Quick Start Checklist

Before Joining a Meeting
Before joining a meeting there are several things you need to do.
(Also see Requirements in this section for more information.)

1. You will need a Penn State Access Account or Friends of Penn State (FPS) Account. (View the tutorial on acquiring a FPS Account.)
2. You will also need a fast Internet connection, updated Web browser and Flash Player.
3. You will need to test your computer and Internet connection at https://breeze.psu.edu/common/help/en/support/meeting_test.htm. (View the tutorial.)

Note the connection speed indicated as you will need it to set your connection speed once you enter the meeting room.

If the report you get back from the connection test indicates that you are unable to connect to the Penn State server, it is almost always caused by a firewall or proxy server at your location. Your local network administrator would be most knowledgeable to help you solve these issues.

Another potential issue could be third-party firewall software on your computer, or possibly Web proxy software that your browser is configured to use. Your local tech support staff should be able to help you adjust your settings.

The ITS Help Desk may also be able to help you determine if it is a local software issue. Use the form at http://meeting.psu.edu/issueform to let them know what was in your report and what firewall/proxy server software you may be using.

4. If you will be sharing your desktop, an application and/or files in the Share Pod, you will need the Adobe Connect Add-In (View the Tutorial on how to install the sharing add-in. )

The Add-In should have been installed when you ran the connection test in the previous step. If you receive a message when you enter the meeting room that you need to install the Add-In, you will need to follow the steps in the tutorial. If all else fails, the Add-In can be found at the URLs below and installed by clicking the appropriate link for your operating system. Sharing is not an option for the Linux operating system as there is no Add-In for Linux.

• Windows: http://www.macromedia.com/go/breeze_addin_install_win/
• Mac: http://www.macromedia.com/go/breeze_addin_install_mac/
5. If you will be broadcasting video, you will need a USB or Firewire web camera. If you will be listening to audio from within the meeting room (VoIP) you will need speakers or a headset. If you will be broadcasting audio from within the meeting room (VoIP) you will need a USB microphone or a USB headset with a microphone.

Joining a Meeting
(See Joining/Leaving a Meeting in this section for more information or view the tutorial on entering a meeting.)

1. Enter the meeting URL in your browser (or access the Adobe Connect Pro Central Interface at http://breeze.psu.edu) and find your meeting.
2. Log in to the meeting.

Configuring Audio/Video and Connection Speed
(See Setting Up Audio/Video in this section for more information.)

1. From the "Meeting" menu select "Manage My Settings," then the flyout menu "Audio Setup Wizard..." and follow the instructions. (View the tutorial on setting up audio.)

   [inline:AudioSetupWizardFlyout.jpg]
   Step 1 Access the Audio Setup Wizard

2. From the "Meeting" menu select "Manage My Settings," then the flyout menu "My Connection Speed" and select the option that matches the connection test report speed. (See step 3 above for more information.) (View the tutorial on selecting connection speed.)

   [inline:MyConnectionSpeedFlyout.jpg]
   Step 2 Select Your Connection Speed

For more information about optimizing the Connect Pro Meeting experience, see video tutorials at the Acrobat Connect Pro User Community website.

• Optimizing Room Bandwidth: http://www.connectusers.com/tutorials/2008/06/optimize_bandwidth/
• Optimizing Screensharing Performance: http://www.connectusers.com/tutorials/2008/07/omp2/index.php
3. If broadcasting video, from the "Meeting" menu select "Manage My Settings," then the flyout menu “Select Camera..." and choose your camera. (View the tutorial.)

   [inline:SelectCameraFlyout.jpg]
   Step 3 Select Camera...

For more information about optimizing video performance in the Camera and Voice Pod, see a video tutorial: http://www.connectusers.com/tutorials/2008/11/omp3/index.php at the Acrobat Connect Pro User Community website.

Participant's Guide to Pods
If this is your first Adobe Connect meeting or you have very little experience using Adobe Connect, you may want to view our brief tutorial about all of the pods available in a meeting and how to use them. (View the tutorial on pods.)

Using Adobe Connect
Learning to Use Adobe Connect contains information about Web resources, interactive demos, and support information.

Last Revised: 11/09/09

Requirements

The requirements for Adobe Connect at Penn State are:

Access Account or Friends of Penn State Account
Penn State faculty, staff, and students need an active Access account to be able to log in to Adobe Connect. Guests can quickly obtain a Friends of Penn State (FPS) Account. (View the tutorial..)

Internet Connection
Minimum bandwidth requirement is 56 kb/sec.

