Wimba Collaboration Suite

Wimba Collaboration Suite: Offers a rich array of collaborative tools that allow faculty to retain the highly personal and lively nature of traditional classroom instruction. From voice to video, from podcasting to content authoring to instant messaging, It works seamlessly within existing online courses so instructors never need a new username or password, and never have to leave their familiar online course environments. It helps students and teachers connect by combining interactive technologies such as: video, podcasting, instant messaging, application sharing...etc.

*The products & their Features:

Wimba classroom: is a live, virtual classroom solution that includes audio, video, application sharing and content display. Its pedagogical design and ease-of-use ensures that educators and students engage as if they were meeting face-to-face. Wimba Classroom Offers advanced features such as polling, white boarding, presenter on-the-fly, resizable chat areas and participant lists, usage analytics tools, and MP3 downloads enable further dynamic interaction between students and educators. Reduces the senses of isolation and create community among students and instructors .Offering Anytime Access at times that are convenient for instructors and students, not just when the physical facilities are available. Helping instructor to ensure his learners’ comprehension by asking for immediate feedback, answering questions, and giving in-depth verbal explanations of complex material. Providing multi-way audio and video, as instructors and students communicate just as if they were in a face-to-face class .It allows the shy student to communicate textually so they can participate with their more talkative classmates and it is an appropriate technology for Online Education.

Wimba Pronto: is an academic instant messaging platform designed to bring informal learning settings online and ensure that learning environment does not stop at the classroom door. There are no hallways or common spaces online to foster the kind of informal chats and social exchanges that are so vital to learning and building an academic community. The only immediate messenger designed for educators to advance and promote learning, Wimba Pronto is ideal for allowing us to bridge the gaps between online students and their instructors, while furthering an overall sense of community and connectedness.Wimba Pronto includes unique features to specifically benefit students, teachers, and educational institutions including:
1. Instant Access to Campus Services
2. Queued Chat for Tutoring and Office Hours
3. Automatic Population of Classmates and Courses
4. Application Sharing
5. Blended Audio and Video Conferencing Instant School-Wide

Wimba Voice:Wimba Voice helps instructors speak to students with varied learning styles. Students and instructors can have live discussions any time, any where using Wimba voice software. This software support teaching foreign languages. Wimba voice offers advanced features such as Voice-Enabled E-Mail which support social interaction between students themselves and their instructor. Students can listen to sounds with their iPods

Wimba Create:
A software that helps instructors to easily create their online materials on a shorten course development cycle and with out having advanced technical skills. They can use Wimba create to generate rich courses complete with navigation tools and interactive features from one Microsoft Word ™ document. Just they have to convert their Word documents into content for Blackboard or WebCT courses. Wimba Create support student content interaction. Instructors can add interactive content to the course like: flashcards, navigation, hyperlinks, popup, Self-test questions……etc.

*Limitations:
Although Wimba suite is a good collection that supports social interaction on distance education, it has some limitations. For example, Wimba Classroom interface dose not support assistive technologies due to the inherent inaccessibility of certain features. Another limitation is that it a browser-based application and therefore users with disabilities should customize their browser to their Wimba experience.