Monday, May 23, 2011

OpenSource Webinar Software: Updated List of Platforms and Software/Plugins

Are you outgrowing your webinar capacity? Do you need more flexibility, lower cost, and more control? Open source may be a great solution for you, particularly as solutions evolve and popular opensource learning solutions such as Moodle offer convenient and relatively easy-to-implement plug-ins. There are open source solutions for many organizational needs (college, university, association, business, school), and there are also services that will host for you.

One of E-Learning Queen's most popular posts in the past detailed open source webinar solutions. You may still visit that post. Times change quickly, though, and many of the solutions listed there are no longer viable.

So, as a service to readers, E-Learning Queen is publishing an updated list. Please feel free to share your experiences with the solutions. We'd love to hear your thoughts.

Moodle Solutions

Moodle Plugin from Sclipo

Download from SourceForge

Step-by-step Install Guide Moodle on Linux with Sclipo Live Web Class on Linux v1.4


Video Tutorials: How to install Sclipo

Bundled Open Source Solutions

BigBlueButton
Uses all open-source components (http://bigbluebutton.org/components)

Colloquium
Colloquium is a pedagogical tool for presenting online webcasts with supplementary materials. Streaming video is combined with a rich set of support materials - live chat, threaded discussion, and links.

Webcasting Plus

DCAST

EasyCast
Easy in use system of scripts to organize webcast from conferences and other such events. Allows maintaining video stream and presentation viewing together with asking questions from internet.

Desktop Sharing

Apreta
Apreta is about sharing information in real-time meetings. It provides desktop sharing, presentation sharing, a shared whiteboard, and audio conferencing.

Desktop Share - Class Room Integration (CRI)
This is a web application that enables integration between the teacher and student in a virtual classroom. The application gives users the ability to share a desktop with Teacher/Coordinator/Admin and Student can share his her desktop with Teacher/Coordinator/Admin.

Wedatoo
Wedatoo is an open source point to point realtime collaboration application like google talk which features text chat, file transfers, audio/video conferencing, whiteboard, image sharing and desktop sharing/control modeled on google talk.

DimDim
DimDim has an opensource webinar solution which is, at this point, free. DimDim has been acquired by Salesforce.com. We will see what happens.

Webmeeting
Web Conferencing system allow you to conduct the web conference around the globe. The system allow to share the desktop , application, dashboard, voice chatting and video conferencing.

ILIAS LMS
A full-featured opensource learning management system. Not apparent whether or not it has a plugin that allows webinars / webcasting with chat / whiteboard.

Webcasting

UStream
Streaming and webcasting do not have the interactivity of a packaged solution of WebEx, Omnovia, or GoToMeeting. However, you can piggyback services, and use UStream in conjunction with messaging / doc sharing

DVLabs

Stripped-down basic functionality?

Sofia-SIP
Session Initiation Protocol software



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Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Moodle 2.0 for Business: Review

Moodle for business? It may seem far-fetched, but if you have Moodle in your organization, chances are, you're using it as your learning management system for 100% online or hybrid courses and you have the capacity and experience to use it for more. Moodle has the power and flexibility to be used for multiple purposes within the organization, and a recent publication by Packt Publishing, Moodle 2.0 for Business Beginner's Guide, by Gaven Henrick, Jeanne Cole, and Jason Cole is filled with good ideas.

For example, one can use Moodle in the hiring and interviewing process as a way to manage content and to collaborate with the search committee.

Perhaps one of the most compelling uses of Moodle is to use it for compliance training. Depending on the amount of instructional material readily available, Moodle can be set up very quickly and can accommodate a wide variety of roles and users. You can customize content and can track learning very easily. The interactive elements and collaborative tools are perfect for answering questions and role-playing.



If you have in-house Moodle support staff, an open-source solution can make a lot of sense as opposed to an off-the-shelf solution where you and your users essentially rent digits from the content provider / publisher. Moodle allows you to purchase (or buy a license) to use the instructional material, so you'll still work with the publisher. In this case, however, at the end of the day, you still have control over the way the material is presented, the way that assessment is administered, and how records are maintained.

Using Moodle for compliance training is specifically addressed in Chapter Four, a download of which is available here:

Chapter Four: Managing Compliance Training (http://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/4200OS-Chapter-4-Moodle-for-Managing-Compliance-Training.pdf?utm_source=packtpub&utm_medium=free&utm_campaign=pdf)

Moodle is a flexible and powerful platform for knowledge management and transfer. It is interesting to see how it might be used training your personnel on new products and on rollouts. It can also be used as a talent management system in the sense that you can make it your "go to" place for training, and you can track the progress and completion of courses by employees and/or students.

Some of the applications in this book may seem a bit far-fetched on the face of it. However, these are usually accompanied by case studies, which help demonstrate how the task was organized and executed.

Perhaps one of the biggest potential money-savers / revenue generators could be to use Moodle for web conferencing. There are a few open source plug-ins that work with Moodle. One is BigBlueButton, which is an open source solution which has been constructed of other open-source components. Moodle 2.0 for Business includes step-by-step instructions for using it.

One powerful open source webinar plugin that this book does not mention is Sclipo's Moodle plugin. Moodle Live Classes and Webinar Plug-in by Sclipo can be downloaded free at Sourceforge, and it will enable live classes and webinars through Moodle.

Moodle 2.0 for Business discusses the enterprise itself and enterprise solutions. The text covers ways to integrate Moodle with other systems -- it may be a bit challenging, but the information is available, and the possibilities have been suggested. As in the case of all open-source solutions, a pro-active approach and a willingness to experiment (and to continue experimenting) are almost always rewarded.

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