Suggestions for using the computer conferencing system FIRST CLASS

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A European online teacher training course in Environmental

Education

Suggestions for using the computer

conferencing system

FIRST CLASS ®

About First Class (FC)

The communication platform used in our course is called FirstClass.

FirstClass is a Computer conferencing environment that permits many-to-many interaction among remote users using asynchronous communication, also incorporating synchronous functions such as chatting.

The FirstClass system consists of two parts: a server, and a client that connects to it. The Client is a software that lets you access the course discussion areas.

The client needs to be installed and run on your own computer (see section below).

Users identify themselves by logging on to the system and can then access the communication functions. In some cases, users can also access the course areas using a web browser (without installing the client software on their computer). Nevertheless, it has to be underlined that the features and functionalities offered via browser are limited.

Thus, participants are strongly invited to install and use the FC Client software to access the course areas. (Those who wish to access the course areas via browser, can enter the site http://150.145.2.80:8080/Login/ - see userID and password in the following sections).

In the following sections, we analyze the main features and functionalities of the FirstClass Client software.

How to install the FC client on your PC

1 - To download the FirstClass Client software, enter the site http://www.centrinity.com/ClientDownloads/IntlClients/

choose your language and platform (windows or Macintosh) and click on it (we suggest you to save the downloaded file directly on the Desktop).

2 - To install the software, click on the downloaded file “.exe” and follow the indications given by the software.

3 - To run the program, click on the program icon on your Desktop (or START

–> Programs –>

FirstClass).

How to start

After having installed the software, it needs to setup and customize the access to the course areas. Running the program, the Login window opens (Figure 1).

Figure 1

Clicking on the Setup button the Service Setup window (Figure 2) opens.

ATTENTION: you need to customize the Service Setup window (Figure 2) ONLY the first time

you run the FirstClass programe.

Next time, the Login window (Figure1) will automatically contain your data.

To customize your access, fill-in the fields (Figure 2) as follows:

ONLY the first time you run the

FirstClass programe.

Figure 2

Connect via: TCP-IP.FCP UserId:

your group userId

(see table below)

Password:

your group password

(see table below)

Server: ulearn.itd.ge.cnr.it (or 150.145.2.80)

At the end, Click on Save

The Login window should now contain your data. Click on Login. The Waves_online collaboration area appears.

**************************************************************************************** To enter the FC communication environment, each group should log using the following userID and

password:

ATTENTION:

only small letters!!

Group’ FC User Name User ID Password

G-GALLIERA (IT) galliera galliera

G- NATTA (IT) natta natta

G-GIORGIO (IT) giorgio giorgio

G-TERAKKI (TR) terakki terakki

G-SAINTMICHEL (TR) saintmichel saintmichel

G-PALANGA (LT) palanga palanga

G-KLAIPEDA (LT) klaipeda klaipeda G-KRETINGA (LT) kretinga kretinga G-GALATASARAY (TR) galatasaray galatasaray

Course Desktop

The desktop (Figure 3) appears on the screen with some Icons: Mailbox, Calendar and the course area,

called Waves_online. the starting point to access the other course areas and FC functionalities.

Figure 3

The mailbox contains a copy of all the

messages you send and receive.

Waves_online is the conference

dedicated specifically to the course and is meant for working and discussion.

Calendar displays your FirstClass personal

calendar.

Course conference areas

Usually, a ‘school’ metaphor is adopted: imagine we are now in the foyer of our course. Think of each icon as a door to a room where discussion and course activities are performed.

Figure 4

The red flags you see aside messages indicate those messages that you haven't yet read.

On the top of the window we

have the topic-based “conferences”, where participants can read the related messages and join in the discussion.

The bottom of the window is the so-called foyer, an area set aside for the exchange of messages regarding all community members and may also provides information about the module structure, time-table, etc. The foyer will also provide information for evaluation purposes.

A conference is associated to each module of the course:

• 4 icons classroom icons stand for the 4 modules composing the course, namely: (M0)

familiarisation, (M1) defining the requirements of the pupils’ learning environment, (M2) modelling the chosen see environment, (M3) designing and planning the children activities

• a Technical_help area, dealing with the technological aspects. Here participants can get assistance for technical problems in using First Class;

• a library, where participants will find useful documents; • a Coffee corner, for socialisation purposes;

To open a message or a conference, Double click on the message or the conference icon.

As you can see (Figure 4), a conference is composed of individual messages (i.e. Welcome) and of chains of messages known as threads, which in turn are made up of individual messages.

The message

The message opens in a new window (Figura 5).

Figure 5

To send/reply to a message

Figure 6

To send a message (Figure 6) to a conference or a person:

• Select menu Message -> item New

Message.

• Type the Subject (field consistent with the content of the message)

• Type the name of the conference or person in the field TO: (NB: if you entering the conference before, this field is already typed!)

Type the text and sign up.

