Elearning:Live classroom

Live Classroom is a fully-featured, cross-platform, real-time, virtual classroom that supports audio, video, application sharing, and integration of various content types (such as PowerPoint). Live Classroom allows you to add important elements of interaction into any WebCT course. With Live Classroom, instructors and students can build relationships by combining interactive technologies such as voice, video, application sharing, polling, and white-boards, with traditional best practices of instruction. Live and online classes, office hours, guest lectures, and meetings can all be accomplished with Live Classroom 5.

Features

Multi-way audio and video
Public & private text chat
Flexible content area
Electronic whiteboard and polls, quizzes, and surveys
Application sharing
Achievable presentations
Technology appropriate for online education
Integrated "help"

System Requirements

Participant Requirements

Windows 2000+, Mac OSX 10.2+ or Linux (Mac OS9 and Linux have limited features and functionality)
128 MB RAM (256 MB recommended)
IE 5.0+, Netscape 7.0+, Mozilla 1.0+, Safari 1.1+ (Browser must be Java and JavaScript enabled)
Internet access at 56k or above (Wired broadband recommended)
Microphone
Jave Runtime Environment 1.5.0 Release 7 (or greater)

Presenter Requirements

Windows 2000+, Mac OSX 10.2+ or Linux (Mac OS9 and Linux have limited features and functionality)
256 MB RAM (higher recommended)
IE 5.0+, Netscape 7.0+, Mozilla 1.0+, Safari 1.1+ (Browser must be Java and JavaScript enabled)
Internet access at 56k or above (Wired broadband strongly recommended)
Microphone
Jave Runtime Environment 1.5.0 Release 7 (or greater)

Privacy and Safety

All WebCT Vista services, including Live Classroom are on UBC servers, so all data remains private and personal.

Training and Support

Presenter Training

The Wimba support website offers three LIVE seminars demonstrating the different tools presenters can use. The titles of the seminars are:

A link to these demos can be found here.

Please note that these seminars require prior registration because they are free, and thus extremely popular.

There are also a few "Archived Feature Tutorials" available here.

Participant Training

While there are no specific tutorials or demos directed at participants, all training items for presenters above can be adapted for participants as in those archived training sessions. Most of the issues participants will be facing will be technical support questions, for which they are encouraged to visit our Technical Support Section.

Technical Support

For common issues, please visit the Wimba Technical Support Center.

It's always recommended that you run the Setup Wizard first to help diagnose any problems that you have. If you continue to have trouble after running through the Wizard successfully, you can contact the Wimba Technical Support team 24 hours a day, 7 days a week via telephone or e-mail:

US and Canada: 1-866-350-4978
E-mail: technicalsupport@wimba.com

Other Resources

Best Practices

For an excellent set of tips and best practices, refer to Wimba's Best Practices Tip Sheet.

Live Classroom Cheat Sheet
Keep these cheat sheets by your desk to help you remember different features and functionalities.
Practice Exercises & Checklist
Reinforce your learning and test-drive your knowledge with these self-paced exercises.
PowerPoint Design Guide
Design your PowerPoint slides with these guidelines so Participants will be able to view them quickly.
Live Classroom Accessibility Best Practices Guide
The Live Classroom interface has built-in accessibility features to accomodate users with disabilities. This document outlines how to use them.

You can find the rest of the documents in this series here.