Articles about Web Conferencing

Tips for Delivering a Successful Online Experience: The focus of the article is on synchronous online conferencing. "If you're new to presenting online or you're simply considering introducing it into your training repertoire, here are a few things to consider before your next presentation." 05/25/08

WebConferencing Tools

[tools in alpha order]

Dimdim: The world's FREE web meeting: "Dimdim is the Open Source web conferencing company. With Dimdim you can show Presentations, Applications and Desktops to any other person over the internet....Attendees can use either Internet Explorer 6 or Firefox 1.5 while Presenters can use Internet Explorer 6 on Windows (XP/2000/2003) only. Firefox porting for Presenters will be available soon. Please understand that this is Alpha version with known issues and bugs and our development team is squashing them. This release is meant for technically skilled early adopters."[my emphasis] 11/05/06

Elluminate Live: Provides an audio and visual combination of chat, whiteboards, and application sharing for "live discussion and dynamic interaction to your asynchronous distance learning solution in the fastest, least expensive way possible. So you can engage easily distracted students, promote active learning, and improve student performance." 05/16/04

FlashMeeting: "FlashMeeting is an application based on the Adobe Flash 'plug in' and Flash Media Server. Running in a standard web browser window, it allows a dispersed group of people to meet from anywhere in the world with an internet connection. ...During the meeting one person speaks (i.e. broadcasts) at a time. Other people can simultaneously contribute using text chat, the whiteboard, or emoticons etc. while waiting for their turn to speak. ...A replay of the meeting is instantly available, to those with the 'unique' replay url." Read this review by somebody who's used FlashMeeting for a year now. 03/31/07

Groove: An open architecture platform with a "unique" peer-to-peer technology. "...a rich, easy-to-use solution that enhances group interaction and productivity. Groove offers a network of secure, personal, shared spaces for students and instructors." 05/23/01

hotComm: Tool package, including a FREE Lite version. It's peer-to-peer technology. "...powerful collaboration tools for group navigation to deliver guided tours around web pages or shared files... With hotComm, you host peer-to-peer discussions; with ezPeer, you can set up a web site on your own computer, without any server processing involved; with IM-Live, your customers and friends can call you without having hotComm themselves; with Call Manager, incoming calls are placed in a queue, from which they can be transferred to other hotComm peers; with Moderated Chat, incoming callers can automatically join an existing session. 04/16/02

Marratech-Free: "Talk – See – Share. Cut the chat for a real meeting experience. Marratech-Free® is for computer users looking to move beyond basic chat and messaging. It creates a fully interactive meeting environment on your computer. Meet up with friends and enjoy real-time video with exceptional quality voice plus an interactive whiteboard. Up to five people can meet, talk, see each other and share documents or pictures and make notes. It works on Windows, Mac and Linux and is entirely free. All you need is broadband high speed Internet, a headset and web cam." 12/04/05

Network Assistant: (shareware) "Network Assistant is a multiple-mode network communication utility, including real-time chat, white board, and instant messaging. Easy to install and initialize, the utility offers some surprising features." 04/17/03

Placeware: "Web Conferencing Solution" 10/19/01

Skypecasting: This article describes the latest offering from Skype, Skypecasting, and discusses its potential for education. "Skypecasts as 'large, hosted calls on Skype.' Sound pretty simple. Basically you can create or join a large online conference call with UP TO 100 people. Skypecasts are scheduled to begin and end at a certain time and usually have a certain topic of discussion. The users must download and use Skype in order to join the Skypecast." This article describes the latest offering from Skype, Skypecasting, and discusses its potential for education....There are many programs out there that already allow users to create online classes, but those cost thousands, and even tens of thousands of dollars to implement. This option is FREE. That price tag is always a big plus for education and their limited resources.... Overall, I was very impressed with Skypecasts and the potential it possesses in education. Above all else mentioned above, I think it is absolutely necessary to help students understand cultures beyond their own. This technology opens up the way for them to do that, not only through other people’s Skypecasts, but by having students create their own." 11/19/06

Video Conferencing Info: This page is "a list of the video conferencing software which is generally available right now over the Internet." 04/17/03

Web4M by JDHTech (Conferencing Tool): Bob Boufford of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada says (in this discussion posting), "We have had good experience with Web4M by JDHTech. It's really a corporate based suite of conferencing tools that includes audio/video web conferencing and desktop sharing. While not as powerful as Horizon Live, Elluminate or Macromedia Breeze, it does very well for small groups of 5-10 students. One feature I like that is not in some of the "heavyweights" is the ability to "add microphones" to a conference so several can be talking at one time even though it may start to stress networks. It's entirely Java-based and can run on a fast workstation or departmental-level server. It also has an API to allow for integration. Cost is fairly reasonable too." 09/19/05