Network EducationWare Quick Guide

NEW was developed to be easy to use; still, it helps to have some basic directions. The following was written to give new users of NEW a quick start.

Getting Started
Probably, you will log on to NEW through a webpage. Just provide your username and password, and select the course or conference to which you belong. Then follow directions to load the software, if needed, and choose a teaching or conferencing connection or other task from the radio buttons on the 'welcome' webpage.

Alternately, you might be logging on directly, without a webserver. In this case you will provide the same information (username, password, course ID) in spaces provided on the Floor Control or Playback Control modules.

Seize the Floor
To talk, write on the whiteboard, launch a URL or launch an application, you must have the floor. If you are the teacher, you also will be designated a floor controller which means you get the floor anytime you ask for it. This is also true for anybody in a conference with an uncontrolled floor: No need to ask, just click on the bright pink button:

You can voluntarily give up the floor by clicking again the same button, which now will be bright blue:

As a controller, you can take the floor away from the current floorholder (the one whose cell is red) by clicking Request Floor. In most cases when you are teaching, your students will not have this option. When a student clicks Request Floor you will hear a beep and the corresponding cell will turn pink:

To give the student the floor, you can click on the cell. (You can always take it back; as controller, you are in charge.)

To see the full name of a participant, hold the cursor over the cell for a few seconds; the name will pop up.

Floor Control Chat and URL Launch
The floor control has a built-in chat feature. This is handy when the sound is not working or you do not want to make noise. It also lets students who are not set up for sound send questions and comments. There also is a Web Chat room assigned to each course. It is larger and is more useful for non-class time meetings.

As marked on the floor control panel, the student has two options for chat: SEND TO PROF, which goes only to controllers, or SEND TO ALL, which does what it says:

Another input space illustrated above and worth noting is LAUNCH URL. When you type a URL here, a browser will launch on each NEW desktop and attempt to load the URL from the Internet. Although you have no control over the format (browsers vary widely), this can be a very timely feature.

Sending Audio
A guiding principle of NEW is that good audio is essential. The Speak Freely audio tool is one of the best anywhere, and we have added a compact interface with all the controls in one easy place. It is hooked up to start sending when you take the floor or, for a student, when you hand over the floor.

You can tell the mode of the audio by the color in the interface. AGC means automatic gain control, which is another way of saying, "nearly user-proof." But there is one part of audio where it cannot do the work for you: unless the students in the classroom have microphones you will need to REPEAT THE QUESTION asked, so the online students know what was asked. You may want to deputize a student in the classroom to help you remember to do this.

The Whiteboard
As long as your microphone is working, you can pretty much forget about the audio. You need to focus on the other critical component of teaching: graphic presentation. The NEW whiteboard is a very flexible tool that will let you present your slides and annotate them. Everything you see on the whiteboard is also sent to all other whiteboards in the session within a few seconds.

The blue and green buttons across the bottom of the board are those that manage whole pages. The options here cover anything from photographs, to PowerPoint and LaTeX slides, to contents of any window active on the teaching computer, to plain old typing and handwriting.

The PURPLE buttons on the upper right edge of board are tools for annotating slides and blank pages. You can enter text (T), draw lines, arrows, rectangles, and ellipses, or write freehand (for this, a tablet input is recommended).