Test Your Computer
You can test your computer at https://breeze.psu.edu/common/help/en/support/meeting_test.htm to make sure that your computer is set up to run Adobe Connect. ( View the tutorial.) This test will also tell you your Internet connection speed.

Flash Player
You will need the most recent version of Flash Player. Adobe Flash Player is standard in most browsers. You can find out which version of Flash Player you have at the Adobe Flash website: http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/about/

Adobe Connect Add-In
The Adobe Connect Add-In allows you to share your screen and upload files to meetings. To install the add-in, follow the appropriate link (View the tutorial.):

• Windows: http://www.macromedia.com/go/breeze_addin_install_win/
• Mac: http://www.macromedia.com/go/breeze_addin_install_mac/

Note: At this time, there is no add-in available for Linux.

A small number of Intel Mac users running OS X have reported problems with Adobe Connect installing the wrong version of the add-in. See http://aralbalkan.com/965 for a possible workaround.

Web Browser:

• Windows (98se+)
1. Internet Explorer 5.0+
2. Netscape Navigator 7.1+
3. AOL 9+
4. Mozilla Firefox 1.0.3+
• Macintosh (OS X 10.2+)
1. Safari 1.1+
2. Mozilla Firefox 1.0.3+
• Linux
1. Mozilla 1.2+
• Solaris
1. Mozilla 1.4+

Please Note: As of June 30, 2006 Penn State will no longer support Windows 98se or Windows ME. Although Adobe Connect may work with these systems, Penn State Help Desk support staff will not be available for help with any problems you may encounter.

FlashPaper (optional)
FlashPaper allows you to share any document in meetings by converting it into Flash (SWF file) format.

• Windows: Download the stand-alone FlashPaper application for free with your Penn State Access Account or Friends of Penn State Account: https://breeze.psu.edu/admin/home/homepage/FlashPaper.exe
• Mac: You will need to purchase Macromedia Studio 8 (available at the Penn State Computer Store, http://computerstore.psu.edu) and install Contribute or purchase and install Contribute by itself to get access to FlashPaper. Once Contribute is installed on a Mac, FlashPaper becomes an option in all applications in the printer list on the Print screen.

Joining/Leaving a Meeting

There are two ways to log on to an Adobe Connect meeting:

• By going directly to the meeting room using the URL supplied by your meeting Host, ( view the tutorial ) or
• By accessing the meeting through the Adobe Connect Central interface on the Penn State Adobe Connect server: http://breeze.psu.edu. This option is only available to meeting room owners and Attendees who's names have been added to the "Participant List" for the meeting.

Penn State faculty, staff, and students need an active Access account to be able to log in to Adobe Connect. Guests can quickly obtain a Friends of Penn State (FPS) Account to use for logging in. (View the tutorial on acquiring a FPS account.)

Logging in to a meeting room using the URL
The easiest way for Attendees to enter a meeting room is with the URL, which you should receive from the meeting Host. After entering the URL in your browser. You will see a login screen.

[inline:login7.jpg]
Login Screen for Entering an Adobe Connect Meeting

To enter the meeting room using the URL, do the following:

• Enter the URL for the meeting room in the address bar of your browser.
• If you aren't already logged in to Web Access, you will need to log in with either your Access Account ID and password or your Friends of Penn State ID and password.
• Click the Login button to proceed.

After logging in, the meeting room will open on your screen.

Logging in to a meeting room using the Adobe Connect Central interface
Your meeting host must add you to the "Participant List" in order for the meeting to be accessible from your Adobe Connect Central Web interface homepage. (Hosts: see Editing Participants under Creating/Editing Meetings for details.) To access the Adobe Connect Central Web interface, log in to the Penn State Adobe Connect server: http://breeze.psu.edu

[inline:AdobeConnectCentral.jpg]
Adobe Connect Central Interface

At the top of the Adobe Connect Central screen you will see tabs named “My Calendar” and “My meetings.” By clicking on either of these you will then see the name of the meeting you have been enrolled in.

[inline:mycalendar.jpg]
Adobe Connect Central Interface - Calendar Tab

[inline:mymeeting.jpg]
Adobe Connect Central Interface – My Meetings Tab

If your meeting has been scheduled for a time in the distant future and you do not see the name of the meeting displayed on either the “My Calendar “or “My Meetings” screens, you will need to “Search” for the meeting using the search option found at the top-right of the Adobe Connect Central screen. The Search tool is set to search for files by default. To see additional search options, including one to search for meetings, click on the word "Search" in the upper right hand corner of the screen.

