Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Mobile real-time e-learning tools needed
Is online real time interaction feasible on limited Internet connections, such as those on mobile devices? I was invited to try "Learn Central" with the Elluminate Live! collaboration tool. However, this requires a Java download which will take 11 minutes on my slow wireless Internet connection. Even after that I was not confident that Elluminate would have options suitable for a low speed high latency connection to my low performance Linux netbook computer. That may seem an unusual configuration of computer. But it is not that different to the smart phones many people have and could use for education, if a workable configuration could be found. As it is, it seems that every week or so someone offers me what they claim to be a revolutionary online education tool, which turns out not to run on anything other than a Microsoft Windows computer with a high speed broadband connection and a lot of very fragile add-on software. What we need are some really revolutionary tools which are not just adaptions of business video conferencing.
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I've been using elluminate for several years now - mostly on a very slow dial up connection and have rarely been disadvantaged during live sessions.
I found elluminate far more reliable than other similar products with great voice clarity (without expensive equipment)& the ability to collaborate in real time ( and the breakout rooms are great too) to be a real benefit. Sometimes the java download has been slow but this is rare. BTW , I use a Mac and am also frustrated at the so called options that don't run on this platform.I encourage you to try elluminate again.
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