Interacting with participants

LiveRoom offers a feature-rich environment for interacting with other room members. In addition to the standard chat functionality, LiveRoom includes:

• a whisper feature that allows you to send private messages to specific room members
• status indicators that allow room members to show their availability
• an integrated question-and-answer tool specifically designed for classroom and presentation settings
• a hand-raising feature that intuitively recreates the classroom tradition of participants raising their hands
• feedback controls that allow participants to indicate when things are moving too quickly or too slowly

Chatting (posting public messages)

The most basic way to interact with other room members is by chatting. “Chatting” is the term used for posting public messages (messages everyone in the room can see) to the Chat Window. By chatting, participants and moderators create a conversation that everyone in the room can follow (including guests). This conversation is recorded in the room’s archives.

Depending on the type of session you are conducting, you might use the chat feature to engage in a discussion with everyone in the room, or you might use it to post your lecture comments or elaborate on the currently displayed resource.

Post a message to the chat window

1. Enter the message into the Message box at the bottom of the Chat Window.
2. Click Send.

Changing the appearance of your messages

You can customize the way your messages appear in the chat window. This can be used to make your own messages easy to identify within the conversation, or to add emphasis or special formatting to parts of a message. The controls for formatting messages appear in the chat tool bar immediately above the message box.

Change the appearance of your messages

1. Choose the appearance settings you want using the tool bar.
2. Type your message. As you type, the message will appear as it will look in the chat window.

The new settings will automatically be used with future messages.

Change the appearance of part of a message only

1. Type the entire message.
2. Highlight the part of the message you want to change (by clicking and dragging the mouse pointer over that part of the message).
3. Choose the appropriate appearance settings. The settings will only affect the selected part of the message.

Silencing a participant (revoking chat permission)

If a participant is being unruly or obnoxious, you can prevent them from posting messages to the chat window by revoking their permission to chat.

Revoke or restore a participant’s chat permission

1. In the Room Members list, right-click on the participant you want to silence.
2. Point to Permissions and then click Send Chat Messages.

Tip  if you want to remove a participant’s ability interact with other room members altogether, you can change their access level to Guest. Guests cannot post chat messages, whisper, ask questions, or do anything at all other than watch the presentation in silence.

Revoke or restore chat permission to multiple participants

1. In the Room Members list, select the appropriate users.
2. Right-click on one of the selected users, point to Permissions, and then point to Room.
3. Point to Grant or Revoke.
4. Click Send Chat Messages.

Whispering (sending private messages)

Whispering allows you to send private messages to specific participants. Only the participants selected will see the message. Whispered messages appear in the chat window of both the sender and any recipients. When you whisper to another room member, you will see the following:

You whisper to Frank Catcher:

Thank you for volunteering.

The recipient (Frank Catcher) will see the following:

Ann Shills whispers to you:

Thank you for volunteering.

Whisper (send a private message) to someone

1. In the Room Members list, right-click on the participant you want to whisper to, and then click Whisper to [room members name].

   You can whisper to multiple people at once by selecting multiple room members, right-clicking on one of them, and then selecting Whisper to Selected Users.

2. Enter the message you want to send. You can also format the message using the standard formatting controls. Formatting will apply to the whispered message only.
3. Click Send.

Tip  you can send multiple whispers to the same person (or selected people) by clearing the Close on send check box before clicking Send. When you are finished sending the last whisper, click Close.

Stopping people from whispering

You can take away room members’ ability to send whispers without affecting their ability to post public messages to the chat. This is useful if you believe that a participant is abusing the whisper function.

Tip  you can monitor the number of private messages a user has sent with the Member Summary screen.

Revoke or restore a participant’s ability to send private messages

1. In the Room Members list, right-click on the participant.
2. Point to Permissions and then click Send Private Messages.

Revoke or restore whisper permission for multiple users

1. In the Room Members list, select the appropriate users.
2. Right-click on one of the selected users, point to Permissions, and then point to Room.
3. Point to Grant or Revoke.
4. Click Send Private Messages.

