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How to set up your WeConnect Collaboration Room

In the WeConnect rooms on campus, there are two types of weConnect: the WeConnect Huddle Space and the WeConnect Collaboration Room. The WeConnect Collaboration Room allows you to make your classroom more interactive by using side displays for collaboration. But in addition, you can control what is displayed on the side displays and you can use Interactive Tools, like polling and the whiteboard.

As a Lecturer, you can: 

  • Moderate the collaboration in the class
  • Present content from the projection screen to the side display(s)
  • Control the content on the side displays
  • Launch quizzes and polls
  • Get audience feedback with silent questions

And as a Student, you can:

  • Share content to the side displays in class using your own device
  • Learn and study in working groups
  • Ask the instructor silent questions
  • Participate in polls and quizzes

For the WeConnect Collaboration Room to work there are several things you need to do: Start your weConnect Collaboration Room session, get to know the display functions, learn about the interactive tools, have a practice session (or multiple), share the information about Sharing through mirrorOp with your students and, last but not least, reserve a room with the facility WeConnect.

To schedule a training please contact [email protected].

Contact [email protected] to reserve a room with the facility WeConnect.

You need a fully compliant HTML5 web browser to access the WeConnect features. WeConnect only supports the Google Chrome browser at this time.

Plan your WeConnect Collaboration Room session

You can plan your session(s) in advance. It also possible to plan and start the session immediately.

How to login for a WeConnect Collaboration Room session

  1. Go to https://wur.edu.barco.com/ in your Google Chrome browser
  2. Click on Wageningen University & Research to login

How to plan a WeConnect Collaboration Room session

3. Click on the blue Plan a session button on the top right corner

A new window to Create a Session appears:

4. Fill in the Session Name (default is session by 'initiator)'

5. Select the Start Date and Time

6. Select the End Date and Time

7. Select a room from WUR campus for your Session:

  • If you use combined rooms choose Collaboration Main Room (e.g B0521) and the corresponding overflow room (e.g B0525)
  • If you use a single room choose Collaboration Room (e.g B0521)

8. You can make the session Open for Everyone or you can invite users one by one as participants

9. Click on Start Session

All displays in the room will initialize.

Create a session

Start your WeConnect Collaboration Room session

On the Control Panel in the room:

  1. Press Combine if you are using combined rooms
  2. Press the Projector On button
  3. Press the Select WeConnect button (instead of Select PC)
  4. Press Displays On button to turn on the side displays

If the side displays do not work please call the reception of the building you are in.

Combined rooms: When you booked a combined room at the reception you will receive the box with equipment labeled Master. This is the main classroom in which you should use the Control PaneL. Press the Combine button to share what is on your screen on the projection screens in both rooms and to enable side displays in both rooms.

On your laptop or the Writing Tablet (WACOM) follow the instructions on How to login for a WeConnect Collaboration Room session.

Now, if you have not planned a session follow the steps described in the paragraph Plan your WeConnect Collaboration Room session. If you have already planned a session:

5. Click on Join Now to join an existing session

Login

Students can only log in to your session after you have started it. You have to let students log in if you wish to use the WeConnect Interactive Tools like polling, chat, and the interactive whiteboard.

Manage your WeConnect Collaboration Room session

Use the display functions

Successfully starting a lecture will give you the screen displayed below. At the center of the screen, you will get a live preview (low frame rate) of the main display. If you are in a room with many displays, you will be able to select the preview of individual displays you are allowed to control by selecting them at the center top of the screen.

It is recommended to place the tab with the WeConnect Display Contol Panel on the PC monitor screen to control the display sharing options. Use the Writing Tablet (WACOM) to share presentations with your students.

  1. Thumbnails: The first thumbnail is of the Writing Tablet (WACOM) screen. Press the arrow on the right to see all the thumbnails that represent the preview of each side display of the group tables. If you click on one of them the screen enlarges and you can view what is happening in each group. Click on several thumbnails to combine multiple screens into an enlarged view.
  2. Preview screen: All the thumbnails that you place here will be projected on the side displays and/or the projection on the front of the classroom. You can project a maximum of 8 screens at the same time
  3. Unlock screens/Lock screens: By default, the side displays are locked.
  4. Click on Unlock screens to unlock the screens, only then students can connect their devices to the displays via the MirrorOp App.
  5. Click on Lock screens to stop students from working on their group screen. This is useful at the beginning and end of a lecture to focus the attention on the central discussion.
  6. WC-C0521-W1-Main display: Click here and choose from the drop-down menu any of the side displays to the projection in the front of the classroom
  7. Share to all: Click this button to share a screen(s) to the projection in the front and the side displays
Display interface

The second thumbnail, Companion Mode QR, is for students to log in to the session through the browser on their cellphones. This would be needed if you wish the use the WeConnect Interactive Tools. You could share this thumbnails to all the screens.

Display sharing options

There are several ways to share screens during a WeConnect Collaboration Room session: Share through MirrorOp, share content from your device, and share the main screen and/or one or more of the side display screens with all the participants in the room. With the Huddle Space, the most basic form of WeConnect, it is only possible to share Through MirrorOp.

If you are having troubles with screen sharing, check this page about screen sharing problems.

Share through MirrorOp

The article How to get started with WeConnect explains what steps are needed for the Students to share content from their device to one of the side displays through MirrorOp. We advise you to share this article with your Students in advance.

