual classroom. Now add the Collaborate shortcut to FLO (if it's not already there) and create your sessions.

    1. Add Collaborate to your FLO topic
    2. Create sessions for teaching
    3. Conduct a secure session with someone
    4. Allow students to record video inside Collaborate


    3. Test

    When using a tool like Collaborate for the first time, it is a good idea to give yourself and your students the opportunity to test they can enter the room. This will help reduce unnecessary technical issues before scheduling important sessions.


    4. Administer

    There are several key aspects associated with the management of sessions.

    An introductory PowerPoint slide for Collaborate (available here) can be placed as a starting slide to help students get started and troubleshoot common technical issues.

      5. Review

      It is important that you evaluate your use of Collaborate at the conclusion of each session. This will help you to improve your use of the tool and therefore enhance learning and teaching.

      If you wish to collaborate as a teaching team (ie with other staff) you could use Teams – an online video and audio-enabled meeting place that allows you to meet with anyone, anywhere, in real-time using a web browser on your computer or mobile device, including iPad, iPhone or Android.



        Training and support

        Troubleshooting

      Training

      Flinders offers both Face-to-Face training, online training and has a recording of our training for Collaborate:

      Support

      Disabled features

      To help increase the stability of the system and increase performance, the following features are temporarily disabled by the vendor:

      • Timer (a countdown timer)
      • Chat typing indicator (a visual indicator that someone is typing. Chat is otherwise functional.)
      • The number of videos showing at any one time in some browsers has been reduced from 4 to 2

      » How-to glossary