Hello,
What a quandry.....any opinions of DimDim vs Elluminate? I keep bouncing between the two. For the moment, I just want to use it for small meetings of less than 5 people, but I would like to be able to record the events. I am not keen on paying a per month charge though. Even so, what are you ideas?
Thanks for the participation!
Dave
I have just started looking into web conferencing. I have used elluminate. It's expensive but it works. I am interested in trying out the BigBlueButton. (http://bigbluebutton.org/) It looks like it has most of the functions that I would need. I never really liked the record features of elluminate simply because I never really wanted to watch long meetings again. However, If you invest $299 in Camtasia studio (http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia/), you can record meetings and then cut out the fluff later.
There are some free alternative desktop recording options, but Camtasia is, by far, the best out there.
I actually use Camtasia a lot to create training videos and lectures. It would be nice if a web-conferencing programs also allowed the recording and editing features that you find in Camtasia.
I have also used Camtasia to record someone else's elluminate meeting. It was a good thing since they forgot to hit record at first and then later realized their voice wasn't being recorded.
As of this reply, BigBlueButton was still working out some kinks on their whiteboard feature. However, a good, free whiteboard application/website is scribblar.com. (http://www.scribblar.com/) It allows you to create multiple rooms and each room allows multiple pages. It even allows file sharing and pdf uploads of 5 pages. I have used scribblar for lecture rooms in moodle as well as tutoring rooms. I love the fact that you just have to put a link to the room in the moodle course for others to access the whiteboard. It also allows you to lock the room so that others cannot change or delete things if you have a lesson set up or something. It doesn't have a record feature, but again you can use Camtasia to record a session and post it to YouTube or something later.
So, my recommendation would be to use 3 programs:
If Camtasia Studio works than CamStudio should work too. You can find it free at http://camstudio.org/
Also have a look at WIZIQ I use it and it works!
http://me.tokbox.com might also be another option if you just want a simple VC capability...?
Stu
Hi there,
Another possibility is Zorap: not integrated with Moodle, no recordings or moderation but free and seems to work as well as Skype. Have only tested with 5 participants.
Cheers,
Glenys
There is also OpenMeetings it has a module for Moodle.
The down side to most of the conferencing software is either a browser without cookies or no browser built in.
John
Some of the current webconferencing modules look like they are simply interfaces to access commercial services.
For the whole community, the ideal way to go is probably to keep a free open source version (based on version 4.5) of a Dimdim module up to date and glitch free. It might also be helpful to change the name to separate it from its Dimdim past. (No pun intended.)
I'd suggest that it's important to have the range of features that people want, but keep the possiblility of switching off features that administrators don't want to provide, as some features won't be appropriate for some student groups.
If it's good enough, it would eventually get drawn into the mainstream Moodle.
CamStudio is also open source and it might be possible to integrate it to add features.
Might all be easier said than done, but it looks like webconferencing is here to stay, so why wouldn't you/we?
Ross W
Just had a look at the details on the Dimdim module for Moodle.
Not very impressive at all. Seems to be something quite separate that one has to mess about with to run as part of Moodle. Really needs to integrate much better and more automatically.
Ross
It seems that Dimdim may be a waining star. There was some chatter and talk of a revamp a few weeks ago. As for Elluminate that got purchased by Wamba mid year. Wamba also own Blackboard. Need I type more?
Have a look at OpenMeetings or Big Blue Button, both are open source. I know Openmeeting integrates nicely into Moodle 1.9* as I am using it.
John
John,
Sounds good. Thanks for the tip.
Dimdim got itself some bad press at one stage, and would need fixing and/or updating to be a major player.
What I said about having something like that, which eventually gets integrated into Moodle still seems to be the direction of evolution.
Ross
When I first started looking at the whole software issue I set some critera.
Moodle fitted the bill like a glove. Open Source, not to rigid, well documented. Peer support.
Openmeetings is in keeping with critera.
Openmeetings is embedded in the Moodle page, so you you don't have to leave your tools such as student notes behind.
Module install and config is easy. OM uses Moodle user info for SSO. Sometimes a product comes along that just fits and works, OM is it.
John
I run BigBlueButton on my moodle and it does prety well....yes you are right; there is still room for improvement. But the latest release 0.71 has some good improvement....especially on voice!
Can you integrate BBB 0.71 to Moodle? In my experience the Dualcode last plugin is for BBB0.70 and it didin't work with the last version. BBB 0.71 is very good, we realy like it... we use to love Dimdim 4.5 Liberty, but the abandone the open source version and rejecting al community around it.
no trouble at all migrating (done 2 days ago) from 0.70 to 0.71 using the VMs distributed from the website and my Moodle 1.9.8+ with dualcode plugin.
Where you are getting errors in 0.71 ?
@Alan Yes you can; i am using mine with it. Same plugin that i used for 0.70 still works flawless with 0.71. What were the chanllenges you had when you tried using it with 0.71?
thanks for the advice. I supose it was a pluggin problem. It was a salt problem. I will try to use the same salt (in a clean install) then i use the: bbb-conf --salt 12345ee... command, . In my case it don't change the salt in:
/var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/bigbluebutton/demo/bbb_api_conf.jsp
http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/BigBlueButton#Changing_the_BBB_security_salt
Thanks Again.
@Alan incase you have not sorted this out; yes you are right that bbb-config --saltset <salt> does change the demo api but note that the salt at /var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/bigbluebutton/demo/bbb_api_conf.jsp is for the demo page, if that did not change, then it should not affect you moodle api, it will only affect your demo page.
You need to verify that the salt at "cat /var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/bigbluebutton/WEB-INF/classes/bigbluebutton.properties" is the same as that of your moodle API.
cheers
I have long advocated that Moodle needs a voice. With some courses VoIP is enough, others we need the Full Monty. Openmeetings allows us to keep it in-house, data is cheap.
The model we use gives up a good edge with primary and high schoolers.
John
The marketing policy of DimDim has not been open at all. They initially talked a lot about open source nature. Then they started delaying the open source releases and got into open source crippleware (no recording feature for example in open source). Now, the delay in open source update is simply too much. In fact, DimDim has most likely used the free word of mouth publicity associated with open source product as a stepping stone. Every company has to make money, but if they could be open right from the beginning about their policy, it would have helped. If one was interested in open source only, one would possibly not have wasted time on DimDim.
Having said that, DimDim product looks okay to me for basic web conferencing and scores on ease of use. But, the free version gradually is being marginalised and if you use the free version, you notice how much shout is there about upgrade.
Yes, everything seems to indicate that Dimdim has committed suicide in small increments.
Whatever we have should be a simple install and otherwise seamless, as long as you have the right hardware.
I really would like to avoid separately setting up an account with a hosted provider or going through a complicated install / configure. Too complicated and too much to go wrong.
Ross
During the last three year we experienced many web-conferencing tools.
The last choice is Adobe Connect for serious (and paying) courses, and BigBlueButton for experiment and free access to a webconf tool.
We installed also OpenMeetings but it's too unusable, many crash, restart and so on (client side....) ; this is our opinion but from two months ago OM was dismissed and BBB has taken it's place.
I don't know elluminate but dimdim was analyzed and not considered as a real commercial choice against AdobeConnect.
Hope this helps