[inline:connectcentralsearch.jpg]
Adobe Connect Central Interface – Search

You can narrow your search by selecting either the "Search Within Content" or "Search Titles and Descriptions." Enter the name of the meeting and click the "Go" button. The screen listing of all meetings containing the text you entered will be displayed.

Note: You can further narrow the search to "Recordings only, Courses only or Presentations only" using the "Optional Filters."

Once you have located the name of the meeting in the list, you can enter the room by clicking on the meeting name.

[inline:foundmeeting.jpg]
Adobe Connect Central Interface – Search for Meeting

Note that once a meeting is created in Adobe Connect Pro, attendees can enter the meeting room at any time whether it's scheduled or not until it is deleted by the owner.

Leaving a Meeting
To leave a meeting, simply close the computer window containing the meeting room. On a Windows computer, click the red X in the upper right corner of the window. On a Mac, click the red circle in the upper left of the window.

The content of an Adobe Connect meeting room does not change when anyone (including the host) leaves. The only part of the room that changes dynamically is the list of attendees who are currently present in the room.

Setting Up Audio and Video

In a meeting, your broadcast capabilities depend upon your attendee role. Hosts control participant access to broadcast capabilities. To learn more about permissions, see Roles and Permissions under Using Adobe Connect.

Configuring Audio
( View the tutorial.)
In the Adobe Connect meeting room:

1. From the “Meeting” menu at the top of the window, select "Manage My Settings>Audio Setup Wizard."
2. Follow the directions on the screen.
3. Note: If any of the Wizard tests fail, you will need to troubleshoot your microphone and speakers. Please be aware that the Wizard will allow you to continue even if your computer fails a test.

Configuring Video
(View the tutorial.)
In the Adobe Connect meeting room:

1. From the “Meeting” menu at the top of the window, choose "Manage My Settings" > “Select Camera."
2. A Settings window opens, with the "Camera" tab selected
3. Click on the camera icon and select your camera from the drop-down list. You may see a window pop up on the screen asking you to allow your video to be broadcast – click “Allow.” This window appears only once during a meeting no matter how many times you turn off and on your camera.
4. Note: If no camera is connected, a “No Camera Found” message appears instead of the Camera drop-down list. If you do have a camera connected but you get a "No Camera Found" message, check to be sure your camera is turned on and not being used by another application.
5. Click "Close."

Audio Captioning (Optional)
Adobe has an extension that allows for real-time audio captioning for greater accessibility. It is available as a free download from Adobe: http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm?event=extensionDetail&lo... (you may have to create a user name and password if you are not already registered with Adobe). Note that in order for a meeting to be captioned using the extension, the meeting creator or Host must set up a captioning service ahead of time. Captioning companies do charge a fee for their services.

Instructions for using the captioning extension, including tips for captioning services, can be found at http://www.adobe.com/education/resources/k12/resourcecenters/communicati...

For general accessibility information, see the Adobe Connect website at http://www.adobe.com/macromedia/accessibility/features/breeze/

Special Uses
Some school districts with deaf and hearing impaired students are using Adobe Connect to bring a "signer" right to a deaf/hearing impaired person's desktop in the face-to-face classroom. The person skilled at signing is in a central office -- not even necessarily in the same building. They enter a virtual meeting room with the face-to-face instructor and student. As the instructor broadcasts his live audio through the virtual meeting room using a small wireless microphone pinned to his shirt, the signer listens and then broadcasts signed video back to the same meeting room. The student is sitting in the classroom with a laptop computer, watching the instructor face-to-face and the signer on the computer. Using this technology in a very non-intrusive way, other students in the room don't even realize that there is a hearing impaired person in the room and they aren't distracted by a person sitting in the front of the room signing.

More Audio/Video
For more information about broadcasting audio and video, see Camera and Voice Pod: Broadcasting Audio and Video under Using Adobe Connect.

Learning to Use Adobe Connect

Here are more resources for learning to use Adobe Connect:

Using Adobe Connect
Here in the Adobe Connect Community Hub, the Using Adobe Connect tab under the top menu contains information about roles and permissions, using audio/video, sharing files, and other meeting room functions.

Interactive Open Demo Meetings
Information Technology Services at Penn State hosts frequent interactive open demo meetings of Adobe Connect online. All users are welcome to attend, ask questions, and see the features of a meeting room in action. For more information and upcoming demo dates, see the Events Calendar or Announcements in the Forums.

Training, Seminars, and Support Resources at Penn State
Information Technology Services at Penn State also hosts face-to-face orientation seminars about Adobe Connect. For more information about this and other support resources for Adobe Connect at Penn State, see Penn State Support Resources under Help/FAQ or visit the ITS Training Services forum at http://meeting.psu.edu/forum/18.

