rElearn

Image via WikipediaOver the last while I have been looking at a lot of online classroom tools for streaming lectures or tutorials over the web in realtime (also called web conferencing/webinars etc.). What is a remote live classroom? Typically it involves:

• Schedule a meeting/class and register/enrol members
• Chat (sychronous text-based)
• Slides (teacher gives powerpoint presentation)
• Audio (teacher and/or students talk usually via VIOP though some systems integrate with phone conferencing instead which can be more robust)
• Share Desktop (stream a live feed of what is happening on your computer)
• Share Applications (give control of an app on your computer to a remote participant)
• Whiteboard (covered by application sharing or mspaint in shared desktop and also available in most slideshow apps)
• Polls (keep participants awake by asking them multiple choice questions)
• Record and Archive functions (record the class for later viewing)
• Web cam (talking heads)
• Management of the class (control who can talk/message/share-deskop and when)
• Integration with VLE such as Moodle

I got a lot of tips from the friendly Austrian crowd who hang out on the eLearn channel on Jaiku. We discussed several online class solutions such as Centra, Interwise, WizIQ, Adobe Connect (Macromedia Breeze) and bespoke solutions developed in-house for larger institutions. There are others too like Dim Dim, Webhuddle, Wimba Live Classroom, SMART SychronEyes etc. And many of the features found in an online classroom are available in mainstream products like Skye, Zoho and chat and instant messaging clients. How do you decide what to plumb for? You can tick off the features you most require but a huge differentiator will be

COST

After cost you have:

• Ease of use (almost up there with cost)
• Robustness (how often will it fall over?)
• Future (are you backing the right horse?)
• Integration (ties in closely to cost and ease of use)
• Software/hardware requirements (do participants need plug-ins?)

I read a good comparison of some web conferencing systems for education on wikispaces and there are lots of others out there so I won’t go into them. However I will mention three systems that I have looked at that I think are good candiates:

Adobe Connect

I looked at this system because Institute of Technology Sligo, an innovative and pioneering institution of distance education and elearning in Ireland, have used it too good effect. Adobe Connect (Formerly Macromedia Breeze) can do all of the list of things mentioned as possible above and client configuration is a cinch as all the participants need is the Flash player plug-in which is now standard on most browsers. The interface is very nice and professional and there are sophisticated tools for managing the meeting, giving control to participants etc. The big downside is cost. Despite the expense it may suit some people in that you can buy minutes and as a hosted service so you can try Connect and not get locked into the technology. The downside to this loose coupling is that Connect does not integrate as tightly (to my knowledge) with VLEs. That said if money was no object I would use this software. Adobe are a big company who will be around tomorrow and are reknown for their great products.

Wimba Live Classroom

Perhaps the gold standard. This is an excellent piece of software which does everything and more you would want. I went to a training event by Wimba in Trinity College Dublin recently. John Smith from the Education Department in St. Pats gave a great piece of technology evangelism for Wimba and his experience of using it. The big sell besides its robustness and huge feature set was its integration with Moodle. Wimba looks like it is a part of Moodle and teachers can set up online classes directly from within their Moodle course. Wimba does not come cheap but there are a range of options including hosted solutions. It also integrates with other VLEs such as WebCT/Blackboard.

Web Huddle

Yesterday I looked at this system with a colleague of mine and found it a joy! Its free. Strangely it also appears to have free hosting. I don’t know how long this will last if the product takes off or what the caveats are but you can also download and host it yourself for free. The documentation for Web Huddle is sparse. The only thing to do is dive in and doing so shows how easy it is to get up and running with the software. I didn’t find the audio great but VOIP is never really fantastic to start with plus you are best to shun all but instructor audio in an online class in any case. It was very straightforward to share the desktop, show slides, draw on the slides, take polls/quizzes, chat, schedule the meeting, record the meeting etc. etc. WebHuddle requires java applet on the client but this worked so well that I didn’t even notice it loading. There is no special integration with VLEs And you will have to roll your own documentation. However all in all I found it a fantastic piece of software to use and my experience was much better than other freebies such as Zoho Office, Skype untie, WizIQ etc. Let’s hope Web Huddle development continues.