Job Discussion Forums

JoeRomano · Joined: 12 Jan 2010 Posts: 49

I am working with some Chinese people and they want to set up a virtual classroom to accommodate some 20 learners. The problem is that most such programs are hard to use, are bulky and require high speed "1st world' connections, preferably cable ones. If you live in some rural area and use a WI FI then the reception becomes bad and the voice gets choppy and no video appears.

Do you know of any good software that would be simple, easy to use and that would not require a top speed cable connection? Say, a student or a teacher could sit in a WI FI area somewhere and do their thing?

hollysuel · Joined: 07 Oct 2007 Posts: 225 Location: Connecticut, USA

Elluminate is the only one that I have used successfully with low bandwidth!

Taught a group of Chinese students and a group of students from Burkina Faso. The Burkina Faso students were on dialup and the classroom worked just fine.

epik_teacher · Joined: 09 Aug 2010 Posts: 52

You might try Moodle, it's a free platform program that's designed by teachers for teachers. Not too difficult to set up and learn to use.

http://moodle.org/

BadBeagleBad · Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2011 6:46 pm Post subject:

I have also use Iluminate with great success with people from a variety of countries, who didn�t have great internet speed. It is easy to learn to use, you can upload PowerPoint presentations, or you can type your own as you go on the whiteboard. You can get a free Iluminate class that ha the capacity to invite two people. You can upgrade to more if you need too. It�s at:

https://www.learncentral.org

MotherF · Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2011 11:24 pm Post subject:

I'm not clear on what exactly you want to do with it, but I started using Edmodo.com with my classes a year ago and love it. I use it as a supplement to the regular classroom, not a substitute. Mostly as a homework delivery system, but students can also ask me and each other questions. I'm also currenly teaching an intensive course which is full and as an experiment we decided to let student who were not able to get into the intensive to follow the edmodo course in an effort to prepare for their exit exam from the English program. It remains to be seen if any of those students successfully pass. (I doubt it.)

Edmodo is modled after Facebook, but you have a completely closed group. I've been using Google+ with 5 friends, and I like that google+ has the opportunity to have closed circles of friends, unlike facebook, so I could post things just to my students, and other things just to friends, and still other things to family. Meaning I would no longer have to use a separate thing such as Edmodo for students. Now if Google+ will just catch on...

BadBeagleBad · Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2011 5:32 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the info MotherF. I have all but given up even using my Facebook due to the number of people I don�t even know posting weird comments. A closed group would be nice.