Forum LAMS for Tech-Heads - General Forum: BigBlueButton info?

BigBlueButton is an open source web conferencing system for distance education.

It supports sharing of slides (PDF and any document readable by OpenOffice), webcams, whiteboard, chat, voice over IP (using FreeSWITCH), and presenter's desktop.

We need a tool like this for blended and distance learning. It is reliable for small groups up to 20 members per group.

Thanks,

Spyros

Posted by Spyros Papadakis

I understand what it does, conceptually, and I am encourage to hear that it is reliable up to 20 users.

However, I still don't visualize how it looks when used with LAMS...

Does it function like a support activity?

Is it in the same window as the LAMS activities?

Maybe you have a screenshot that makes it more obvious to me....

Cheers,
--Jon M.

Posted by Jonathan Maybaum

I have some screenshots (see the attachment) that will makes it more obvious to you.

Thanks,

Spyros

Posted by Spyros Papadakis

It looks to me that you are showing two different ways to use BBB:

#2 - When everyone reaches the gate, the instructor starts the BBB conference, and then the conference finishes and everyone moves on to finish the sequence

#1 - There is an "inline" BBB conference for the learners, as above, that is available only while they are passing through it, and in addition, there is a BBB conference as a support activity that is available continuously.

Is that accurate?

I am still unclear, though, about this: When the BBB conference is starts, does it open in a new window? This is a key point because I have found switching among screens to be confusing sometimes....

Cheers,
--Jon M

Posted by Jonathan Maybaum

We used to have a BBB server to play with but it has gone the way of the dodo now, but I quickly set up a BBB server following these instructions and was able to create a demo to show you how this works.

You were right about the info on the wiki being too little, so hopefully this tutorial helps out a bit.

Have a look:

http://wiki.lamsfoundation.org/display/lamsdocs/Big+Blue+Button+Conference+Tutorial


Hope this helps.

Thanks,

Ernie

Posted by Ernie Ghiglione

I think that the answer to my overall question is that using BBB conferencing would be similar to using a separate conferencing solution with regard to the necessity of navigating between the conference window and the LAMS window....

--JM

Posted by Jonathan Maybaum

Yes, pretty much.

However, there's a seamless single-sign-on in place though. So teachers and learners won't need to login again and/or set their permissions roles, etc.

Thanks,

Ernie

Posted by Ernie Ghiglione

I attached the file in pdf format to be able to see the screenshots.

Cheers,

Spyros

Posted by Spyros Papadakis