It was a thrilling experience moderating my first Skypecast yesterday. Thanks to all those who participated on the call, and to those who made suggestions for improving future calls. Karine has a nice write-up about it plus some suggestions about how admissions departments could use the medium to conduct virtual open houses. If any of you is interested in using the tool, and would like to get some experience, feel free to jump on our call next Friday at 1 PM EDT. It will be listed here.

Let me share some observations.

1-The interface is minimal, meaning not much information, and not a lot of control. Participants can see only the screen names of others on the call, making it difficult to figure out who’s on the call, and difficult to refer to people by name. Skype should build into its next release the ability to show full participant names, and the ability for participants to click to learn more about other participants. We spent a fair amount of time figuring out who was who, jotting down participant names and locations, etc.

From within the interface, the moderator has the ability to mute all participants, or “pass the mic” to one or more of them. The moderator also has the ability to “eject” participants from the discussion.

2-Sound quality can be an issue. Some participant mic/network setups were less than optimal, meaning that when those folks were given the floor, unwanted noise was introduced to the call. As the moderator, I spent a fair amount of time figuring out whose setup was noisy, and muting those individuals. I wanted as many people as possible to be able to speak freely, without having to request the mic.

3-Some wanted to participate, and could hear the dialogue, but either didn’t have a mic, or didn’t have the freedom to speak (due to being in an office, etc.). As a moderator, you may want to invite these folks to communicate with you via the text chat feature in Skype. At one time I was text chatting with one participant via Skype, and two via AIM.

4-Unless you are hosting an “invitation only” Skypecast, expect a few participants to contact you or hop onto the call having taken interest in the Skypecast as it was listed in the directory. Also expect people to join late, leave early, and return.

I can’t say that that topic of discussion was finely honed, but there were many excellent suggestions about using Skype in educational settings and in marketing the institution. For me the obvious piece missing here is the ability to share a desktop, browser, slides, and video of the presenters. There were some nice suggestions about ways to work around this, while still taking advantage of the free voice conferencing service Skype provides. For example, the moderator could direct participants to a particular URL, say on a wiki, where a series of links to resources could be provided for participants, with the moderator calling out the pages as he goes, and participants clicking along.

I’m looking forward to next week’s call.