WiZiQ Blog

Active Teachers - Now Your Public Classes Don't Need Approval

It's a privilege to inform that many active teachers on WiZiQ now gain access to schedule and publish their Online Public Classes without our prior approval. This removes the 48-hour prior scheduling of a public class barrier for these teachers and their classes get listed instantly on WiZiQ. We’ll be personally notifying these teachers about the same through email shortly.

So if you have been considerably active as a teacher during the last 3 months on WiZiQ, you could be one of these teachers. Additionally, we would be looking forward (and being very thankful) that teachers reciprocate by:

• Providing important information for every public class with appropriate title, tags, description, etc.
• And most importantly, not canceling or missing a scheduled public class unless under unavoidable circumstances

Teachers who would be interested in availing this offer in the near future can start by ensuring that you have:

• Filled in your teacher profile up to a good percentage (70% or more) with your image
• Verified your email address
• Conducted a minimum of two Public Classes on WiZiQ

If you are currently missing the benchmark of two classes, makeup for it; send us the details with date & time of the prospective class that you want to present. If the class details are viable and good, then we approve it without delay. Whenever you achieve this milestone, you may expect an email notification from us giving you similar access for Public Classes.

More on the way for Online Public Classes

Seeing past trends, we understand that Public Classes on WiZiQ are emerging as a great networking tool for teachers to connect with new students. To power Public Classes more in this direction, Premium teachers will soon get contact-access to students who registered for a class and who attended it. Free members will only get contact-access to the students who attend their Public Classes. We hope these new enhancements help teachers connect better with students and expand their professional network on WiZiQ.

New and Improved Recordings for WiZiQ Premium Members

!! Update - Nov 19 - Known Issue: Due to a technical snag, some recordings on WiZiQ could be delayed. We are on top if it and will update you soon on this. We appreciate your patience.

Perhaps, one of the most useful features on WiZiQ is the ‘Class Recordings’. And we understand that our users were expecting improvements in the quality of the recordings and the addition of a few drops like inclusion of screen sharing, and audio/video files in the recordings too.

With the usage of the Virtual Classroom and recordings on the rise, we feel that our teachers and students will welcome this edition of Class Recordings.

An insight into what’s new in recordings

Here’s what to expect in the new version of Class Recordings and how it comes close to the actual class:

•    Better Interface
•    Better synch of the audio and video
•    Screen sharing recording
•    Full screen view
•    Swift switching with the time-line, no more slides




Now, the recordings have an interface that quite resemble the lay-out of the Virtual Classroom - the whiteboards on the left, audio and video window on the top-right and chat window on the bottom-right. The view has been zoomed to 100% for better clarity and quality.

You don’t find slides on the left; instead, we now provide a long time-line (progress bar) at the bottom, so that you don’t have to wait for the recording to play all the way to see the recording, say, at a given point on the time-line. Simply, drag the time-line pointer to view the recording at whatever point you would like to.

Better synch of your voice and video with your actions on the whiteboard is now ensured. Your audio or video doesn’t fall behind the movements on the whiteboard. This lag has now been minimized to under 2 seconds.

Screen-sharing events also get captured in the live class and now show in recordings. Additionally, the audio and video files or links that you play live in the Virtual Classroom are also played in the recordings.

Please note that these enhanced recordings take a bit longer to build than the earlier version. The wait is not too long though :-)

Just to mention, a thing we couldn’t yet achieve: if you download a recording, the audio and video files played in the live class won’t play in the downloaded copy.

WiZiQ will continue to build upon improvements and additions to this new version of recordings.  Post us your feedback and what next you would like to see in the recordings at support@wiziq.com or on the WiZiQ forum. Or join the discussion on the e-teaching community to send us your comments. Your feedback helps us to improve!

Screen Sharing Updated in the Virtual Classroom

We are excited to share the new screen-sharing aka desktop-sharing feature with all our users who have been looking forward to see an improved version going live in the WiZiQ Virtual Classroom. And we appreciate your patience for waiting long for this improvement!

Screen sharing, an important tool for software training or product demonstration, lets you share your on-screen activity in real-time with all participants in the Virtual Classroom. Java Runtime environment (JRE 1.5 or above) needs to be installed (only) at presenters' end to share their screens. So before you enter the class, install JRE 1.5 or above on your system to enable quick screen sharing (see system requirements below).

Fast and quality screen/desktop sharing

This new version adds screen/desktop-sharing capabilities in the Virtual Classroom with

• simple-click start and stop functions
• full-screen sharing
• improved quality with faster performance and
• shared screens also appear in class recordings

What's under the hood?

For the technologically inclined: We are using a 'screen-sharing codec' that transmits your screen as a series of images at a specific frame rate to the server, which in turn transmits these images to all attendees' screens. Since there are a lot of variables to make desktop sharing a good experience such as quality of the presenter's CPU speed, frame rate used, internet bandwidth, etc., we have used the most optimal settings for presenters with 500kbps (kilobits per second) and a pretty standard laptop (we haven't tested it on a Netbook yet). As we collect performance data over time, we will optimize it further. On the attendee side, the only variable is the Internet bandwidth as it's as simple as a video being shared. So we recommend presenters use a fast broadband connection (say 512kbps).

Steps for Screen sharing

You can instantly share your screen in the Virtual Classroom. Click on the screen-sharing icon and you are good to go. 