BUTTON		DESCRIPTION
GREEN
Import Slide		brings in a PDF, JPEG, HTML, or TXT file (you can make almost anything into a PDF; see Convert Slides below)
Blank Page		gives you a fresh whiteboard to draw, write, or type on.
Import Window		posts a JPEG of any active window on your computer (captured by clicking on the window and then pressing 'ALT' and 'PrintScreen' on your Windows keyboard before you click it). Use the 'config' button for continuous updates to the window for running applications.
Next Slide		displays the next slide. It will display the slide after the one presently shown if 'Prev Page' has been used and it will import a new slide if the present slide is the last one imported.
BLUE
Prev Page		steps back through the previous pages you have imported.
Go To Page		produces a list of all your pages, so you can jump to one.
GRAY
Erase		when pressed, explains how to erase an annotation.
Config		when pressed, a menu of possible configurations for the annotation appears. Options are provided for: changing the line or arrow width changing the text font changing which side of the whiteboard displays the tool buttons setting double-click option so that double click anywhere on the board will load next slide setting whether the annotations persist or flash or display one at a time setting Import Window to update continuously or not locking and unlocking the whiteboard control buttons
Color		press to change color of next annotation
PEACH
Convert Slides		when pressed, provides easy slide conversion (see 'Convert Slides button' below).
Export as PDF		exports all on the whiteboard to a PDF and provides location of PDF Use this when a hard copy of an annotated slide is needed.
About WBD		displays the max slide file size and notes about the programmers.

Convert Slides button
At the lower right edge of the whiteboard is the Convert Slides button that will accept a multi-page file and break it up into the single-page PDF or JPEG files used with the whiteboard. It also will perform these other handy tricks.

NOTES:
Convert Slides supports only static slides. It will not reproduce PowerPoint effects such as zoom-in and fade-in. In addition, the 'transparent' feature is not usable.

The maximum file size for a slide in any format is 64KB. This limit is set inside NEW and can be changed if slow transmitting modem links are not used. In the case of JPEG slides, the whiteboard will accept a larger file and attempt to reduce its size by recoding to a lower quality JPEG.

Convert Slides does have one annoying requirement, if you are using Powerpoint: you must install the HP Color LaserJet 8500 PS driver in order for it to work. See Windows file C:\Program Files\NEW\CONVERT\CONVERT-INFO.txt. However, you do not need this driver convert using Open Office or to use 'Convert Slides' on a multiple PDF file.

Lastly, a note about the part of the whiteboard that is not user-proof: it cannot keep you from pointing at the screen when you should be using the arrow. Those online do not see you point. Here again, you might ask an on-the-ball student to remind you: DO NOT POINT AT THE SCREEN.

Record Control
The other tool in the NEW teaching setup is the control for the recorder that makes your class available at all hours of the day and night. The Record Control is so simple that there is not much to say about it.

The record control features a set of popup signs which are intended to be downright annoying until you start the recorder, send it audio, and send it a slide. This last point is a little subtle: the recorder captures only what happens while it is running. If you load a slide to the whiteboard and then start recording, that slide will not show up in the playback. (If you forget and load the slide first, you can simply load it again after starting the recorder.) You can pause the recorder for a break. When you do this, another user-proofing sign will appear until you start it again. When you stop the recorder, the file is terminated. (There is a utility program RESEQ that will splice recording files together, should you choose to make a recording in segments. See NEW documentation for details.)

You can make a recording without a server connection using RECORD-STANDALONE.nwc in the NEW directory (C:\Program Files\NEW). You will need to click Send on the NEW Speak Freely panel to start audio capture (normally this happens automatically when you click Request Floor).

Playback Control
After a recording is made, you can play it back locally or upload it to the server. To play locally, go toC:/Program Files/NEW and click on PLAY-STANDALONE.nwc. The filename will be made from the date, hour and minute the recording started. You can change this to a mnemonic name using Windows; however, you must not change the .nwr extension. You can then use the instructor webpage to upload it to the server, where it will be available by streaming or as a download.

Live Video
NEW uses a great Internet video tool called VIC. Because video eats up computer and network capacity, we set VIC for slow frame rates and small pictures, even though it is capable of good quality video. This is consistent with the fact that most students report they gain very little educational value from a talking head. We generally do not record video, for the same reason. But it is there for students with broadband Internet, and many do connect.

Instructor Welcome Page
These functions are available for the course instructor after log on.

That's All, Folks
Of course, there is more to know about NEW, but probably you would rather get on with your class or conference. It is really pretty simple! Please help us make it better by reporting problems and suggesting improvements to: help@netlab.gmu.edu

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Network EducationWare