Learn BigBlueButton

Introduction

Basic information

ICT Competency	BigBlueButton is an open-source web conferencing system
Educational application and relevance	BigBlueButton supports multiple audio and video sharing, presentations with extended whiteboard capabilities.
Version	BigBlueButton version 2.2.3
Other similar applications	Zoom, Google hangouts
The application on mobiles and tablets	There are many similar application are available in android mobile phones. Example,.Zoom, google duo, TeamViewer, Apache OpenMeeting etc
Development and community help	BigBlueButton Inc.

Overview of features

BigBlueButton supports multiple audio and video sharing, presentations with extended whiteboard capabilities - such as a pointer, zooming and drawing - public and private chat, desktop sharing, and support for presentation of PDF documents and Microsoft Office documents. Moreover, users may enter the conference in one of two roles viewer or moderator.

Installation

BigBlueButton is a web based application. No need of installation. You just need web browser to open it.

Working with application

Getting familiar with application

Participants/Students section

There are two ways to join BigBlueBotton webinar sessions,

1. you just need to click on the link which faculty has shared with you directly.
2. If you are part of any moodle course, you have to login your moodle course and click on the BigBlueBotton webinar link as shown in the below steps.

• Login to moodle access BBB webinar session
• 

  Image1 – Moodle course Login page

• 

  Image2 – Moodle main page

• 

  Image3 – Click on “Course Webinar on BigBlueButton”

1. You have to go to your Moodle course page and use your moodle login ID and password to login.
2. Goto the course overview section or any other section as faculty instructed you.
3. You need to click on Course Webinar on BigBlueButton link has shown in the image3.

• Connecting your audio to the webinar
• 

  Image4- Prefer your audio connectivity

• 

  Image5 – Confirming your audio is connected

• 

  Image6 - BigBlueBotton webinar main page

1. After you joining the session, you will get pop-up notification has shown in image4. Here you have select your audio preference as below:
   1. If you are not going to talk, only for listening others talk, choose “Listen only”
   2. In the webinar session, If you are going to talk than choose “microphone” option. By selecting Microphone option you can speak and also you can listen others speech.
2. After you choose your audio preference, you will get “echo test” pop-up window has shown in image5. If you are able to listen the echo, then click on “Yes” option.
3. Now you are logged into BigBlueButton(BBB) webinar session. Now you should see the screen as shown in the image6.

• BigBlueBotton webinar window
• 

  Image7 – how to select status

1. In the previous step, if you have chosen Microphone and you don't want talk now, please click on the Microphone button on the bottom of the screen (by doing this others will not get your audio, when other are speaking). You can always unmute your audio by clicking on the same button.
2. If you do not want to share your videos, click on video icon to disable/enable it.
3. On the left side for the webinar window you will get three options which are: Messages, Notes and Users
   1. Messages : Here you can see all the text chats which participants can do the text chat with all the participants.
   2. Notes : Here If faculty wants to share any notes for the participants, they will use this place.
   3. Users : You can see the list of participants and faculties are in the session and if you click on each names, you can privately chat with them.
      Also, If you click on you own name, you will get set of status which will visible to every one. If you have any dubts and if you want talk, you can choose “raise hand” status.

Saving and sharing

Not applicable.

Advanced features

As a viewer, a user may join the voice conference, share their webcam, raise their status, and chat with others.

References

1. To know more how to use BigBlueButton refer the given link https://youtu.be/Q2tG2SS4gXA which gives simple instructions.
2. Refer the link https://bigbluebutton.org/html5/ for some more Tutorial videos of BigBlueButton.