0.5-Creating your Adobe Connect practice room

To view all of the content on this page, make sure you click on each of the links that appear below in succession. In other words, once you have read the current page, continue to the next section by clicking the second link, followed by the third link. Notice that each section is numbered using capital letters to indicate the order in which you should read them, “A — B — C.”

• A) Synchronous teaching and learning

Developing listening and speaking skills in a language requires consistent practice where learners have the opportunity to engage not only in scripted dialogues, but perhaps more importantly, participating in experiences where they must use what they have learned spontaneously. In online courses, we use synchronous platforms (synchronous = existing or occurring at the same time) where learners and teacher(s) are online in a customized space so that they can see and hear interactions at the same time. Examples of such platforms include Skype, which is commonly used to “call” friends and relatives worldwide, Google Hangouts, Zoom, and Adobe Connect. 

You may already be familiar with one or more of these, but to ensure common knowledge of at least one, we will all learn and use Adobe Connect.  Unlike the other platforms listed above, this platform is not free, but don’t worry – – you don’t have to buy anything to be a participant in an Adobe meeting! For class interactions, it offers a number of tools and features that make it an excellent choice for our work in this course.  In fact, we will use Adobe Connect for all of our whole class (meaning everyone in this course) meetings like the Welcome Orientationlater this week, guest speaker presentations, your small-group peer microteaching and your final teaching experience where you will co-teach a lesson with novice-level university language students! To prepare you to attend and create a synchronous session in Adobe Connect, you will sign up for a free, 30-day trial of the platform. This will allow you to learn how to use the tools and features of the platform to create a customized learning experience. And even if you never use the platform beyond this course, the skills and knowledge you acquire in the process will transfer to how you use other synchronous web conferencing tools!

To continue

Now, let’s learn more about Adobe Connect. Click on the second tab at the top of the page, B) What is Adobe Connect? to learn more about Adobe Connect.

• B) What is Adobe Connect?

The following video provides and overview of the Adobe Connect platform. You may notice that there are several versions of Adobe Connect. We will use the “Adobe Connect Meeting” version described in this video. To begin, click on the “Play” button of the video player to begin. Please watch this video in its entirety.

Create your practice room

NOTE: Because your practice room account is only valid for 30 days, it is critical that you NOT do this step until June 16. This will ensure that your account will remain valid for the duration of the course. On June 16 or later, follow the steps in the next section.

• C) Creating your Adobe Connect practice room

Click on the link at the top of the page, “C) Creating your Adobe Connect Practice Room” to set up your free trial.Now that you have a understanding of how Adobe Connect can serve our needs as language educators, you will sign up for a free, 30-day trial of Adobe Connect so that you can have hands-on experience customizing the interface for your needs.First, you need to create an account with Adobe so that you can receive the email with the temporary password for your new adobe connect account. Click here (Links to an external site.) to fill out the online form to request an account. If you have already had a trial account, for example, if you were a participant in last year’s CLASSROAD, you may need to use a different email address.Now that you have filled out the online form, you should receive an email from Adobe. Watch the following video until time marker 3:48, then continue below to create your account:

To create your own Adobe Connect Practice Room, you will need a few important pieces of information before clicking on the link below.  Before you begin, please read all of the details below, and take a look at the example registration screenshot image below so that you will better understand how to complete the registration process.  

When completing the registration form, you will be asked to create at least one room, which is really all you will need. You only need to provide the following information:  

1. When naming your Adobe Connect Meeting room, use your own name, for example, “NicoleNaditz”
2. Make sure you select Adobe Connect Meeting – not “Learning” or “Webinar”
3. Provide details for the custom URL (we suggest the name of your room, such as “NicoleNaditz”)
4. Change the access level of your room to “Anyone who has the URL” so that you can easily share this with colleagues

Now, click on the following link, fill out the form using your information: Adobe Connect Free Trial Registration  (Links to an external site.) 

To continue

Once you have signed up for your Adobe Connect free trial, you can begin to experiment with the interface. You’ve already seen that Adobe Connect is a very robust platform and can be overwhelming at first. Don’t worry. We will not use all of the features of this platform, so we’ll guide your exploration. Now, continue to the next section, 0.6 Preparing for Course Interactions.