Help!

[paulhar]

Hi! My wife and I are trying to introduce several F2F students to BBO tonight. However, the last time we did this, we had several problems because we're pretty ignorant on the operation of BBO.

 

Has there been a thread that has helped people trying to do this?

 

Specific questions we had last time are:

 

(1) A student comes onto BBO and doesn't know how to get to us. Can we 'summon' him/her to our room?

 

(2) 4 students are playing, but when we were kibitzing we couldn't say anything to them. Is there a way we can talk to the players without sending private messaged to each one? (I know a teaching table will do it but that won't allow IMPs or matchpoints to my knowledge.)

 

(3) Pat set up a teaching table so we could talk to the students. She had 4 students playing but she left to go fetch a wayward student. The table disappeared and all 4 students got thrown into the lobby mid-hand. Is there a way to avoid this? (In theory, I would think a teacher would be able to go from room to room and teach using the same hand, with the students staying.)

 

I will have plenty more questions but I'm hoping to get these answered before we bring our class online. Thank you very much for any helpful replies!

[Echognome]

(1) The best way to get in touch with someone is to make sure to add them as a friend. That way they'll appear first in your lobby list. So I would recommend making sure they know your BBO logins (or you know theirs) before they login for the first time. That will also make it easier to search for them on the lobby list. Maybe others will have some other tips or suggestions on this.

 

(2) If you want to talk to the room, chat as you do normally, but where the little tab on your chat message box says "kibitzers" or someone's login name, select "room". The shortcut key is to type Ctrl-S before you type. Note that in order for chat to be possible to the room from the kibitzer gallery, you will need to select "Allow chat with players" on the table options menu. Once you have started a table you can get to the table options by typing Ctrl-T.

 

(3) The teaching table is linked entirely to the user that opens it. Thus if the user leaves the table, it will close down. The best way to "fetch" someone from the lobby is to click on the lobby button on the right-hand side of your BBO screen. A mini version of the lobby will appear above your chat window where you can find other users.

 

Hope that helps.

[paulhar]

It's somewhat helpful, but brings a couple more questions.

 

1. I tried your #3 by going to a room and rightclicking a friend; the options were 'send private chat', 'mark as neutral', 'mark as enemy'. So I can't really summon them, I can only chat to them and if they are totally clueless about following directions, there is really no way to get them to my room. Am I missing something?

 

2. Leaving a teaching table closing the room is bad on two levels - a momentary server glitch (we get those all the time here) will kill your table, and there is no way to teach more than one table. If there is someone out there who teaches more than one table, can you tell me how you get around these problems?

 

I tried to go to a normal 'non-teaching' room and open a bridge movie, but open isn't an option. Would it be if I had four players? (My hopes were that I could open a deal in several rooms and then have the students come to them.)

[mike777]

1) I know of no way to force or pull someone into your room. You can sort of do this in a teamgame format but Iassume that is not what you are doing here. Too complicated if they do not even know how to chat, let alone sign on.

2) Before they sign on to BBO, have them tell you their username. Have them write down your username. Keep in mind their first choice in a username may be used by someone else. Help them pick a username.

3) When they first come into bbo they are in something called the lobby, with huge lists and lists of names. btw, tell them how to scroll through the lobby names. They may have no idea how to.

4) Have them find your name and right mouse click on your name.

5) a list of options pop up. Tell them to click on "join your table". (Be sure and open a table before they ever sign on. :) :)

6) Once at your table you can walk them through making you a friend, how to chat, how to bid, how to play a card, how to see the scores. Good luck.

 

BTW, walk them through how to sign on and to write down their username and password. This part can be tough. Good luck.

[inquiry]

If you reserve a seat for them, they will get a message when they log in (you have to do it before they log in) that there is a seat reserved for them, do they want to join the table.

 

A second way is to sent them the following chat message...

 

paulher:> Right click on Paulher at the beginning of this line and choose "join paulher table" from the popup menu option.

 

They will join your table as a kibitzer, and you talk them down to their seat.... easily enough once they are at the table.

 

For talking to the students, turn the table chat on so that kibitzers (that is you) can talk to the table.

 

Most tables when someone leaves the table, someone else becomes the host. If all the students got tossed, I guess that means when the table host at a teaching table leaves, the table gets hosed. I recommend not leaving the table in this case. There is no reason to leave the table to "fetch a student", simple click on the lobby button on the right hand side of the screen, and find the student in the list of names, and send them the "right click on my name message to join my table message"....

 

That click on me and join my table is a god-send with beginners to the BBO....

[paulhar]

Thank you Echo, Mike & Ben, your answers were helpful.

[helene_t]

2) Before they sign on to BBO, have them tell you their username. Have them write down your username. Keep in mind their first choice in a username may be used by someone else. Help them pick a username.

It might be a good idea, as a teacher, to create accounts for the students first so that you know their usernames, ensure that their usernames are practical (not too long, no spaces etc, no i's or L' s where they may be confused with each other), set their preferences correctly, mark them as eachother's friends, and help them if they forget their password.