Imagine the possibilities of cutting down on travel costs by conducting classes online. There are many ways it can be done, but which platform should you use? What would work best for your students?
This article will walk you through the various features of all four major online meeting platforms used by universities and colleges across the country.
HEYHI
Screenshot of HeyHi’s online whiteboard
Now that you are aware of 5 free conventional video conferencing apps, it is our pleasure to introduce HeyHi’s online whiteboard, a one-of-a-kind whiteboard-centric video conferencing option you can consider. HeyHi’s online whiteboard is free to download and users on the free subscription plan can set up a virtual classroom for up to four participants, making this the ideal app for facilitating in-depth discussions and small group consultations. You can invite up to 100 participants for webinars.
Regardless of usage, either independently or as a supplement to other conferencing apps, HeyHi is an educational application where teachers host virtual classes with a shareable whiteboard as its dominant feature. Why a whiteboard, you ask? It is our belief that the whiteboard is the quintessential fixture of any classroom. By allowing teachers and students to pen down their thoughts, whiteboards encourage spontaneity and help students visualise concepts better, improving their knowledge retention. With HeyHi, students can upload PDF documents and images, to which their peers and the teacher can add notes with the fully-equipped pen, highlighter, and eraser tools. This interactive element not only makes virtual lessons less static and more engaging, it also encourages collaboration and active participation by every student.
Screenshot of HeyHi’s online whiteboard
Interface wise, HeyHi is specifically designed to help students focus on class contents. Students will immediately see a gridded whiteboard that occupies much of the screen, with the video image other participants only on the right margin. This deliberate placement ensures that video images of participants are less conspicuous, creating a more conducive learning environment where students can focus on the lesson being illustrated on the whiteboard instead of the faces present. HeyHi white-board’s unique expandability also helps students pay full attention to the lesson content. When they are no longer pressured to hurriedly copy notes that risk being deleted as the class moves on, they are reassured and tend to learn better.
Left: Interface of HeyHi’s online whiteboard. Photo by HeyHi.
Right: User shifts to another section of HeyHi’s online whiteboard to continue writing. Gif created on imgPlay.
Beyond delivering quality tools, developers at HeyHi work hard to ensure the safety of online classes. HeyHi is designed such that only participants with a Meeting ID and access code can access online classes. Users are also regularly reminded not to reuse their existing sessions. While some may find this troublesome, the security of users are of utmost concern, and HeyHi’s additional layers of protection are necessary and reassuring.
If you are using HeyHi’s online whiteboard to conduct classes or consultations, you may also consider recording these sessions with tools such as Loom, Panopto, and Quicktime (click here for an in-depth guide on how to create an online whiteboard recording or a useful list of six free software for recording video lectures). Recording is a good strategy for students to catch up with materials without having to set aside extra time for make-up lessons.
ZOOM
Zoom is a video-conference platform that has grown exponentially in popularity since the beginning of the health pandemic as it offers features that are generic enough to serve a wide range of functions. Zoom is well-liked by teachers for a few reasons. The free version of Zoom allows users to conduct video sessions with up to 100 participants (with up to 49 being visible at once), which is a higher participant limit than most other services. Zoom’s unique screen sharing function also enables educators to directly annotate on students’ shared screen. Breakout rooms and hands up options help facilitate small group discussions with spontaneity previously only achievable in a physical classroom setting. Zoom’s iconic gallery view gives users the choice to view all the participants in the call, resembling physical meetings and making it ideal for large group meetings.
Left: Gallery view on Zoom. Photo by Zoom.
Right: User annotating on Zoom’s screen share using a tablet. Photo by Zoom.
However, the major drawback of Zoom is its security issues. Teachers typically send scheduled meeting links to students, who can then join easily without registering for a Zoom account. As password protection to these meetings are often disabled to streamline processes for large-group meetings, they become vulnerable to unwanted interlopers. Such incidents have even caused some countries to ban the use of Zoom. Hence, some parents may not feel at ease with their children using Zoom for online lessons.
Furthermore, the free version cuts off your call after 40 minutes of lesson time; a restriction tighter than most other video conferencing services. For you to conduct lessons uninterrupted for the full duration, paid zoom plans may be necessary (starting at $14.99), which may result in lessons being less accessible for you and your students.
As Zoom is after all primarily a video conferencing platform not designed to be a classroom, the educational tools available are also limited. For instance, while Zoom has a whiteboard function, it only offers basic options of a pen tool or a text box. It is also non-expandable, so when teachers run out of whiteboard space, everything will have to be erased before the teacher can continue writing, disrupting your teaching.
Google Meet
Description: Google’s video meeting tool that integrates with Gmail and, while limited compared to Zoom, has its applications.
Pricing: Free
Crikle
One of the newer video conferencing platforms, Crikle was created more for sales and branding but its simple interface and customizable (at certain subscription levels) branding make it perfectly usable in many educational settings as well.
