Edvibes Blog

Web Conferencing, defintion from wikipedia, has finally become smooth and easy. These Virtual Meetings allow for live and synchronous 2-way collaboration online in real time. Most of these services offer white boards everyone can write on, chat, voice, webcam, and share slides, pictures, or what is on your screens or slides.

The business sector has caught on this technology already. But the education sector is just now picking up on it. There are some exciting possibilities with teaching and learning. For example, there are teacher professional development trainings and conferences like the K12 Online Conference . This was my first year attending this virtual and global conference, and I participated and moderated on numerous live presentations and conferences. I have also used these technologies to tutor my students in math after school from home and I know of college professors that are now holding their office hours via web conferencing.

So here are the two platforms that I use and recommend:

Vyew “is a FREE online meeting service that brings people and content together.
Use Vyew to host LIVE conferences or collaborate over time, asynchronously (a fancy word for “at your own convenience”).” (click here for more info on vyew and education)

Review: Very easy to use and 100% web-based no downloads required. Don’t even need to register for an account.

Elluminate “is a leading provider of live Web conferencing and eLearning solutions for the real-time organization. Serving corporate and academic sectors, the company ensures the best user experience through superior quality VoIP, communications that are in-sync regardless of connection speed, broad, cross-platform support, and advanced yet easy-to-use moderator tools”

Review: Has all the bells and whitles. They give a you a free account that allows you to host 3 users at once. Requires a download on to your computer.

Discussion:

What web conferencing services do you use?
How can we use them in and out of the classroom?