Adobe Connect Listserv

By letting us know how you are using Adobe Connect, we can better serve you. If you complete this brief form, which is available at http://meeting.psu.edu/listserv, you can receive Adobe Connect announcements and alerts.

Adobe Connect Tutorials (Flash Videos)

Please Note: These tutorials were originally posted in January 2008 and are for V.6.2. Most of the Adobe Connect tools still work the same in V.7, but some new buttons have been added to the meeting room stage and the Meeting menu has changed. These Flash video tutorials will be updated to V.7 as time permits. For a list of differences between V.6.2 and V.7, please see the posts at http://meeting.psu.edu/node/430, http://meeting.psu.edu/node/421, http://meeting.psu.edu/node/419, and http://meeting.psu.edu/node/411.

Original Post:
During the fall semester of 2007, we had been experimenting with creating modular tutorials for Adobe Connect (Breeze) Version 6. A preview of these materials was posted on October 26, 2007, at http://meeting.psu.edu/node/292.

Anyone who has tried to teach others to use Adobe Connect can tell you that there is no straight path from where you are to where you want to be. For example, if you want to use the Camera and Voice pod to broadcast audio and video, you have to use many of the options in the Meeting Menu first.

How to present this maze of options, menus, and pods to people who need to learn to use Adobe Connect was a major stumbling block in developing the tutorials – and I didn’t really start to make progress until I realized that, rather than looking at teaching how to accomplish tasks from within Adobe Connect, I needed to look instead at how to chunk the information about the options, menus, and pods so it could be assembled in any number of ways to provide “just in time” information about how to accomplish a task.

Before beginning to develop the content, I created a list of requirements. Much of this information came from focus groups we held in April, 2007 and includes:

• The tutorials need to be short and address a single item (short and to the point)
• The materials need to be readily available and easily searchable
• The materials need to apply to all audiences, including faculty, staff, and students
• The materials need to address all six roles a user can be assigned in Adobe Connect, including Host, Presenter, Participant, Moderator, Meeting Creator, and IT Support
• The materials need to be generic so they can be used anywhere by anyone in any unit at Penn State
• The materials need to be of high quality and need to be maintained – people looking for help or developing training don’t have time to hunt through a long list of materials to find the ones on the topic they need that are current and correct
• When used to develop training, the source files need to be readily available so the materials can be easily customized by trainers throughout the Penn State community depending on the goals of lesson

In addition to the above requirements, I wanted the materials to be flexible enough to be delivered through a variety of methods, including:

• Through our course management system, ANGEL
• During an Adobe Connect meeting
• At a Web site
• On CDs
• On a streaming video server

We used the following to develop the materials:

• MS Word to write the scripts
• Captivate to record live full-screen motion with narration
• Adobe Connect Presenter to record narrated PowerPoint with embedded .swf full-motion screen captures and .mp3 narration
• Adobe Captivate full motion recording (FMR) editor to assemble the Captivate chunks into a single .swf file that can be used in Adobe Connect Presenter and Adobe Connect Pro
• Audacity to assemble the .mp3 files exported from Captivate to create a single audio file to import into Adobe Connect Presenter
• QuickTime Pro to re-combine the compiled audio and video files into .flv and .mov files for streaming

By creating narrated full-motion screen capture videos using Adobe Captivate and assembling the parts and pieces from the published files using the Adobe Captivate FMR Editor and Audacity, I was able to create .SWF and .MP3 files that can be imported into Presenter and then uploaded into an Adobe Connect Share pod. The Presenter file can then be used in synchronous mode for live presentations or asynchronous mode for self-guided learning, either from within an Adobe Connect meeting room or from a Web site or CD.

So far we have created about 45 tutorial objects and modules, which I began posting on January 3, 2008. How quickly the files load depends on the speed of your Internet connection. If the audio loads and begins to play before the video, restart the animation as soon as the video appears. Some animations embedded in Adobe Connect Presenter files are fairly large and do require extra time to load.