Pricing: Starting ~$50/mo
Skype
Description: Microsoft’s video calling platform that can be used via mobile app through web browsers. It has stream recording, live subtitles, and also can be used for phone calls as well.
Pricing: Freehttps://6d0facd7c1eb6fddefb19c770b0bd582.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html
BlueJeans
Description: Verizon’s video and remote meeting platform is designed to offer simple and secure video meeting with meeting calendars, browser functionality, sidechat, and screensharing.
Pricing: Plans start at $9.99/mo
BigBlueButton
Description: Live whiteboards, presentation tool, chat, built-in polling, recording management, and other features for teachers.
Pricing: Ranging from $150/mo to $300/mohttps://6d0facd7c1eb6fddefb19c770b0bd582.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html
AnyMeeting
Description: A simple, low-scale virtual meeting platform
Pricing: A free tier for 4 participants (which is an odd limit, no?) up to $12.99/mo for up to 30
Webex
Description: Cisco-owned Webex is a standard business platform that offers many of the traditional features for video streaming for online meetings, from video conferencing to larger, online events and team whiteboarding. This one may be a better fit for a school department or district event rather than teacher to student interactions.
Pricing: Free tier up to 100 participants; prices for paid plans range from $13.50 to $26.95/mo
GoTo Meeting
Description: A longtime business staple for virtual meetings, GoToMeeting offers screen sharing, conference calling, video conferencing, and mobile use as well. It also offers meeting transcription which could be useful for school meetings that require documentation.
Pricing: Ranging from $12/mo for 150 participants and $16 for 250 up to Enterprise pricing
Sococo
Description: A virtual meeting platform that integrates with Zoom, Google Meet, Webex, and Microsoft Teams
Pricing: Starting $13.49/mo for up to 49 ‘seats’
Microsoft Teams
Description: With Skype integration, Microsoft Teams is useful for online teaching. Like Slack, Trello, and other online team-based platforms, Microsoft Teams is far more of a ‘teaching platform’ (though it’s not designed expressly for teachers) than Zoom. It’s basically a kind of communication and resource hub that you can use to anchor your remote teaching–allowing you to consider using an alternative to Zoom that may have fewer features since you’ll be using Microsoft Teams to communicate, plan, share, and document, etc.
YouTube Streaming
Description: YouTube streaming is likely best for individual ‘learning channels’ that deliver consistent education-based content rather than a way for a teacher to host a classroom. That said, the latter is possible with a little planning if you already use and have extensive content on YouTube.
Pricing: Free
Whereby
Description: Browser-based video calling with screen recording, chat, screensharing, and more.
Pricing: Free for one user and one room; an available Pro account is $9.99/mo and offers one user three rooms while a business account offers multiple users and admins for up to ten rooms for $59.99/month
Yotribe
Description: A browser-based videoconferencing tool designed for engagement with smaller groups. However, the signup and account creation is unclear, includes providing a phone number, and has a literal waiting list that you can ‘skip ahead’ of if you solicit signups from your friends. Not exactly a teacher-centered tool but if you’re interested, take a look.
Pricing: Yotribe appears to be free (for now?) but we were not able to clarify exact pricing before publishing
Discord
Description: An open-source (invite-only?) platform originally created for people who play and stream video games. Discord is separated into interest-based channels with available video streaming available for Mac or via your browser.
Pricing: Free
Miro
Description: An online, collaborative whiteboard platform
Pricing: Free for up to three whiteboards; additional tiers up to $16/mo for unlimited boards and additional collaboration features
Twitch
Description: Twitch is the (extremely popular) video streaming tool for gamers (people who play video games). Again, not a tool designed expressly for teachers, twitch can be useful in informal learning environments, university settings, and game-based learning applications.
Pricing: Ranging from $4.99/mo to $24.99/mo
Vimeo
Description: YouTube-like Vimeo offers video hosting focused on privacy controls, private team projects, and video creation tools
Pricing: Ranging from $7/mo for 250GB of storage a year to $75/mo for up to 7TB of total storage
Facebook Live
Description: More for family members, fundraising, and ‘influencers’ than teachers and schools, Facebook Live still might be an option for a non-traditional classroom already using Facebook Groups–or just in need of a free video streaming tool with simple features and reasonable bandwidth requirements.
Pricing: Free
Loom
Description: Not a live streaming solution but an easy to record and share screenshots and screencaptures for sharing–great for video lessons, for example.
Pricing: Free to $10/mo but free for teachers : )
hopin.to
Description: Hopin features interactive podcasts, online workshops and conferences, and more. If your school or district needs something more ambitious than Zoom, hopin might be useful.
Pricing: In Early Access, hopin.to is $99/organizer/mo, and includes 100 tickets per organizer. Any number over 100 is $0.50 cents per registration.
Conclusion
The biggest struggle while teaching online is connectedness with students while still getting the necessary feedback to make the class better. Fast forward to 2-5 years from now when this will be a non-issue thanks to online meeting platforms.