Adobe Connect Community

Prior to your meeting:
Thoroughly plan breakout room activities PRIOR to creating the rooms. Ask yourself: “What is the expected outcome from these breakout rooms.”

Design room layouts and upload content

• When you create a meeting room, there are no breakout rooms. The first time you activate the breakout rooms, they will be patterned after the current main room layout. To avoid having to customize each breakout room individually, arrange the layout of the main room the way you want it prior to creating the breakout rooms. Once the breakout rooms are created, any changes to the layouts will have to be done room by room. Each breakout room can be unique.
• A Host should prepare breakout rooms prior to the breakout room sessions by uploading files, adding a breakout room Chat Pod, Note Pod, File Share Pod, Poll Pod, Web Links Pod, or creating a Share Pod for sharing documents, computer screens or whiteboards. Although participants will be promoted to the role of Presenter when they enter the room, they do not have permissions to create new Pods. They only have accesses to those Pods or tools which are made available by the Host(s).
• Develop a Communication Strategy. Probably one of the most difficult aspects of managing breakout rooms in Adobe Connect is developing a communication strategy. Hosts are able to move between rooms to see how students (participants) are progressing with assignments as well as to interact and answer questions. But, you can only be in one place at a time, so you will need a strategy for handling questions from students (participants), no matter which breakout room you are in.

Options for Communication in Breakout Rooms:

Chat popup notification

One option is to place a chat pod in each breakout room and have the students chat specifically with the Host(s) or use the “Contact Hosts” bar in the lower right corner of the screen. The messages pop up on the Hosts screen, no matter which breakout room (or main room) the Host is in.

Contact Hosts Text Bar

Pop Up Message to Host

The disadvantages are that these messages only stay on the screen for a couple of seconds and there is no way to respond directly to the messages. If the Host doesn’t have a chance to read the message as soon as it pops up, or if several messages are sent at the same time and the Host can’t read them fast enough, the messages are lost. The only way for the Host to view the messages again and respond is to enter the breakout room the message was sent from and read the Chat pod. Only messages sent from the Chat pod will be recorded. Messages sent using the “Contact Hosts” bar are not recorded anywhere.

Emoticons
Another option is to have students (participants) use emoticons to communicate with the Host. The emoticons are visible to Hosts in both the Attendee List pod in the main room and the Breakout Rooms pod (visible by the Host from all rooms). For example, Hosts could have students (participants) use the raised hand emoticon to indicate that they have a question and the Host will be able to see the signal no matter which room he/she is in. The Host still has to enter the breakout room to find out what the question is, but at least messages won’t get lost if multiple students (participants) raise their hands at the same time.

Raised Hand Emoticon Shown in Attendee List Pod

Raised Hand Emoticon Shown in Breakout Rooms Pod

Shared Note and Chat pods
Breakout rooms can have note and chat pods that are both exclusive to each room as well as shared across rooms. To create a shared pod:

1. Create it in the main room first before activating the breakout rooms.

   
   Step 1: Create a New Chat Pod in Main Meeting

2. Name the Chat Pod so you can identify it later.

   
   Step 2: Rename Chat Pod

3. Activate the breakout rooms.

   
   Step 3: Activate Breakouts

4. Enter each room, and add the pod to the layout.

   
   Step 4: Add Chat Pod in Breakout Room

You will be able to differentiate between the Shared Pods and a non-shared pod because the Shared Pods will be a slight shade of gray. Pod messages and content entered into the pods is visible to everyone, no matter which room they are in.

Gray-Shaded Chat Pod

During your meeting:

• If you have multiple Hosts in the meeting, make sure you have clearly designated responsibilities. All Hosts in the room will be able to manage breakout rooms.
• Assign group leaders prior to sending Students (participants) to breakout rooms. Make sure group leaders know what they are to do. Answer any questions while everyone is together in the main room. Once Students (participants) have been sent to breakout rooms it will be more difficult and time consuming to answer general questions.
• Make sure students (participants) understand exactly what they are to do in the breakout rooms
• Make sure students (participants) know how much time they have to complete the activity.
• A Host should frequently drop in and out of the breakout rooms to observe participants’ collaboration, answer questions, and interact with participants.
• The Host should send a warning message to all breakout rooms notifying all Attendees that the breakout session is about to end. Allow enough time for Attendees to wrap up their discussions and activities.

  
  Host Announcement