Today we ran a trial of BigBlueButton 2.4 [alpha 2] and we would love to share our first impression!
While you can read the release note, the following are the top six features that we believe will help you conduct better online classes on BigBlueButton:
1) Real-time analytics: This opens up in a different tab and updates in real-time
- Shows who all are attending with time of joining, duration, talk and camera time
- Whether someone has sent messages, raised hand or sent emoji
- Shows polls with questions and answers by each of the attendees
2) Virtual background: It works! You can chose 4 available options for virtual background.
3) No mirroring while sharing screen
4) You can set viewers’ layout: When you want viewers to focus on presentation, set corresponding layout in Settings to make presentation take maximum space and your video take less space (bottom of the public chat).
5) Now you have an indicator for users who are sharing their webcam. This is particularly helpful when webcam pagination is enabled there is no way of knowing whose webcam you would see on the other “pages”.
6) Moderator’s chat messages are in bold and easily visible.