Participants sharing to the side displays will not appear immediately on the main screen. If you would like to do that, you will have to bring them to the main screen by selecting the corresponding thumbnail. In the paragraph Share the main screen or one of the side display screens with everybody this is explained.

Share content from your device

By default the screen of the WACOM is shared as the main screen in the WeConnect collaboration room. If you would like to use your own device you can share your screen by following these steps:

  1. Click on Share
  2. Click on Share your screen

 

Now you see that your screen is added to the list of thumbnails below. Next to that, when sharing your screen a confirmation bar appears at the bottom:

  • You stop sharing from the button on this bar
  • You can hide the bar
  • You can reposition the bar by dragging and dropping it to a different spot on your screen
Share the main screen or one of the side display screens with all the participants in the room
  1. Select the thumbnail of the Writing Tablet screen (e.g C0521 Auto-Launched Local Source) or the groupwork side display that you want to share. You can find the number of the side display in the last part of the code below the thumbnail (e.g Wc-C0521-D1).
  2. Select the display you want to share
  3. Click on Share to all
  4. To remove a screen click on the cross icon on the upper right corner of the display preview in the preview screen
Share more side display screens simultaneously
  1. Click on all the thumbnails that you want to share
  2. Click on Share to all.  

You can keep adding content this way until you have reached the maximum amount of simultaneous sources you can show. You can share up to 8 display screens simultaneously. Adding one more source will cause the automatic removal of the first source you have put on the screen.

3. To remove a display click on the cross icon on the upper right corner of the display preview in the preview screen

4. Click on the plus icon to make one of the screens larger

5. Click on the minus icon to make it smaller

WeConnect interactive tools

Polling

When you ask a question verbally, write it in PowerPoint or on the whiteboard, you can launch a poll within five seconds. WeConnect offers three polling categories:

  1. Double - for binary questions (True/False)
  2. Multiple Choice - up to seven answers possible
  3. Open Answer - different lengths of answers are possible

And here (4) you can set the time limit for students to answer the poll.

Poll (host)

After you have launched the poll, as an instructor you get the following overview:

  1. Click on Stop Poll or wait until the time limit is over to get an overview of the results
  2. Click on +30s, +1m, or +2m to extend the time in case it is needed
Polls answered (host)

At the end of the poll, you will be able to relaunch the poll, display the results to the participants (they will see if they had the correct answer and an overview of the different answers given by others), or download the results as an excel file. In the article Download data of your session you can read how to download the results of the poll(s).

As a Student you get the following overviews:

  1. For every quiz or poll, the learner gets a limited time to answer, you can see how many seconds you have left underneath the answer options.
  2. When the Lecturer has answered, students get a confirmation
  3. When the poll has ended, the Lecturer can decide to show the correct answer and how the complete group has answered
Poll (participant)
Silent Questions and Chat

Question can be asked directly in the chat.

There are two options:

  1. Send message: all participants will be able to see the question raised by a student
  2. Ask the host: this message will be directly seen by the Lecturer
Chat

Lecturers can also see and react to the classroom message timeline.

The silent questions feature allows you to ask a question to the lecturer without the need to raise your hand. Your fellow participants in the lecture will be able to read your question and indicate if they like it. Lecturers automatically get the most liked questions in a list in their user interface.  They can answer the question at any time or keep it as feedback to improve the lecture in the future.

3. Click Ask the Host to ask your silent question and enter your question in the text box.  Hit the enter key or the question mark balloon again to post your question. There is also a possibility this question to be anonymous when sent to a broader audience. 

Silent Questions (student)
Overview Lecturer

Below is the overview that you, as a Lecturer, have of the silent questions (and chat):

Overview of asked questions

  1. You can sort the questions by Likes or by Time
  2. In the article Download data of your session, you can read how to download the overview of asked questions and the students who asked them (even if they asked it anonymously).
  3. Click on this icon to go to the chat
Silent Questions (Host)
Whiteboard

Select the whiteboard tab on the right side of the application to access the whiteboard. Users managing the classroom can draw on the whiteboard. Also, participants can contribute in case the Enable Collaboration Drawing option is selected.

  1. Add a new Whiteboard
  2. Show or Hide the Whiteboard
  3. Collaborative drawing: Enable participants to actively contribute to the whiteboard
  4. Set your pin: When enabled by Lecturer, a participant will see a pin appearing on top of the whiteboard, which you can position freely. You will also see where other participants position their pins. This creates a dynamic heat map of the opinions of people in the session
  5. Undo the last action
  6. Take a screenshot from the main screen to annotate on
Whiteboard

End your WeConnect Collaboration Room session

  1. Click on your initials in the right upper corner of the screen

A drop-down menu will appear:

  1. Click on Stop Session

It is important to always stop your session, otherwise the next person cannot start a new session in that room!

Stop Session

Download data of your session

After your session has ended you can download data, such as questions asked by your students or the created whiteboards.

  1. Go to https://wur.edu.barco.com and log in with your WUR credentials
  2. On the top left corner, click on Past Sessions
  3. Click on the download icon of the session you want to download data from

Now you know how to set up your WeConnect Collaboration Room!

Want to know more about using weConnect in lecture rooms at WUR?

Please visit: