User:James Neill/Moodleposium/2009/Trabinger

Main page: Moodleposium/2009/Trabinger

Wimba: Desktop conferencing

Kerry Trabinger, CIT with Thalia (virtually) and some Netspot comments

This was a passionate and well presented (and somewhat impromptu) session about using virtual classrooms by someone who is clearly very experienced and good at doing so. I turned up late, tearing myself away from the wired connection in my office to going into untethered lecture theatre territory. However I had picked Adam Sandler's tweet to say that the virtual European presentation (which I was curious to see how it would go) and that Kerry was presenting Wimba instead.

1. Showed basic tools in CIT's implementation of Wimba (hosted/supported by Netspot) by conducting a live presentation with Thalia @ CIT.
2. Tooks include: Video chat, text chat, customisation of who can do what
3. Desktop sharing
4. Uses:
   1. Facilitating Learning Online class
   2. PD training
   3. Multi-campus meetings
   4. Apprentice students who aren't on-campus (could be rural)
5. Bandwidth: Broadband for video/desktop sharing; if not broadband then can still use audio
   1. Can also have a phone line backup
6. "You get what you pay for": These experienced users emphasised various troubles in deploying with free audio/conferencing apps and say that they have had fewest problems with Wimba
7. Recording - can be done so that it can be interacted with asynchronously
8. Attendance record? In Moodle, u can set to record attendance, polls, and reports
9. Interactive polls

Questions

• Wimba price? This was the fishiest part, as it often is. The question was asked, a vague answer was given and I asked several people over lunch who could shed no further light.