By Elspeth McCulloch, EDC Educational Technology Development Coordinator
Have you thought about incorporating BigBlueButton (BBB) into your course? BigBlueButton is a synchronous web conferencing tool that allows instructors and TAs to host live online presentations, seminars, office hours and meetings from cuLearn. The technology is feature rich, easy to use and fully supported at Carleton. You can learn to set up a session, load a presentation, answer questions and record the session in just a few minutes.
BigBlueButton recently added breakout rooms so instructors can bring students in to a large group session and then assign smaller groups for more focused discussion on specific questions or topics. Classroom assessment techniques like think-pair-share, jigsaw, case study analysis and peer review that have previously been out of reach in traditional online courses are now an option. Once the breakout sessions have finished and the whole class has reconvened, instructors can use polling or emoticons to get quick feedback. If students have selected a reporter in their groups, BigBlueButton makes it easy to turn over a microphone or webcam to anyone in the session.
Dr. Robert Shepherd, an associate professor of Public Policy and Program Evaluation at Carleton, says that BigBlueButton has really transformed his teaching.
“I find the use of BigBlueButton to be of critical importance to the effective functioning of my online courses. It provides a vehicle to engage students in real-time discussion, while also serving as my virtual office. The navigation is fairly straightforward, but for the most part, I find the tool and excellent way to engage with students in real time.”
If you’re considering incorporating BBB into your course, here are some tips and best practices to get you started:
- Provide this video to students to watch before the first session
- Recommend users connect with Chrome and Firefox
- Encourage users to use a headset and microphone
- Open the session early
- Send participants directions and reminders ahead of time
- Request input for the session agenda from students
- Review the session layout with participants, reminding them that they can chat or raise their hands to ask questions
- Create an opening slide with set up instructions
- Use polling and emoticons to keep students engaged
Our cuLearn support site and educational technology page also provides some documentation on BBB, or you can watch the BigBlueButton video tutorials to see if BBB is right for you.
If you’re interested in finding out more about using synchronous breakout rooms in your teaching, the following articles may be helpful:
- Luce, Benjamin David, “Out Of Sync: Analyzing The Paradoxical Impact Of Synchronous Learning In Distance Education” (2016). All Theses And Dissertations. Paper 83.
- McDaniels, Melissa & Pfund, Christine, (March 2016) Creating Dynamic Learning Communities in Synchronous Online Courses: One Approach From the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (CIRTL) Online Learning 20(1), 1-20.
And don’t forget, you can always contact us at edc@carleton.ca for training and consultations about using BigBlueButton or other educational technology tools.