The activity provides an easy way for the teacher to create and manage a room on the BigBlueButton server, and for the student to log into the correct room.
Is it simple to install?
This module hosts the source is in GitHub, however the plugin database entry hosts the download zip files. The zipfile you download holds two folders bigbluebuttonbn and recordingsbn which need to be uploaded to your mod folder in Moodle.
When upgrading through the notifications page, the two parts installed successfully.
One thing I really liked about this activity is that it ships with some default settings to test with BigBlueButton server access provided by the company, and it still does. This is a neat touch, and is worth a mention!
The new global settings were just the URL for the BBB server and the security salt to authenticate. As they had the test server info, I left them be.
Is there documentation for it?
The activity has some instructions on the plugin database entry, and a comprehensive README in the zip file. It also has a detailed integration page and step by step instructions on their website. There is also a video providing an
Is it easy for the teacher/admin to use?
There is not a lot in setting this activity up. You add activity from the dropdown on the course page and the select the name and choose if the students must wait for the moderator or not. You can set the join open and close times. Now with the latest version you can also specify if you want to record, the recording name and length.
After that, it just works, and launches into the service. I do like the simplicity of the interface for the virtual classroom. It just has just whats needed and no more.
When the recording is made, you can then add it in as a resource to your course launchpage.
Is it easy for the learner/student to use?
The students have a smooth easy experience with this activity. It either keeps them waiting until a moderator joins, or allows them in immediately. And very nicely, when they log out it returns them to the Moodle site.
Does it do what it promises?
Yes, this is a straight forward integration with no complications. For people who are looking for the open source solution for virtual classrooms, this is a nice easy activity to enable this feature in Moodle 2.