Review: Public Session on WiZiQ.com

Posted on January 30, 2009 by Kirsten Winkler

Today I had my first public session on WiZiQ.com.

Public sessions are classes with several attendees that are offered by teachers on the WiZiQ platform for free. There is a huge variety of topics available, from languages to mathematics, from exam preparation to spiritual guidance.After the problem I had last week, today I immediately got a connection to the WiZiQ Server. I also want to say thank you to the WiZiQ team which immediately responded to my problem and sorted it out very quickly. Great Service!

The session itself was really smooth. There were between 8 to 13 students with me in the classroom, the text chat was stable and my voice could be heard clearly by the participants. Just two or three minor breakdowns of the voice chat during the session.

I uploaded some slides (the same I used in the EduFire session last sunday). Unfortunately, the WiZiQ classroom did not scale them automatically, so they appeared too big on the screen. I think the reason was that I used a pdf file and not a ppt. Funny though that the rescaling does not work with pdfs. Next week I will try out a ppt.

When I gave mic control to the students the delay was ok but far away from the quality of Skype. A communication is basically not possible. At least the teacher cannot make corrections in between the student speaks. I tried it though but it was too confusing and in the end I changed back to good old “teacher speaks, students listen” style.

I have to say that this is not only a problem of WiZiQ, would not be  fair to say so. I know not one classroom with a working voice chat. At the moment, nothing beats Skype on that sector.

All in all WiZiQ public sessions are a really great way to promote yourself. I did not make a promotion this time because I was not sure if it would work. But I got up to 13 students in the classroom, coming from WiZiQ. Really great!

The embedding feature that you can see on my websites is a killer, too. Just embed your classes like a YouTube video, easy as that.

The classroom looks really nice, is easy to use and is very stable. If one day the voice chat issue will be solved, it is near to being perfect.

The session is automatically recorded, so the students and the teacher can revise it afterwards.

Conclusion: if you haven’t already, try it out. It’s free, it’s fun and it can boost your teaching business if you promote yourself as a teacher in free public sessions on WiZiQ.

Related Posts:

  1. WiZiQ adds a slick new Feature for Premium Members called LearnerConnect
  2. WiZiQ classroom now with integrated Screen Sharing
  3. Spotlight on WiZiQ: New Look and Public Paid Classes
  4. WiZiQ opens Public Class Scheduling to all Teachers
  5. WiZiQ Sessions are now WiZiQ Classes

About Kirsten Winkler

Education 2.0 Blogger at KirstenWinkler.com, Interviewer at EDUKWEST.com, Consultant at WinklerMedia.com.
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  • steve
    I am starting a live online language business where voice chat is necessary.
    Is there affordable audio chat platforms out there that I simply haven't discovered that don't have high degrees of latency?
  • Hi Steve. If you are looking just for a chat with video function Skype is the answer. Free, easy to use and great voice quality.

    If you are looking for a virtual classroom, there are several options. Dimdim, WiZiQ, Adobe Live Connect and others.
  • steve
    I am launching a Live language business and am in search for affordable
    audio-visual chat and I am starting to think that perhaps the technology has
    simply net yet arrived. Am I wrong? Steve
  • Hi again,
    just found it: http://www.adotube.com/premium-content-delivery...

    Maybe this could be interesting.
    Will send you the link via email ;).
  • Hi mahalie,
    it rings a bell in the back of my head as if I saw a service like this somewhere.
    I will give it a go and try to find this site.

    Thanks for stopping by!
  • My client is an architecture firm that would like to offer some free and some pay-per-view instructional videos, in addition to webinars. Are there any services you know of out there that handle PPV for pre-made video?

    Looked at Wiziq, EduFire, Sclipo, StrongStreams and GlobalLearningSystems.com. I couldn't find anything Googling "like Global Learning Systems" - that is the company that a peer group of ours uses. Any input would be appreciated, looking forward to finding some more tips on your site. Thanks!
  • Hi Sam,
    thanks. that clarifies a lot. It's very important to know, because this has a major influence on my decision what to offer to my clients in the next couple of month!

