My colleagues and I at the Distance Course Design & Consulting Group presented some research at the Hawaii Educational Research Association conference earlier this month, and based on that, I put together the VoiceThread presentation embedded below. (By the way, “Elizabeth Lavolette”? Yeah, that’s my alter-ego.)
The research is a comparison of two virtual classroom setups: Elluminate Live! and Dimdim. Both Elluminate and Dimdim offer free and paid versions, but we are comparing the paid version of Elluminate with the free version of Dimdim. One purpose is to explore the feasibility of a free product replacing a paid one. Another purpose is to explore the potential of open-source software. (Dimdim has an open-source version that can be hosted on your own server. We haven’t tried that yet, but we plan to!) We are still doing research, but our preliminary results are in the presentation below, also available here.
Update (4/23/2010): You can now find a PDF of the paper related to this presentation in the post Dimdim vs. Elluminate: Round 2.
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10 users responded in this post
Betsy-
This is a more in-depth comparison than I have typically seen. Thanks for the UI feedback on the slide sharing, flash settings, mood, and participant listing. I’ll share it with the product team.
You are correct that we do not currently support persistent rooms. Students can not join the meeting room if the meeting host has not opened the room. However, if the meeting host becomes disconnected, they can rejoin their meeting. It only closes the meeting room if the host leaves the meeting intentionally.
I love seeing how our free product stacks up against much more expensive options. We’re continuously working to improve. We are working on 6-way video for an upcoming release.
If you get any more feedback, let me know.
Thanks!
-k
Kevin Micalizzi, Community Manager
Dimdim Web Conferencing / http://www.dimdim.com
e: kevin@dimdim.com / twitter: @dimdim
Facebook: http://dimdim.com/facebook
Kevin, thanks for your comment! I wasn’t aware of the ability to rejoin the meeting if the host unintentionally closes it. That’s great to know for the papers we’ll be writing.
We will definitely keep you updated as we continue our research.
Thanks a lot for the very informative comparison. I hope to have a chance to read your paper if it is possible.
B
I’m glad you found it worthwhile. If you would like, I can email you the paper. We are working on splitting it into two parts, which will hopefully be published. In the meantime, I’d be happy to share what we have.
Betsy, i would like to read the paper too, itd be great if you could email it to me! Very good comparison!
[...] Last year I worked with my former DCDC colleagues at the University of Hawaii to compare Dimdim with Elluminate Live. We took a close look at the free version of Dimdim and the fully licensed version of Elluminate – interface, features, and also gathered some user responses. Our goal with the comparison was to find a synchronous alternative for our clients not eligible to share in our license for Elluminate or able buy their own. For more information on this project check out Betsy Lavolette’s blog post: Dimdim vs. Elluminate: Fight! [...]
Thanks Betsy for a very informative comparison. Would it be possible to have an email copy?
Thanks Betsy. I enjoyed reading your post. My company actually uses RHUB Web Conferencing (http://rhubcom.com/v4/web_conferencing/home.html). You should check it out for your next review.
For those of you who wanted a copy of the paper, it’s now up in Dimdim vs. Elluminate: Round 2.
Betsy..thanks so much for sharing this on Facebook. I am finding that I am spending more and more time on FB for professional reasons! :)
I have a small start up company called Connect and Reflect that is very comprehensive, long-term workshops on writing instruction for elementary teachers. I am continuing to explore various means and connections for the work I have already done. Thanks so much for some additional things to consider. I may contact you for some add’l discussion if that’s okay.
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