Sakai: Meetings

Meetings (Web Conferencing, BigBlueButton tool)

Meetings (BigBlueButton) is an open source webinar tool available in Sakai that allows you to communicate with your students remotely. You can display presentations, use a white board, use audio and/or a webcam, chat with your students, and share your desktop. Meetings is a synchronous tool, which means users have to be online at the same time to interact. You can also add polls to your Meeting and record your Meetings, too.

Creating and Running a Meeting plus Student Handouts *

• Are step-by-step instructions available for creating, starting, and running a Meeting? Yes.
  • Instructions for an instructor to create a meeting: Create a Meeting Handout
  • Instructions for an instructor to run a meeting: Running a Meeting Handout
  • Instructions for an instructor to share their desktop during a Meeting: Sharing a Desktop during a Meeting Handout | video
  • Handout for Students* Instructions for Students attending a Meeting
  • Do's and Don'ts of Synchronous Online Learning: Plan, Prepare, Practice!

What can you do with the latest Meetings Release?

• We have the latest version, released Fall 2016, BigBlueButton 1.0
• Latest VIDEO Tutorials for Instructors and Students (BigBlueButton)
  • Setting up Audio, Viewer (student) Overview, and Moderator/Presenter (instructor) Overview
• New Fall 2016 step-by-step instructions for Closed Captioning, Faster Desktop Sharing and Breakout Rooms
• BigBlueButton's (Blindside Networks) User Guide
  • What can an instructor do with the Meetings 1.0 tool/BigBlueButton? (BigBlueButton)

Meetings Computer / Audio Requirements

• Computer requirements
• Audio Setup

Meetings Basic Features

For most of your meetings, you'll want to see who has arrived at the meeting, by viewing the User area; and you'll want to upload and display your presentation. If any of your students wants to "Listen only" or does not have a headset or speakers, you can communicate with each other by using the Chat box. If you want to record and share your Meeting, you have many options, provided you set up your meeting with the "Recording" feature.

• User Area
• Uploading and Displaying Presentations
  • Can I upload Microsoft documents to BigBlueButton? Don't, they may not display well. Tip: Save your file as a PDF
  • How do I upload a document to display to my students?
• Chatting in the Chat box
• Recording and Playback

Meetings Intermediate Features

Sometimes, you may want to use the whiteboard features, to draw on your presentation. Also, it can be helpful to use a different layout to emphasize different Meetings features. Some instructors like to share their webcam with their students, and/or want their students to share their webcams, too.

• Using the Whiteboard
• Managing your Layout
• Using your webcam

Meetings Advanced Interactive Features

We strongly suggest that you practice these features before your meeting. You can provide ad-hoc polls, or update your presentation, to generate polls during your presentation. If you need to demonstrate an application, such as Word, Excel, or review content on a web site, you can share your desktop with your students. But to share your desktop, you must install Java on your desktop. If you want to divide your students into separate groups during your Meeting, you can use the Breakout Rooms feature.

• Polls: Here's a number of screen shots of how to add polling to your next Meeting.
• Advanced: Sharing your Desktop during a Meeting
• Breakout Rooms: Here is a video with step-by-step instructions on how to add and use Breakout Rooms (video)

Accessibility

• Are Meetings/Chat/Recordings Accessible to those using screen readers? Yes, since release 0.8+.
  • Live Closed Captions are now available: video

What features will be added in the future?

BigBlueButton has a feature roadmap that you can check out at any time