Changing your status (indicating when you are unavailable)

Your status lets other room members know when you are available or unavailable to participate in the conversation or conduct the presentation. LiveRoom supports three status settings:

• Online You are actively involved in the session.
• Away You are not currently at your computer or are otherwise unable to respond to other room members.
• Busy You are at your computer but are involved in something else and cannot participate in the session. (For example: you are on the phone, you are using another application and cannot switch back and forth.)

All room members can change their status. Watch the status of other room members to keep tabs on their availability.

Change your status

On the Options menu at the top of the screen, select the appropriate status.

Feedback on pace

Participants can use the integrated feedback controls to signal you about the pace of the presentation.

•  means “go faster”, things are moving too slowly for me
•  means “slow down”, I can’t keep up

The pace icons will appear in the Room Members list beside the names of particular participants. You will also see a total of the number of participants requesting things to move more quickly or more slowly in the Summary Area beneath the Room Members list.

Only moderators will be able to see the feedback indicators; they will not be visible to participants or guests.

Keep an eye on these icons to monitor the pace of a lecture or presentation, and to determine which areas may need more elaboration.

Tip  You can sort the Room Members list based on feedback. This makes it easy to select room members who are confused and send them a whispered message arranging a remedial session for extra help. Or select room members who are bored and send a whispered message directing them towards additional resources.

Raised hands

The raised hand feature allows participants to put their hands up. Everyone in the room will be able to see who has their hands raised (including other participants and guests).

When a participant raises their hand, their icon will change to a hand. The Summary Area beneath the Room Members list will also display the total number of raised hands at any given time.

You can use the raised hand feature to conduct quick polls of the audience – for example, asking who has completed a certain topic in the course content, or who has been exposed to differential equations in the past, and so on.

Lower all raised hands

In the Summary Area beneath the Room Members list, click the Lower Hands button.

Questions from participants

The Questions feature allows participants to submit questions outside of the main chat window, letting you keep track of questions and answer them when you get the opportunity. You can also control whether answers are shared with everyone in the room, or only the participant who asked.

You will know that you have questions waiting to be answered when the Questions button is enabled.

When a new question is submitted, the Questions button will flash three times and a question mark icon will appear beside the name of the participant who submitted the question (unless the question was submitted anonymously). If a participant asks a second question before the first has been cleared or answered, a triple question mark icon will appear.

Questions will be stored in a queue until you either answer them or clear them. (Even if another moderator answers a question, it will remain in your queue.)

When answering questions, you have the choice of making your answer visible to everyone in the room or only to the participant who asked the question. If you choose to keep your answer private, it will only appear in the chat window of the participant who asked the question and all moderators (unless the question was asked to you specifically). If you make your answer public, it will appear in everyone’s chat window.

When you submit an answer, the original question and the answer will both be added to the chat window and will appear as follows:

Frank Catcher asked a question: How do we know whether something is ‘good’?

Answer: We intuitively grasp that it possesses the simple non-natural property of ‘goodness’.

It is possible for participants to submit questions anonymously. This feature is intended to encourage participants to ask questions they might otherwise be too embarrassed to ask. When an anonymous question is answered, the message in the chat window will say:

Someone asked a question:

If you respond privately to an anonymous question, LiveRoom will automatically route the answer to the participant who asked it.

The Answer screen

The Answer screen is used to view, answer, and clear questions submitted by participants.

Open the Answer screen and view all questions (including anonymous ones)

In the Summary Area of the Room Members list, click the Questions button.

Open the Answer screen and view questions from a single participant only

In the Room Members list, right-click on the participant and select Answer Questions.

Note  anonymous questions submitted by the participant will not be displayed.

Answering a question

1. Open the Answer screen.
2. If the Answer box for the question is not visible, click the Answer Question button beneath the question. This will expand the question and display the Answer box.
3. Enter the answer in the Answer box beneath the question.
4. If you want to share the answer with everyone in the room, select the Allow answer to be seen by all participants check box. If you want the answer to be kept private, clear this check box.
5. Click Submit Answer.

Clearing a question

Clearing a question will remove the question from the Answer screen and clear any notification for that question from the Room Members list.

Note  once you have cleared a question, you will not be able to answer it or even see it again.

Clear a question

1. Open the Answer screen.
2. If the Clear Question button is not visible beneath the question you want to clear, click the Answer Question button instead. This will expand the question and make the Clear Question button visible.
3. Click Clear Question.