    Thank you very much. That helped a lot!
  • Hi Kirsten,

    I was referring to upcoming p2p voice chat in the Flash player that Adobe will release later this year. It's intended for small conversations rather than big conference calls. I don't know if Skype's conferencing has the same issues. Here's the math behind it if you're curious...

    With the upcoming Flash p2p, you need to create 1 upload and 1 download stream for every person you talk to. Ten people talking = 10 upstreams * 10 downstreams = 100 audio streams per person. Thus, the upcoming Flash p2p might have much lower latency for 1-2 people, but maybe not beyond that. I'd need to write some tests to get accurate measurements though.

    With the Flash-based services you're using today, you create 1 upstream when you speak, and receive 1 downstream for every person you're listening to. Ten people talking = 1 upstreams and 9 downstreams = 10 streams per person.

    I hope that clarifies rather than confuses!

    -Sam
  • Samuel and Kirsten:

    Here is an update: WiZiQ is offering P2P audio in its virtual classroom for up to 05 attendees in a class. We used it in the second ETCon and it worked well with up to 04 people speaking at the same time and more than 40 others listening in.

    Thanks

    Vikrama Dhiman
    WiZiQ.com
  • Hi Kevin,
    thanks for joining the talk. I will definitely check out your tool. Maybe I get some new results.

    Sam, if I get it right, voice conferences with more than 4 participants don't work over P2P either?
  • Kirsten & Sam-
    Network bandwidth is always a factor. We're working on a new release to better optimize our network use (should be out in the next few weeks.) We provide a bandwidth test tool on our site to help with verifying if networking is an issue:
    http://www.dimdim.com/support/dimdim_tools.html

    Thanks!

    -k
    Kevin Micalizzi, Community Manager
    Dimdim Web Conferencing / http://www.dimdim.com
    e: kevin@dimdim.com / twitter: @meetdimdim
    Facebook: http://dimdim.com/facebook
  • Hi Kirsten,

    Thanks for the details. In a flash-based conversation, the audio from your microphone travels to the server and then to the listener's computer, so each audio stream makes two trips. Each trip adds delay to the audio, especially across long distances (e.g. Europe to North America). A regular Skype conversation sends the audio directly to the listener's computer, so the signal only makes one trip. Flash audio will seldom have less delay than a direct peer-to-peer connection like Skype.

    I tested DimDim and WiZiQ on a broadband Windows XP machine with at 1-2 seconds for both. WiZiQ had slightly less delay.

    You can reduce delay further by lowering the audio quality through the settings in WiZiq (upper-right corner button) or DimDim (upper-right corner of the video box). By reducing audio from the recommended quality to the lowest quality, I was able to get less than 1 second of delay on WiZiQ, while DimDim's audio delay didn't improve much. If you have enough bandwidth, you might also try opening a second "listening" window to your meeting so you can hear the delay and train yourself to pause longer during conversations... don't try this on a slow connection though.

    If you're talking with people around the world, you can test the latency (delay) of your connection to different locations by visiting http://www.speedtest.net/. After choosing a city to test, look for the result labelled "Ping", which tells you the latency in milliseconds. My ping time from Seattle to nearby Portland was 26ms, but the ping from Seattle to Paris took 199ms! This might help you gain more awareness of the delays experienced by your various students.

    There's hope for the future... the latest Flash players already support peer-to-peer audio similar to Skype's, under various code names. Adobe has only made this technology for engineers to try right now, but they will probably enable peer-to-peer voice for commercial use sometime this year. You might see some elearning companies offer this option if they can solve the engineering challenges of recording audio and supporting more than 3-4 particpants over peer-to-peer voice.

    Cheers,
    -Sam
  • Hi Samuel,
    ok, let my try to answer your questions :)

    1) no, it is more a long delay that you are not sure if the other part can hear you at all. and then you start speaking again, trying to hear you, then their speaking part overlays and everything ends in a "yeah? what? who?" situation.
    2) yeah, I would definitely say it's this case.
    3) exactly. I mean the both of them plus dimdim.
    4) I think more the speaker. the listeners (in my case the students) seem to have no big problems.
    5) from my side, windows xp, broadband, no network during classes, no downloads, skype, twitter etc. just me, the pc and the classroom :).

    thank you so much for your effort :) looking forward to your reply!
    Kirsten
  • I'd written a detailed explanation with suggested fixes, but suddenly realized I should ask you for more details instead of making any assumptions :)

    1) Is it a stuttering delay, like a bad cellphone connection where the audio drops out with small gaps of silence?

