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Updated: April 11, 2012 Dear Udacians, Check out the new Google+ features! Holding Office Hours using G+ Hangouts should be easier now considering you can simply watch the G+ Hangout via YouTube Live. As a suggestion, I would like to propose that Office Hours be conducted in a chat setting with the Professors and/or TAs. While I like the fact that the Professor of the course takes the time to create a video feedback in response to student questions, it is a static interaction. You simply react to our questions, yet we can't dynamically react to yours in real time like a normal conversation or discussion between persons. Therefore, I think it would make more sense that the Professors hold either a chat session or video facetime session (Skype, G+, etc.), and by all means, moderate and filter it in order to control the pace considering there may be thousands of students participating at once in the session. But I believe it would behoove us all if a conversation or discussion in real time actually took place, albeit moderated or paced. Thanks, and please critique.
This question is marked "community wiki".
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We'd love to do a more interactive, live office hours, but it seems that there isn't yet a really suitable technology for doing this. We may try a google hangout or some other alternative sometime if there is interest, and we can figure out a good way to do this. I would love if this could be possible @UdacityDave - Professor Evans, have you considered the new changes to Google+ Hangouts and YouTube Live? My understanding is that YouTube Live is only available to content providers approved by Google. We are not such an organization. |
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I'm not sure I agree. The benefit of the current format is that students can vote, and questions with the most votes will be discussed by the professors. This saves both them and us a lot of time. On the other hand, in a live chat there would be a lot of wasted time (for both sides). |
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Right, as nice as it would be, the fact is that I expect there are hundreds of thousands of people taking this class from all over the world. The benefit of the format as it is now is that everyone can view the material at their leisure, rather than having to be online at a set time. |
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Udacity, Dave and Peter heard you! A live office hour was held today/tonight and it worked very well. It was held in Google's "hangout" area. Very nice! |
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It's not so clear now, but this post was edited to show a new feature, not available at first post time, which is watching from Youtube. That could sure be more stable for everyone, although people from Youtube would not be able to interact. |
