I’m not entirely certain what to say here – I’ve used a variety of communication tools in personal, educational and professional contexts for a number of years now, both in and external to LMSs. Setting up a discussion forum in Moodle really wasn’t very hard, once I’d figured out a purpose for it. I suppose I could have set up a Moodle chat, using the built-in tool, but I decided that my course content really demanded voice and video capabilities. I’ve used Skype, MSN Messenger, Adobe Connect, Wimba Classroom, Elluminate Live!, and probably others I really don’t remember any more…
Skype is a tool that I use regularly to teach cello to an adult student who lives more than a few hours from me. Except for one recent lesson that was interrupted by a power outage in my student’s community, Skype has worked fairly well. It’s drawbacks are the slight delay that makes it impossible to play duets online, and that only two users can broadcast video simultaneously. As soon as you have more than two participants, Skype goes to voice and text only.
For multiple participants, I’ve found Elluminate Live! to be a very robust and reliable meeting platform, with good management features. However, since I’m cheap and didn’t want to shell out for more than a free service, I briefly considered using Elluminate’s V-Room service, which is fairly limited in its capabilities and number of uses. It’s really more of a teaser to get you to subscribe to a paid service. Instead, I decided to try out Dimdim, which had been recommended on a couple of different occasions by various Ed Tech colleagues. Dimdim is an Indo-European opensource project, with a scaled-down free service with unlimited usage. Yes, it’s also a teaser, but more functional than V-Room. Despite the paid-subscription plans, the software is free to download and host on your own.
I did test Dimdim out with several family members. Setting up the meeting, logging in and managing participants was a breeze. I did have some technical difficulties, but they were specifically related to the setup of my computer and not to Dimdim itself. This is definitely a service I’d use again…
David
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