What do you use for virtual classroom?

Sep 17, 2012

LiveMeeting, WebEx, GoToMeeting, others?  What are you likes and dislikes of the tool you use?

Thanks,

Tony

7 Replies
Mike Taylor

I have used a number of different ones including Centra, LiveMeeting, WebEx, GoTo Meeting, Wimba, and a few other lesser known options and the one I like the best is Adobe Connect.

Like many things what's best for you may vary based on what you're trying to do and your priorities, etc. That being said here are some of the things I like:

  • You can set and keep a persistent URL. (It doesn't change for every session.)
  • You can setup predefined layouts and easily jump between them in a session. For example, I had a welcome layout, a slides layout, a collaboration/whiteboard layout and a closing layout. Switching btw them is a simple click of a button.
  • Flexibility of layouts. You can create separate windows (Adobe calls them pods) within each layout containing things like poll questions, links, document downloads, whiteboards, slides, video, chat & Q&A pods. These can be sized and placed however you want.
  • Separate presenter area where you can keep things out of view until you're ready to "unveil" them.
  • Integration of phone audio with the room. There is an indication in the room that indicates who is speaking on the phone. VERY helpful in larger sessions.
  • Audio controls integrated into the host controls. If an attendee puts you on hold you can mute their phone line from within the host controls. 
  • When recording your session the telephone audio is recording along with the webinar content. This is one of my favorite things. Makes sharing the recordings a snap.

There is also some free trials that you can check out to kick the tires and try it for yourself.

Hope that helps and feel free to let me know if you have any specific questions.

Eddie Szilagyi

@ Dawg / Tony - I agree with Mike.  Adobe Connect has proven to be the best tool for our needs for all of the reasons that he mentioned.

The one advantage that I would stress is the ease of sharing video, both live web-cam and pre-produced video content.  With our version of LiveMeeting we could not even do video content.  May have changed with later versions, but I haven't used it in over 6 months.

The dynamic adjustments for different attendee screen sizes/resolutions is another big advantage that he did not mention.  With LiveMeeting we are always struggling to push content at a size that will fit all monitors and we have found that there is no one size fits all.  Some users will complain that the content is too small while others will have scroll bars.  The only solution is for the user to change their screen resolution to the same resolution as the presenter and that is not easy with large groups.

Dawg Fan

Thanks for the replies!  We are currently using LiveMeeting, because of the ability to create polling slides, whiteboards, webshare, etc. directly in our Powerpoints.  Although, with Microsoft shifting to LYNC, I am now looking at something new.

I have played a bit with Adobe Connect this week.  I have also initially been impressed with Saba's Classroom, but those are only their screenshots and little demos.  I can't get a trial from them to test it further.  I also like the features and tools of WizIQ, but would be scared to implement a product from a lesser-known in a corporate environment.

Mike - as you pointed out...static URLs are nice.

Thanks!

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