What is Critter?Critter is a tool that supports interactive discussions around video or audio among social groups. To achieve this goal, Critter users can create their own social groups and then hold discussions on a video with individual users or everyone in a social group. The sections below discuss each area of Critter in a lot more detail. However, here is a quick overview to help you get started using Critter. The image below outlines the basic steps that go in to setting up a discussion for Critter:
As the diagram shows, there are 4 things you have to think about when setting up a discussion. In the first step, you want identify the video that you will discuss. This could be an existing video or a video that you upload. In either case, you will select the video of interest in a video gallery and be directed to the View Panel, where you can participate in existing discussions OR create a new discussion of your own (step 2). When you create a new discussion, you have to first give it a name and description. Afterwards, you have to specify who will participate in the discussion, which can be individual users or social groups. If you want to specify groups, you have to identify an existing group or create a new group of your own (step 3). Finally, you are ready to carry out the discussion, which happens in the View Panel (step 4). Critter supports discussions that are asynchronous, meaning that instead of a chat-like setup, discussants can login and participate whenever is convenient for them. When you login and view one of your discussion, you will see all comments that have been previously posted by others in the discussion. You can then reply to those comments or post your own. Browsing and Managing VideosEvery discussion in Critter centers around a video. So, your first task is to identify an existing video or upload a video that you want to share with others and hold conversations around. You can browse existing videos and upload new videos by going to the "Videos" tab in the Critter menu.
Once you go to the Videos tab, you will see 3 submenus. The first is the Video Gallery submenu, which allows you to browse and select from among all the videos that have been loaded in Critter: In order to select a video, you simply double click that video. You can use the search tool at the bottom to search for a video by name. Then you will be redirected to the View Panel with that video loaded. In addition to the Video Gallery, there is also the "My Videos" submenu, which shows only those videos that you have uploaded yourself. This submenu works exactly the same as the Video Gallery submenu. To upload a video, you go to the "Upload Video" submenu in the Videos tab. Here, you will see the following UI:
There are 4 things you have to do to upload a video: 1. Give the video a descriptive title and description. 2. Specify the file location for the video. Currently, Critter only supports videos with a ".flv" file extension. 3. Specify a thumbnail image that will describe the video in the Video Gallery. This image can be any size, but smaller is better. 4. Hit the upload button and wait for Critter to send you a message that the "Upload was Successful" message. After you have successfully uploaded the video, it should be visible in the Video Gallery and in the My Videos subsection. You can then doubleclick the video thumbnail to view the video and create a new discussion for the video. Groups and DiscussionsIn Critter, you create groups that reflect social and professional relationships. Then, you can create discussions that involve all the members of a particular group (as well as individual discussants). Groups are created and managed by going to the Groups and Discussons tab. Discussions can also be managed from within this tab, but they are initially created from the "View Panel" tab. Let's discuss groups first and then the discussions that you will create around those groups. Understanding and Managing GroupsTo create a new group, you go to the "Create New Group" subsection in the "Users and Groups" tab:
Simply type a name and description for your group and click the "Create Group" button. Once your group has been created, you can specify members for that group. You will be automatically redirected to the appropriate "My Groups" section where you can do this for the group you just created or other groups that you created in the past. The "My Groups" section also lets you view the groups that you are a member of, even if you did not create those groups yourself. You can differentiate between groups you have created and those which you are just a member by noting that an asterisk in the "Groups" list (on the left of the My Groups subsection) denotes a group that you have created.
Notice that if you have created a group, you are given access to the tools for adding and removing members of that group. Simply select people you want to add from the right box and click the "Add" link to add those users as members of your group (represented on the left Members box). Creating and Managing DiscussionsDiscussions are what make Critter particularly powerful for learning, teaching or collaborating. Furthermore, it is at the discussion stage where you put all of the other features of Critter together in to one specific use. Discussions are conducted around previously uploaded videos and involve both individual users or social groups that have been defined earlier. Once a discussion has been created, all discussants will see the discussion when they login and view the associated video. The discussants can then post their comments and observe others' feedback on a particular media. Every discussion must be associated with a video. This is why you create a new discussion on the "View Panel" page where you watch videos. Whether you uploaded the video or not, you must always first double click a video in the "Videos" tab and start watching the video in the View Panel to create a discussion. Once you are in the View Panel, you can click the "Manage Discussions" button in order to create a new discussion. The diagram below shows the UI you will see.
To create your discussion, simply give it a name and description and click on the submit button. Once you have created a discussion, you need to go to the "Users and Groups" tab and click on the "Manage Discussion Participants" subsection. This will allow you to define both the users and groups who should be allowed to participate in the discussion:
First, select the discussion whose participants you want to define/modify using the dropdown at the top left. Then, you can use the controls below to manage the participants. The current participants are shown in the "Participating Groups" and "Participating Users" boxes in the middle. You can add new groups using the list box on the left. You can add individual users using the list box on the right. Anyone who is a member of a participating group will be allowed to participate in the discussion, so you do not need to individually add those users as participants. The main reason we allow for separately defining participating users is in case there is a discussion where there are some special users who can't be part of a group but should be allowed to participate in that particular discussion. Conversing Using the View PanelOnce you have uploaded a video, created any relevant social groups and initiated a new discussion with participants, you are ready to start conversing with others about the video. This is done in the View Panel tab. Just doubleclick on the video of your choice from the "Videos" tab and you will be directed to the View Panel. There, you will see your video on the left and a tabbed list of all discussions you are currently participating in for that video. As you watch the video, you can enter your own comments for others to see. Commenting in Critter is asynchronous, meaning that discussants can post their comments anytime and do not have to all be logged in at the same time. Below is the basic view panel you will see:
In addition to entering your own comments, you can recommend other people's comments by clicking the thumbs up icon in the comment. Comments that have been recommended by many people will be highlighted during viewing. Critter displays comments through the duration of a video. So, you can post comments at a particular time point in the video in order to make comments about a particular section of the video. Guidelines for Finding FLV Videos for Testing
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