    2) Is it a time delay, where the audio plays smoothly but it feels that the listener hears what you say several seconds after you've said it?

    3) Is this a Flash-based system like WiZiQ or Edufire's? Or is it one of the IM's like Skype or MSN Messenger?

    4) Who's experiencing the delay? The speaker or listener?

    5) Do you have details about the computer or network environment of the person who experiences the delays? E.g. broadband at home or office, number of other people using the network at home or office, trying to stream over cellphone network like 3G, old computer, operating system, other internet applications like music streaming or torrent downloading running in the background?

    I can probably pinpoint the problem for you if I can get some sense of the situation. This is stuff I've dealt with quite a bit.
  • Hi Samuel,
    thank you very much for your explanation.

    But does this also affect one-on-one lessons? Because I had the same problem with only one student in the classroom.

    Plus I only give microphone control to one student at a time. But it never worked. Always delays.
  • The delays you describe in multi-participant classrooms are due to overloading of bandwidth on each participant's local bandwidth. Each speaker sends a unique audio stream to each receiver, so the total number of audio streams can grow exponentially. If everyone in a 10-person classroom speaks at the same time, each person's browser must handle 10 audio streams, which can lead to stuttered or delayed audio.

    For that reason, services like EduFire and WiZiQ often limit the number of users who can speak at the same time.
  • You are welcome Mike ;).
    Well, from my experience nothing beats Skype at the moment for conducting conversational lessons.

    If you use the classrooms (WiZiQ and Adobe) for front teaching, the audio quality is OK. Students never have a problem to hear the teacher. The tricky part is when you get into a conversation.

    I tried this one-on-one and in a class situation. And the result was the same. The delay is so big (around 3 to 5 seconds) that a conversation is basically not possible.

    On Skype, conference calls up to 5 people are no problem at all. But as I said, it's their business. It's what they do and they do it best right now.

    In the end you have always the possibility to mute the sound in the classroom and to use Skype for the conversation. That's the practice on Myngle since they started, although they want to change this, soon. But I can tell you even now: it won't work...
  • chinamike
    Hmm, Quite interesting. It sounds like you favor Skype over Adobe (which includes Flash media server).

    Thanks for the tidbit on authorgen!
  • Hello Vikrama,
    thank you for your comment. Fixing the voice chat issue would be an enormous step forward, indeed. Plus I will get back to you concerning the schedule.

    @Mike If I compare the group session with the class I had on EduFire last sunday (EduFire uses Adobe Live Connect) the number of students in the classroom does not seem to be the problem. In Jon Bischke's class there were around 70 people using the chat but the classroom was stable. The WiZiQ classroom did not have a problem with many students in it, either.
    It seems to me that VoIP is a tricky thing and Skype, which I personally think offers the best quality (even in conference calls there are only minor delays), does not do something else than VoIP. They are highly specialized on that.

    The technology behind WiZiQ is the authorgen classroom (www.authorgen.com). So I think WiZiQ is a promotion tool for them to sell their software and to test it in a real environment before bringing out new versions, which I think is a very good idea, btw.
  • chinamike
    Numbers= students
    Quality= quality of sound
  • chinamike
    Thanks loads for another great review Kirsten. It looks like the Holy Grail is a great experience with students in a group. I'm curious if numbers have any effect on quality? Anyone from WiziQ care to comment?

    I'm also wondering what technology is underlying this platform. Have you heard anything in this regards? My gut feeling is that Flash is going to be the winner in the end for group classes.

    In the end, whoever gets group classes right first is going to have a huge edge over everyone else. As you have pointed out somewhere else, the economics of group classes work out better for students and even teachers.
  • Thank you for conducting a public session.

    We will look into issues faced by you. We are currently working on resolving the voice communication and in a few months, there will be a noticeable difference.

    For anyone interested, we also posted the best practices in synchronous teaching http://wiziq.typepad.com/wiziqcom/2009/01/best-...
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