Guide to Remote Video Conferencing: Successful Participation and Technical Communication Skills

Hello again. This lesson is about teleconferencing. Teleconferences are a bit different from regular meetings, so we're going to look at guidelines for successful participation and also how to manage a teleconference. Then we're going to look at language that you might need when you teleconference, especially language to describe and ask for assistance with technical or other difficulties. The goal is for you to be able to take part successfully in a teleconference. To begin, what do we mean when we talk about a teleconference? Teleconference is a general word for a meeting where participants are in different locations. They're connected through some kind of telecommunications device like a telephone or a computer. And it's interactive, not just one way communication.

Okay, so three types of teleconferences are very common. A conference call is voice or audio only. People call into a telephone number that lets everyone connect on their phones or through a speaker phone. The second category of teleconference is online. A video conference is one where people can see each other's faces. Most people are familiar with this type of meeting on an informal basis like with Skype, FaceTime or other video chat. A video conference is just a more formal version of this where more people are included. A web meeting generally means that people are all looking at a shared computer screen. They can all look at the same screen and share information. Sometimes they also see the faces of other participants or the meeting later, but the main purpose is to view slides or data together while they talk. This is very useful in business when you're working on a project with team members or clients in different locations. Go to meeting and web ex are examples of web conference sites.

Before we begin, can you think of anything that would make a teleconference more difficult than a regular meeting? We're going to listen to a teleconference with lots of problems where they things you thought of.