To make up for the lack of non-verbal signals, which might lead to misunderstanding, you can make use of colours and formatted text.

Send the message clicking on the Send button

Where to send messages

Every message has a content related to a particular conference. For example, the socialization messages are related to the coffee corner conference.

To make the communication easier it's very important that we send our messages to the correct conference. So we remind you to have a look at the To: field before sending your message!!!.

To Reply to a message:

Select menu Message -> item Reply or Reply special ! Reply with quote (to maintain the original text) .

Attached documents

Apart from the usual messages, the conference may also contain files in any kind of format, which the user can load and download from the server.

To attach a file to your message, open a new message and click on the Attach button

A browsing window (figure 7) opens so as you can choose from your PC the file to be uploaded. Then click on the Open button.

Chats (synchronous communication)

You can use the chat feature of FirstClass to engage in real-time online discussions. The users with whom you are communicating are known as the “chat participants”. Private chats are initiated by users.

To start a private chat, click the menu Collaborate ! item Private Chat. A chat window opens.

You can use the Invite button in the top pane to invite additional users to the chat. Follow these steps.

1. Click Invite button. A Directory list appears. It contains all users who are currently logged in.

2. Select a user you want to invite to the chat, and click Select. You can only invite users who are currently logged in, and who have not chosen to decline chat invitations in their Preferences form.

3. Repeat step 2 until you have selected all the users with whom you want to chat.

4. Close the Who’s Online list.

The chat window

Chatting is done in a chat window. You type your message into a text box in the top pane. When you press the SEND

button the message appears in the

bottom pane on your screen, as well as on the screen of each chat participant. The top pane of the chat window contains a list of all chat participants. This list is updated whenever a user joins or leaves the chat.

The top pane also contains two fields: Sounds: Select this option to allow chat sounds. Chat sounds occur when new users join the chat.

The Invitation to Chat window is displayed on the screen of each selected user.

The Invitation to Chat window: When you are invited to chat, you hear a sound, and an Invitation to

Chat window appears (no matter what you are doing in FirstClass). The window contains the name of the person inviting you to chat. It has two buttons: Accept and Decline. To accept the invitation and join the chat immediately, click Accept.

To decline the invitation, click Decline or close the invitation window.

Save a transcript of the current chat

To save a transcript of the current chat, choose menu File -> Save As, and specify the name of the file in which you want to save the transcript. The transcript can be saved on your drive of choice and is recorded in text format.

NB: To save a transcript of the current chat could be very useful in order to circulate among the other members of the local/remote groups (not participated in) important information arisen from the real-time discussion.

Other FC functions

Other relevant FC functions include:

- looking at the message history: who's read what?

- looking at other groups’ résumés, and providing your own - FC Directory

Message History

You can see who's read any message in the conferences: open the message, then click the button History

on the top toolbar. The history shows when the msg was composed, when it was sent and who has

Résumés

You can put a résumé of the group in the system: click the menu File -! item Open -! item Résumé. 1) In the top right corner of the résumé, type your name.

2) In the bottom pane of the résumé, type any information that you think

would be useful to other users. For ideas about what to write, view the résumés of other users on your sys-tem.

People's résumés are visible by clicking on their names (e.g. in the FROM: field of a message) then clicking on the Résumé button .

Directory

If the destination conference is open in your active window, the field TO: should be already initialized with the conference name. If not, you need only to type the first few characters of the addressee name and by clicking Search buttom FC will automatically give a list of available areas (or names).

Hints

We suggest you some options to reduce your connection time.

To read the msgs: Once you are connected to the system you can open all new messages and copy and

paste the texts in a file word (for exemple). After you can disconnect, print the document (if you want) and read off-line.

To write the msgs: You can write the text with a text editor before connecting to FC. After the connection

you can create new msg, copy and paste your text, write the subject , fill the space To: and send it.

We hope that these suggestions could help you to reduce the time of working on-line...

We suggest you to connect to FC every day. This allows you to read all new messages and follow better the progress of our work. Obviously, you are free to connect to the system when you want, but our suggestion resulted from our previous experiences where we found it easier to follow the discussion connecting to the system ten minutes per day than for an hour once a week. Please let us know if you can access the Waves_Online Conferences, sending a message in the Foyer.

Default navigational buttons

This list describes the functionality of the default navigational buttons utilized by your FirstClass system.

Desktop - brings you to your FirstClass desktop Directory - displays the FirstClass directory New Message - creates a new message Chat - initiates a private chat

Site Search - allows for a search of all or portions of the web content

Search - searches web content at the present conference level and all subconference Home - brings you back to the home page

The following are message specific buttons.

History - displays the history of a message or document

Reply - creates a reply to a message using your reply preferences Forward - allows you to send a copy of a message to another user Previous In Thread - opens the previous message in the current thread Next In Thread - opens the next message in the current thread

Previous Unread - opens the previous unread item Next Unread - opens the next unread item