GoReact or Zoom? It Depends!

Peter Morgan:

GoReact houses, embedded within this tool, the ability to record a group presentation synchronously inside of the tool. Now, you may have noticed previously that as a student or as a user going into use GoReact when I continue into this space. You may have noticed earlier that we have a partnership with Zoom that allows for students to record in Zoom and upload those videos or even draw Zoom cloud recordings as demonstrable skill. The difference here clearly put is that GoReact is not trying to be Zoom. Zoom is an enterprise style or a large scale video conference system. GoReact in group recording is a small scale web conferencing system.

So when we talk about those two options, Zoom for one, is where I would utilize inside of a GoReact course. I would utilize Zoom when an audience or the group coming together is 10 or more participants. That’s where Zoom really becomes a powerhouse in the ability to house 100s or large audiences. When we talk about smaller engagement, like the example said, one student that is providing the interview, one that is answering the questions authentically, and another student that is assessing the evaluation, anything of nine or fewer participants is allowed to engage in a group recording session right here inside of GoReact. Now, the way that this happens is that GoReact allows students to join one another in a synchronous recording space. It requires some coordination, but nothing outside of what’s already been being done in that situation in Zoom.

We all need to know when we’ll be joining each other, we all need to gather into that synchronous recording space. And while two engage in the interview, one provides assessment. In this space what can be provided inside of GoReact is not only the ability for students to record with one another, but in set up being set up properly. This type of engagement can also house very simple requirements or abilities like being able to leave time embedded feedback and commentary in the moment. Grading off of a student rubric, something that isn’t tied to the grade book perhaps and passing back into the LMS. A student, that third observer there, can engage in the form of text feedback, color coded markers, or rubric criteria. GoReact houses the ability to combine or to allow the web conferencing of those multiple students, multiple presenters that is nine presenters or less in the same frame and utilize this space.

So hopefully that’s a good visual for you as far as a few students gathered together recording and actually speaking as if they were face to face, though they’re completely remote and in different spaces. The join handle or the area where I would be joining that space is shown here. When one student starts a presentation and engages within GoReact, this join handle becomes available for the participating students, the others that need to be engaged in that time to simply click and join and be presented within the GoReact recorder. Now, with one single video thread, you just see me here. But if there were multiple students, GoReact will accumulate those students within this window and will optimize their screens to take up as much real estate as possible.

Two students in this window take a split screen as much possible real estate with two participants. Four goes to a two by two grid, nine, a three by three grid, but GoReact is intuitive enough to optimize that window and show as much of each participant’s video as possible for visual indicators of skill. Posture, verbal expressions, nonverbal expressions, all sorts of things in between there, which is why GoReact retains nine or less as our web conferencing ability and partners with Zoom for 10 or more participants within that same window.