A Viable Tool for PD? Google Hangouts on Air

Dear Colleagues,

I’ve been thinking about new ways that we, as the EBPD Community of Practice, could connect, and I’m wondering if Google Hangouts on Air would be a useful tool for that purpose.  Last fall (9/13), Barry Burkett hosted a Google Hangouts on Air with Nell Eckersley and Audrey McLaren presenting. This was during a time when several Technology and Learning COP members were experimenting using Google Hangouts for meetings and Hangouts on Air for presenting to a virtual audience.  You can find Barry’s reflections on how the Hangouts on Air event went at that time here.

I’m interested to know, have you used Hangouts on Air for staff development since that time? If so, how did it go? What did you learn from the experience and would you use Hangouts on Air for staff development again?

For those of you not intimately familiar with it, “Google Hangouts On Air are a simultaneous public broadcast on Google+ and your YouTube channel. During the Hangout, YouTube live-streams and records the session, then hosts it on your YouTube channel automatically. All that and it’s free too,” writes Nathalie Lussier with Social Media Examiner in her article on How to Host a Google Hangout on Air, published in June 2014.

Some features she writes about that I like include:

  • The ability to grab attention with a video trailer.
  • The trailer is broadcast on Google+ and your YouTube channel.
  • Free listing of your event on the Google Hangouts on Air page, and inclusion in Google+ followers’ news feeds.
  • Branding the look of your Events page.
  • The ability for mobile users and others not on Google+ to access the event through YouTube and through your own webpage.
  • The ability for users to RSVP and for their connections to see your event listing.
  • Like other webinar software, you can send reminders to those who RSVP.
  • The Hangout is automatically added to the attendee’s Google calendar.
  • The ability to add branding with a lower third image in the video.
  • Using the Q&A function, attendees can +1 others’ questions. The questions with the most +1s are pushed up to the top of the queue for you to answer live on the Hangout.
  • YouTube automatically saves your Hangout as a new video on your channel – which saves time when promoting it after the event.
  • The finished video also shows up in your Google+ stream, and if it was embedded on any website pages, the original live stream automatically converts to the YouTube video of the event, according to Social Media Examiner. You can continue to point people to that page to see the Hangout archive.

While the Hangouts on Air have been around now for a while, have you used it? Have you seen improvements that now encourage you to use it moreso than last year?

PS -- Please share this post with others who have experience with Google Hangouts on Air, either as hosts, presenters, and/or participants. Invite their replies to this thread so that we may learn from each others' experiences.

Looking forward,

Jackie

Jackie Taylor, SME

Comments

Hello and Happy Halloween!

Is anyone interested in trying out Google Hangouts on Air? I'd be interested in getting a practice group going and we could report back to the EBPD and Tech COPs what we learned.

Please let me know if you're interested.

Thanks ~ Jackie

Jackie Taylor, SME