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Dear sport associate,

SportWeb Canada would like to suggest a two-tiered approach to online conferencing, allowing you to progress from the beginner to an advanced user in a very short time. Both tools are very cost effective and can provide increased communication, which will enhance productivity and performance.

Getting Started & Maximizing Your Online Experience

Step 1

A critical piece of equipment to enhance your online meeting experience is a headset. This will greatly improve the quality of your meeting by providing better voice quality to the people you are meeting with, as well as improved audio quality received from those you are speaking with.

We recommend that you purchase a 2-in 1 headset. When shopping for your headset make sure that it has 2 plugs. One is for the microphone and the other is for the speakers. These are relatively inexpensive from London Drugs, Staples, Future Shop, etc…

Headsets are strongly encouraged!

Step 2

Computer Requirements:

Microphone port

This will allow you to plug your headset into your computer. A microphone port is located on the back of your computer tower or on the back or side of your laptop. Generally there is an icon indicating the microphone port.

Speaker port

This port is used to plug in external speakers to your computer or in this case plug in your headset to hear the audio coming from your computer. Generally there is an icon indicating the speaker port.

Lap top picture of 2 in 1 headset ports

Now that you have the equipment to participate effectively in an online meeting it is time to look at our Tier 1 and Tier 2 online conferencing tools

The Tier 1 conferencing tool that we will look at will be

You can access all information for skype at

The Tier 2 online conferencing tool will be SportWeb’s Communicator tool called

You can access all information for this SportWeb tool at or at

Skype is a great introduction to online conferencing and it is absolutely free. At the very basic level skype can offer conference calling of up to 5 people (including the host) on a call at one time, therefore it can save considerable amounts of money for committee meetings that connect colleagues from across our province, country, or even around the World.

Skype set up

  • To install Skype you will need to go to
  • You will see an area that says skype for windows 4.1
  • Click on the icon that says “Get it now”
  • Run the program
  • Once the software is installed, run it. It will prompt you to set up a username and password. At that time, you can also determine what details are included in your online profile
  • For example: Shawn Holman username- holmansportdev
  • To test your connection, so that you are sure that someone you call can hear you, skype will prompt you to test your connection. Make sure that your microphone is plugged in, and your volume is turned up so you can hear easily, and any mute buttons on the headset are not activated.
  • There is also a text messaging feature with Skype. This can be useful to communicate if your microphone or others on a call is not working properly. It can also be used to send a message to a caller if you are busy participating in another call.
  • To text a participant:
  • Click on the persons name (icon)
  • Go to the top bar and click “chat”
  • This will open another window to type a message in and send. This uses the same concept as MSN messenger.
  • Skype also has a great help centre with user guides at:

Computer Requirements for Skype

  • PC running Windows 2000 or XP (versions are also available for Mac OS X, Linux and Pocket PC.
  • Internet connection (broadband preferred)
  • Speakers/ microphone (We recommend a 2 in 1 headset)
  • You should have at least a 400 MHz processor, 128 MB RAM and 15 MB free disk space on your hard drive, if you are using a PC.

Below are some examples of the screen shots

Making a callTalking/Testing your mic and speakers

3 person conference call

When you are set up with Skype, conference calling is quite easy to set up.

  • You will need to make sure that you have the contacts you want to call in your contacts list.
  • Then, on the Tools menu, click on "Create a conference call".
  • Select each of the participants, and click the "Add" button".
  • Once you have them all showing on the right hand window, click on the "Start" button, and your conference call will begin.

Advanced Skype Users

  • The ability to call regular phone numbers is part of a feature of Skype called SkypeOut. SkypeOut is not a free service, but it is quite inexpensive, approximately 0.03 cents (Canadian) per minute.
  • The link to the SkypeOut page is:
  • Once you have purchased a certain amount of skypeout credit, you can use it to make calls to regular phone numbers, and your Skypeout contacts are visible on your list of contacts, with your other ones.
  • The cost of a conference call will vary with the number of participants who you have called with Skypeout. It is approximately 3 cents per minute(CDN) for each SkypeOut participant, so a maximum of 12 cents per minute (4 skypeout participants would be the max
  • Remember that if ALL participants are on Skype and communicating computer to computer, that the conference call is FREE!
  • The user guide for conference calling is:

This tool has been seamlessly integrated into Sportweb’s Virtual Office community of practice tool. Within one’s Virtual Office, meetings can be scheduled and communicated with up to 25 participants on the fly 24/7.

Some of the highlighted features that Communicator offers are:

  • Ability to have 25 participants on at one time
  • Ability to upload power point presentation and share them in real time
  • Ability to use a white board in real time with all participants. This can be used to type text or draw when needed.
  • Ability to share your desktop in real time
  • Communication by voice, as well as text “msn style”
  • Ability to have votes among members
  • Ability to record meeting which can assist in reviewing minutes

Elluminate Set-up

  • First go to: There you will see an area for first time users.
  • To effectively launch Elluminate you will need to ensure your computer has the proper Java Platform. If a green check mark is present with the statement “Congratulations, you appear to have the required software to launch Elluminate Live” then you are good to go.
  • If you get a red X then you follow the instructions to download the Java software.
  • After it has been confirmed that you have the proper Java Platform, you can go to the “Configuration Room” located in the First Time user box.
  • After clicking on the Configuration Room, you will be prompted to enter a sign in name and login. (Enter your name)
  • When you log in you will be starting the Java web set up to launch Elluminate.
  • Once in you will be asked to select your internet connection speed ie: Cable.
  • You will now see the Elluminate window with your name in the top left box. There you can explore the features to ensure you microphone is working and you are prepared to join your next scheduled meeting.

Screen shot of Elluminate Live meeting window

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me

Shawn Holman

Technical Consultant, SportWeb Canada

Skype: holmansportdev

Ph. 403.616.5038