Free Tools To Communicate, Collaborate Or Learn

I have a new virtual friend who I think is very smart and offers up some great tools.

Here’s what he has to say about himself:

My name is Olivier (30 years old) and I live in the South of Paris, with Yasmina.

I worked 3 years in the area of Alternative Education then that of Human Rights. After which, I decided to go back to my very first hobby as a teenager: computing. So back to school ! Half time studying and half time working.

Two more years in a SSII led me to another employer : this time I was asked for by a training center that chose to develop on elearning activities. I can say I was part of the rising and the evolution of the start-up during 4 years. It soon became the French leader of professional training in elearning solutions!

Here are 4 of the tools that Olivier offers.  I’m sure there will be more as I find these very valuable and useful. Give them a try and let me know if you agree, or have your own alternatives to offer:

SparkAngels

SparkAngels claims to be the first online coaching service. It is a collaborative tool limited to two people: a user and his coach, the SparkAngel.

VoIP communication and instant messenger allow the two people to communicate. The service makes it possible to access the desktop from distance and to guide the user through popups for instance. Technically there is no need for any communication port but downloading may be required (Java Webstart app).

The aim is to tackle digital exclusion to give a solution so that ” skills among certain types of population may be shared with other people unfamiliar with technology“. The thing now is to develop places where those people get access to computers and benefit from the solution.

There is a professionnal offer too, it is possible to customize the application with personal logos instead of SparkAngel ones. Darty, a French company, chose their solution last month and proposes a distant DartyBox support. DartyBox is a French box to provide internet connexion, VoIP and video ;)

Widgets should soon be available to be inserted in websites to facilitate the relation between users and SparkAngel.

Combattre l'exclusion numérique en s’adaptant aux besoins de ses utilisateurs à venir avec des services qui les aident à s’approprier la toile

DimDim

A true virtual class. Slides import, desktop and applications sharing, audio and video communication, multi-users instant messenger, invitation by mail. DimDim may be integrated with Moddle and Sugar CRM.

The DimDim license is GPL, hosted on sourceforge. Important features are currently on development phase: quizz, recording, links with Outlook and Google Calendar and so on.

Uncommon: the official website explains that “The Dimdim open source edition is meant … for usage in Non-Critical Environments … The Enterprise Edition is a much more stable, scalable and reliable piece of software which is fully supported and certified by Dimdim, the company. The Open source community supports the Open Source edition“.

The company provides you with professional services regarding technical bugs and helps you with the tool.

The Dimdim open source edition

dimdim, une classe virtuelle open source

demo

Elluminate

I read about it on elearning.fr, Elluminate provides a Java virtual class limited to 3 users but free! The look and the features are similar to the Centra Symposium virtual class. I used Centra for five years, here is a screenshot here. Except for its old looking, it seems to be a complete solution and the company offers professional services.

Elluminate

Streaming Rooms

Streaming Rooms provides free virtual rooms to organize your online meetings.

You can publish one or more video feeds: perfect if you want to aggregate videos from different users in a meeting! Only communication is based solely on chat, there is no password protection, no possibility to publish diaporamas, no download zone… it seems the virtual class is dedicated to individuals only.

I found out that Jessy Cyganczuk, the streamingrooms developer, has built up the application in one week end, before going on holidays. Today he is concentrating on other projects :D

The service, that points out functionalities of an open source framework – CakePhp, makes me think that:

  • it is necessary to test thoroughly any new 2.0 tool before considering it is worthwhile
  • the development for 2.0 tools is not always time-consuming

Organiser vos rendez-vous en ligne

To visit Olivier yourself, go to Free collaborative tools for elearning – [ Blog ocarbone.free.fr ].  It’s a virtual trip to France, after all.

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