The tutorials were posted as follows:

January 3, 2008:
Participants’ Guide to Pods (https://breeze.psu.edu/participantpods/)
Create a Friends of Penn State Account (https://breeze.psu.edu/createfpsacct/)
Test Connection (https://breeze.psu.edu/testconnectlo/)
Test Connection Module (https://breeze.psu.edu/testconnectmo/)
Enter a Meeting Room Using a URL (https://breeze.psu.edu/enterurl/)
Installing the Sharing Add-in (https://breeze.psu.edu/shareaddin/)
Selecting Attendee Connection Speed (https://breeze.psu.edu/selectconnectspeed/)

January 4, 2008
Audio Setup Wizard Basics (https://breeze.psu.edu/audiowizard/)
Audio Wizard Advanced Settings (https://breeze.psu.edu/audioadvanced/)
Audio Setup Wizard Module (https://breeze.psu.edu/audiowizardmo/)
Selecting a Camera (https://breeze.psu.edu/selectcamera/)
Flash Player Settings Window (https://breeze.psu.edu/flashsettings/)
Select Camera and Flash Player Settings Module (https://breeze.psu.edu/selectcameramo/)

January 7, 2008:
Creating a Meeting Room (https://breeze.psu.edu/createroom/)
Creating a New Meeting Room Module (https://breeze.psu.edu/createroommo/)
Meeting Manager Interface – Edit Participants (https://breeze.psu.edu/mmieditparts/)
Auto-Promote Option (https://breeze.psu.edu/autopromote/)

January 8, 2008:
Attendee List Pod (https://breeze.psu.edu/attendeelist/)
Camera and Voice Pod (https://breeze.psu.edu/cameravoice/)
Camera and Voice Options (https://breeze.psu.edu/cameraoptions/)
Chat Pod Introduction (https://breeze.psu.edu/chatintrolo/)
Chat Pod Options (https://breeze.psu.edu/chatoptionslo/)
Clear Chat and Save Chat (https://breeze.psu.edu/chatclearsavelo/)

January 9, 2008
Poll Pod Introduction (Hosts) (https://breeze.psu.edu/pollintrohost/)
Create Poll (Host) (https://breeze.psu.edu/createpollhost/)
Create Poll (Presenter) (https://breeze.psu.edu/createpollpresent/)
Create Poll Pods (https://breeze.psu.edu/createpoll/)
Enter Poll Question (https://breeze.psu.edu/pollquestion/)
File Share Pod Introduction (https://breeze.psu.edu/fileshareintro/)
File Share Pod Download (https://breeze.psu.edu/filedownload/)
File Share Pod Upload (https://breeze.psu.edu/fileshareupload/)
File Share Pod Options (https://breeze.psu.edu/fileshareoptions/)
File Share Pod Module (https://breeze.psu.edu/fileshare/)
Note Pod (https://breeze.psu.edu/note/)
Web Links Pod Options (https://breeze.psu.edu/weblinks/)
Web Links Pod Module (https://breeze.psu.edu/weblinksmo/)

January 10, 2008:
The Present Menu (Host) (https://breeze.psu.edu/presentmenu/)
Activating Preparing Mode (https://breeze.psu.edu/preparemode/)
Using Preparing Mode (https://breeze.psu.edu/preparemodemo/)
Setting Roles (https://breeze.psu.edu/setuserroles/)
Using, Creating, and Editing Meeting Room Layouts (https://breeze.psu.edu/layoutslo/)

The Share pod tutorials are still under development. Share pod Learning Objects completed to date:

Sharing PowerPoint Presentations Introduction (https://breeze.psu.edu/shareppt/)
Sharing PowerPoint Presentations Navigation Introduction (https://breeze.psu.edu/sharepptnavigation/)
Sharing PowerPoint Control Strip Buttons (https://breeze.psu.edu/sharepptcontrol/)
Share Pod Options (https://breeze.psu.edu/shareoptions/)
Sharing your Desktop (https://breeze.psu.edu/sharedesktop/)
Sharing Windows and Applications (https://breeze.psu.edu/sharewinsapps/)
Share Pod Preview Tool (https://breeze.psu.edu/sharepreview/)
Share Pod Passing Control (https://breeze.psu.edu/sharecontrol/)
Sharing a Whiteboard (https://breeze.psu.edu/sharewhiteboard/)

Please post questions and comments here or send them to breeze@psu.edu.

Best Practices for Hosts, Presenters, and Participants

The following links are provided by the Adobe Connect Pro User Community Connectusers Group (connectusers.com) providing Connect end users, administrators, developers with the latest up-to-date information.

Best Practices for Web Events Checklist

• View this job aid produced by the Acrobat Connect Pro Event Services team outlines best practices created by Amy Brooks, Connect Pro Event Services. The one page article focuses on the basic practices that every Host, Presenter, and Participant should practice to ensure that that the web event goes off without a hitch.

Includes a link to a printable pdf file Best Practices - Host - Speakers
http://www.connectusers.com/tutorials/2008/08/event_best_practices/index...

Want More Info?
• Watch this short Connect On Demand Presentation about Best Practices:
https://admin.adobe.acrobat.com/_a295153/connectbestpractices