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

Comments

[KirstenWinkler]

Definitely an important feature, loved by online teachers. Great, that WiZiQ's classroom has its own now.