Today I am supposed to be teaching an online class. The problem is that the agenda isnt working and i have no slides to present. You would think that this is a no brainer but its not. Probably because we use a system called Centra Symposium. Not the greatest environment I’ve worked in, however from an instructors perspective here is my take:
On the Plus Side:
- It has great tools – thats a plus
- Whiteboard
- Web Safari
- Markup for slides
- It has chat in addition to VoIP
On the negative side:
- Its hard to manage a class on the backend.
- All Slides need to be uploaded ahead of time. An instructor cant use his or her own slides.
- You can markup a slide and save it to the agenda on the fly but it gets lost at the end of the agenda
I’m sure there is more but I’ll leave it at that. But what about the others? Personally I have used Adobe Connect, Microsoft Live Meeting, and MeetingPlace. They have have their strong points. The one I like the least is MeetingPlace. The one I like the best is Microsoft Live Meeting 8 as it has the ease of grabbing my own slides and the audio seems to be good.
As far as Adobe Connect goes, I’m a mixed review. As an instructor I didn’t like it because my audio seemed to fade in and out. As a Student I took the CCIE Bootcamp from Internetwork Expert and they did a GREAT job. The interface was smooth and I didnt have any issues. The voice quality was good and I really enjoyed the experience.
Well thats my rant for now. Feel Free to comment. I’d love to know what you think or what your experiences have been. Also, don’t forget to subscribe if you haven’t already.
