BigBlueButton is the name of the conference tool that is now available to all Hochschule Geisenhmeim University lecturers via an interface in Stud.IP. Its main advantage is that a meeting (or a lecture) can be directly linked to the respective course and students have direct access to the meeting or lecture room. Exporting attendee lists for proof of attendance is also no longer an issue.
As with other well-known video conferencing and webinar systems, participants can hear, see and work with each other (if required) during a session. It goes without saying that screen contents can be shared, thus enabling students to present their own content. The sessions can be recorded and can be made available to watch later. The integrated whiteboard facilitates a variety of ways of collaborative working. A special feature are the break-out rooms, or seminar rooms for individual groups. This is where students can get together with others to work on an individual task before returning to the entire group to present the results of their work to all participants.
BigBlueButton features the following functions:
- Webinars and virtual teaching, recording and playback
- Audio and video-conferencing
- Joint whiteboard
- Break-out rooms for collaborative working
- Chat
- Live feedback
This video from the University of Heidelberg explanins all of these functions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8Z8CwuU3Bo.
Use this new tool as an alternative to the DFN systems Pexip and Adobe Connect, which are heavily overloaded at the moment due to strong demand.
You will find all the information and many other tools recommended for digital teaching on: https://www.hs-geisenheim.de/hochschule/organisation/administrative-einheiten/hochschuldidaktik-und-elearning/digitale-lehr-und-lernformate-sowie-elearning-tools/. Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at: elearning(at)hs-gm.de.
