This can occur for a variety of reasons such as a server, system or ISP being overwhelmed, or your home network dropping momentarily. If this happens, try to reconnect.
Some things to look out for on your home network:
1) Are you too far from your wifi router? Make sure the signal is strong. If not, consider moving closer to the wifi router. Also, consider plugging directly into your router with a network cable if that is at all possible. A wired network is more stable than a wireless one.
2) Is anybody else in your house streaming (such as YouTube, Netflix, etc.)? If so, might have to ask them to stop. Depending on your home network, steaming an HD movie, for example, can overwhelm a slower home internet connection.
It is possible that your home Internet connection can be experiencing problems, especially if many people in the area / neighborhood / city are using it heavily. This may not be noticeable when browsing the web, or streaming video/audio in a one-way download; however it will be noticeable when doing live two-way video or audio. You may want to contact your ISP to ask if loads are high in your area. You can also try power cycling your cable modem and wireless router. If a video+audio call is choppy, try turning off video and see if audio improves.
You may have
received an email over the weekend about being added to Microsoft Teams.
That was me (Bob Evans). Microsoft Teams is part of Office 365 and is Microsoft’s flagship
tool for team collaboration which includes chat, videoconferencing, file
sharing, etc. It is a great tool for both local and remote
collaboration. And because it is licensed by Purdue, it is secure and not
being used for commercial data mining of University operations. Teams
will be replacing Skype for Business in July of 2021.
Here is a short
video that gives a quick overview of Teams:
This tool has
recently become available to the campus and last week I began staging Teams for
our College so people can use it if desired.
A “Team” has been created for each major department in our College.
Within each
department, “Channels” have been created for each office, center and/or
program. Channels are where the work and collaboration takes place (chat,
video, file sharing, etc.). If you see a “lock” icon next to a channel,
that means the channel is private and only accessible to the members of that
channel (a team includes everyone, but a channel can be a subset of the team).
Feel free to
check out Microsoft Teams. You can access it via any web browser by
logging into Office 365…
For those who
want to use Microsoft Teams and do not have the client app installed on your
computer/laptop/tablet/phone, you can locate the app using this web page:
Please send email to EdIT@purdue.edu if you have any questions or need an additional private channel added to your departmental Team. EdIT is still learning about Teams and we hope to learn together with all of you as this tool unfolds. Thank you! 😊
Robert Evans Director, Education Office of Information Technology Managing Director, Teaching Resource Center Chair, College of Education Safety Committee Purdue University College of Education