1.      The first time you choose to share your screen in a class, you find a security window. Click ‘Run’ (Java 1.6) or 'Yes' (Java 1.5) to start sharing your screen. Check the option 'Always trust content from this publisher' to avoid getting this message again. 

2.      Your screen starts getting shared. If you fail to receive the message that your screen is being shared within a minute, you might not have the required version of Java installed on your system. In such a case, you might need to install Java afresh.  

3.      Go to the screen that you want to share. The attendees can see you working on the documents, using an application/software or browsing the Internet. Anything you do goes live in the Virtual Classroom and gets captured in the class recording too!

4.      When you are done with all that you need to share, return to the Virtual Classroom. Click on the “Stop Sharing” button in the small message window and it stops right away. 

Attendees can also share screens in the class if writing control is transferred to them. They can begin sharing by following the same steps listed above. They need to have Java installed on their system. Only one user can share screens at a time.

System requirements to use screen sharing in the Virtual Classroom

To make it easy for you, run a check here to know if your system is compatible.

Here are the system requirements: 

1. A laptop or desktop with a Windows OS or MAC (Linux not supported yet)
2. One of the following browsers: Internet Explorer 6 or above and Firefox 3.5.0 or above on Windows OS , and Safari 4.0 on MAC
3. Java enabled browser
4. At least 512kbps Internet connection
5. Java's JRE version 1.6 (recommended). Install now
6. Port 1935 opened on your system

Tips and Pointers:

* Working within one Windows application (say a browser, MS Word or Visual Studio), there is hardly any latency, so you will find it very smooth.

* When you launch a new application for the first time, give it about 20 seconds for all the viewers to be in sync. After that, its pretty much instant transmission.

* When you are displaying high-graphic applications or websites (we noticed this with Google Maps and sometimes with Flickr), go slow describing things since you might experience a latency of a couple of seconds during transmission. This is because it takes longer for the screen sharing codec to transmit high quality, heavy images.

* If the presenter and attendees are working on different resolutions and an attendee finds some problem in the quality of the shared screen, then the attendee can switch to "Full Screen" mode (by using F11 key or using the menu option of the browser) to optimize the quality of the shared screen shown at his/her end.

In future releases we will be building on this feature further to support more browsers (currently successfully tested on Internet Explorer and FireFox on Windows and Safari on Mac), reduce latency wherever possible, and improve on quality of the screen seen by your attendees. 

I would like to mention a special thanks to Vladimir and his team at Hmelyoff's Labs who made this feature possible in WiZiQ. We will be continually bugging him to give us more features in the future as well :)

We hope you enjoy using this feature in the Virtual Classroom. Your valuable feedback helps us address your issues in future releases. 

Regards,

Harman Singh,

CEO @WiZiQ

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Discussions:
On the e-teaching community: New Screen Sharing on WiZiQ
In the WiZiQ forums: Screen Sharing Update - November 2009

The English Language Community on WiZiQ

Within languages, English language learning is probably the most important. Literature worldwide and majority of online classes, practice tests, educational tutorials and learning requests indicate that as well. Hence, the need for a dedicated community for English language learning.

If you are a teacher or a learner or an English language enthusiast, you might want to check out the English Language Community on WiZiQ at a convenient URL : http://english.wiziq.com/ The community already has more than 1500 members and is growing at a good pace. When you join this community, you get access to all upcoming classes, practice tests and educational tutorials related to learning English speaking, writing, reading, and listening at one place, and also a chance to participate in lively and active discussions. Some of the active discussions include Check the Spellings, Vocabulary: Daily Inputs and What is the quickest way to learn English?

Tip for Teachers: To see your class, test or tutorial listed in the English Language Community - just add the keyword "English" in the keywords/tags field.

Your own Profile Link and New Improved Profile Pages

Learning and teaching on WiZiQ is teacher centric. Teachers and learners are real people. We have encouraged teachers to use their real names [and photos] to connect with the learners they know already, or they come to know through WiZiQ. The knowledge that you are dealing with a real person [whose identity you know] helps to create a trusted environment for learners. Hence, we have always had your first name and last name in the URL. However, the URLs were long and thereby, difficult to share and post on the Web. This has now changed.

Premium members on WiZiQ can now choose and create your own WiZiQ profile link when you go to edit your profile [see second heading : WiZiQ Profile Link, remember to sign in to your WiZiQ account to access this link]. We have also revamped the profile design with all your latest public activity listed on your profile - making it a more consolidated showcase of your teaching expertise. More changes and additions are coming soon in the public profile.

Hence, instead of http://www.wiziq.com/tutor-profile/43887-nidhi-english-teacher you can simply type http://www.wiziq.com/Nidhi

You can only use alphabets and digits in your profile link [special characters or symbols are not compatible]. Your profile link should have at least 3 characters. Also, you will not be able to change your profile link after you choose one. Hence, think carefully about the profile link you choose. If you choose a name that is an attempt at squatting on a brand name or something that is not suitable for young audiences [profanity, abuse, swear words], we can edit your profile link ourselves.

Creating your own profile link on WiZiQ is completely optional. However, we recommend that you create one now. Creating a profile link will give you a distinct Web address for your profile. Hence, anyone can just enter http://www.wiziq.com/yourname/ and access your profile. This way, learners and your contacts will have an easy way to find you. It would also be easier to remember as well as share and post on the Web. The rest of your profile including your name would remain as it is.