For those schools that are closed due to COVID-19, have you been using Canvas Conferences for remote learning? If so, please share your experience.

[rpsimon]

My school is located in New York City (5 Boros).  It's only a matter of time before our school closes due to COVID-19.  Many schools are using Zoom, Google Meet, or another tool for video conferencing.  I would like to hear from those Canvas users who have experience with using Canvas Conferences for remote learning.  How does this compare/contrast to Zoom Pro?  

[tobe_baeyens]

One of our teachers used BigBlueButton today because of the outbreak. Others have been used it before. He was very happy about the experiment. More students, more interaction, really well suited for education (students raise their hands, chat works well, a lot of interactions through easy polling,...). Tomorrow we will move all lessons online and we will suggest to use BigBlueButton for online synchronous teaching.

[rpsimon]

I'm so happy to hear that!  I am in need of tech support and do not know the best way to contact Big Blue Button.  Here are the issues that teachers are facing:

1) Screen share button is not appearing while in presenter mode (would Chrome work better than Safari?)

2) A teacher tried to access a concluded conference and played the video.  The video kept loading and did not play.

Any thoughts as to why this is happening?

Thanks!

[Stef_retired]

rpsimon‌, I'm hopeful that participants in this thread can assist—and whenever you need technical assistance with the Canvas conferencing tool, please contact Canvas Support using the same method you ordinarily would.

[heather_stockfo]

I find all things Canvas related to work better in Chrome

[rpsimon]

Hi stefaniesanders‌, I contacted Canvas regarding the technical issues we were having with Conferences and unfortunately they were not able to help me.  The rep directed me to contact Big Blue Button.  It is imperative that we get these issues fixed ASAP.  I want my teachers to be setup for success and I want this whole endeavor to be successful.  There seems to be no telephone number for Big Blue Button Tech Support.  Anything you can do to help me would be greatly appreciated.  I have already sent a message to BBB through Messenger and tweeted them on Twitter.  No response.

[Stef_retired]

rpsimon,  @ffdixon ‌ might be able to assist so I've tagged him here.

[kdickso]

Hi rpsimon‌. The last time I used conferences (earlier this semester) I used Firefox and it was working okay. Emory is just gearing up to go online and we are going to use a combination of Zoom Pro and Canvas Conferences (Big Blue Button).

I'm sure that stefaniesanders‌' suggestion will be a good one because she always knows to whom we can turn for answers and ideas if she doesn't already have a ready answer herself!

In our case, I think that Emory is pushing Zoom for recordings and conferencing because of the built-in ability to produce and push out transcripts of recorded sessions along with the recorded videos with the hope that transcripts will help in terms of accessibility.

Basically they are suggesting we record zoom sessions and post them to Canvas in modules (or on Pages). We are all emergency training like crazy. I can hear my colleague two offices down practicing on zoom right now.

Good luck!

Katrina

[rpsimon]

 @kdickso ‌ so we also just purchased some licenses for Zoom Pro as we were finding that Big Blue Button - Canvas Conferences just couldn't keep up and teachers were getting frustrated.  So.....now I am looking at a way to integrate Zoom within Canvas.  I was looking at two options. 1) Zoom LTI Pro and 2) CirQLive.  I tried setting up Zoom LTI Pro but got stuck towards the end.  I reached out to CirQLive through Twitter, and low and behold someone got back to me - he was as nice and as understanding as could be!  Anyway, they are giving us a free 90 day trial to integrate Zoom within Canvas.  

[kdickso]

rpsimon thank you SO much. I just passed this on to some of our desigers/administrators ( @stimme ‌ and  @kbhayes ‌ I sent you an email). The secure office hours, scheduling, reminders, and attendance features all look potentially very useful.

[rpsimon]

So I just want to let you know that I have explored both Zoom's LTI Pro and CirQLive.  I have to tell you that I am highly impressed with CirQLive's customer support.  They will be giving us a FREE 90 day trial for integrating Zoom PRO within Canvas.  Although I like Canvas Conferences, it is just not powerful enough right now with all of the traffic and usage.  Please let me know if you want more info and contact info for CirQLive.  I am so impressed with them so far.

[marion_sadoux]

We use the BBB in conference on canvas for our online teaching, i also use it to record / boradcast team meetings as some colleagues cannot attend and we are now using it to hold meetings as well with colleagues who are self isolatingbut not ill.

It is very good for live sessions provided users follow the recommendations and have a goodinternet connection.

In the last week though there has been a bug with BBB and the conferences get catalogued as concluded even if they have not started which means you have to sart a fresh one and get delegates to log in presto pronto or else again they are logged out - I hope this gets fixed soon and i hope that the BBB can cope with the added pressure that is about to come!

Good luck

[ffdixon]

Hi Marion,

I am the CEO of Blindside Networks, we are the company that provides hosting for BigBlueButton to Instructure.  While I am not an employee of Instructure and can not speak on their behalf, I can respond to your questions.

> In the last week though there has been a bug with BBB and the conferences get catalogued as concluded even if they have not started which means you have to start fresh one and get delegates to log in presto pronto or else again they are logged out

Can you provide specific steps to reproduce?

Our servers are experience a lot of load in the last week (and we are adding more serves daily), so it might have been that you were disconnected for other reasons.

Are you on the Free Tier?  You can tell if your school is on the Free Tier of Canvas Conferences by the welcome message that states.

This BigBlueButton session is provided free of charge by Blindside Networks Inc. to Instructure customers. Recordings are automatically deleted after 14 days. For permanent recordings and other premium features, contact your canvas representative.

While the Free Tier was available to all schools, in the past, most only made occasional use of it.  We've are constantly adding servers for additional capacity to the Free Tier, but you may experience performance issues in the coming weeks.  

Instructure has released a statement of other tools that you can also use for using virtual classrooms

  https://www.instructure.com/canvas/blog/canvas-partners-and-distance-learning

Our goal is to ensure you can hold your online classes, regardless of which tool you choose.

Regards,.. Fred

-- 

BigBlueButton developer & CEO Blindside Networks

[inzkohi]

This would be such a perfect time for Big Blue Button to enhance performance for its free version, since SO many people will be trying to take advantage of it with all of the institutions going remote. This will be the impression that carries forward and a good experience might encourage a number of institutions to jump on the paid version (I know we would) because of it. 

Just a thought.