VCU Libraries’ Innovative Media department and its The Workshop is designing a series of webinars focused on collaborative technology tools that will aid teachers and online coursework. “Based on conversations and questions we're fielding, it seems we have an immediate and critical need for this sort of training,” says Multimedia Teaching and Learning Librarian Oscar Keyes, who will teach the webinars. 

Each session will start with a 10- to 15-minute demonstration of the technology -- all of which are free and available to all VCU faculty and students working remotely. Then, attendees will break (virtually) into small groups for 30 minutes to create a project or a piece of art collaboratively using the technology. Then, everyone will share their results in an open show-and-tell discussion. 

Each session will be held on a Wednesday and begin at 3 p.m. Attendees may join the webinar via Zoom at or by entering the meeting number 285-378-745 into their Zoom app or website. 

• April 1 Google Jamboard, a virtual whiteboard that allows team members to drop in images, add notes and pull assets from the web while collaborating with others.  
  
• April 8 VoiceThread, a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents and videos and allows people to navigate slides and leave comments in five ways - using voice (with a microphone or telephone), text, audio file or video (via a webcam).
  
• April 15 Collaborative Collages with Google Slides, a presentation platform that allows users to access, create and edit presentations wherever located and from phone, tablet or computer — even when there’s no web connection.
• April 22 Adobe Spark (and other web/mobile tools), introduces Adobe Spark, a collection of media-creation applications for web and mobile. In the webinar, participants will work in small groups with the tool of their choice to create a small collaborative poster, video or website.
• April 29 Live Poetry in Google Docs, explores some of the creative and collaborative uses of Google Docs. In the webinar, participants will work in small teams to create a collaborative poem that includes multimedia elements.
• May 6 Exam Jam(board) Encore, bringing back a classic. A virtual whiteboard that allows team members to drop in images, add notes and pull assets from the web while collaborating with others.