This week I tried my first ‘extended time’ online instructional session with a few administrators in our system using Adobe Connect. The features of Adobe Connect all worked well in the live setting: status flags, chat window for comments and questions, the notes window for our agenda and screen sharing, which I used to project my browser window to remote users.
The feedback on the method of delivery was very positive. The challenge we experienced was the audio being somewhat choppy. This was not evident on my end as the extra ‘remote view’ computer I had set up to have an idea of what the participants were seeing and hearing yielded good results. Today I spent some time completing some research to learn more about how to improve this aspect of session delivery. The results of my search provided some good insight into some things to experiment with.
I am going to hold a couple of live audio test session to experiment with mics and audio settings to see if I can make some improvements in the audio delivery. I am experiementing with 4 different mic setups: a direct plug audio mic/headset, a Microsoft USB LifeChat LX3000 headset, a USB Snowball and the USB Yeti microphone. One recommendation was for a Shure 58 mic (requires a pre-amp before it can plug into a computer). I have the equipment to test this too, so may throw this option into the mix. I will share what I learn.
I found the following resources to be helpful:
Adobe Connect Resources
Microphone Options
Microphone Help
Connect 7 Audio Tips
Can they hear you now?
U. Dallas Resources
Penn State – Audio Tips
Online Audio Test
If you have tips to share on this topic, please leave a comment.
~ Mark
~ Mark's Musings ~ blog.markwcarbone.ca 
A couple of tips that I’ve used – adjust the bandwidth settings as they’re set for LAN by default, consider turning off cameras it they’re choppy or someone’s on a weak connection, do not have any background internet using app open (FirstClass is constantly doing something…) Let me know if you find the magic bullet.
Thanks for your comments Doug. I had some good success in testing yesterday with the following setup: video off, the Yeti mic, and an adobe plugin update. I will keep you posted. I have additional testing scheduled next Thursday and Friday. I will keep you posted.
~ Mark
Mark, have you tried DimDim? It’s free, and I found it to be a little easier to set up than Adobe Connect. I chose it over Adobe because it seemed less resource intensive and generally less fussy for the participants (non technical clients). Version 6.0 was just released, though I haven’t tried it. Worked well with a variety of browsers on Mac and Windows platforms.