Network EducationWare – Open Source Synchronous A/V Conferencing Software

http://netlab.gmu.edu/NEW/

O.k., maybe I’m missing something here. This Java-based software, developed by Dr. Mark Pullen and others at George Mason University, provides synchronous audio and video conferencing capabilities, along with an annotatable whiteboard and slide upload. It also permits you record your sessions for future playback.

It’s open source.

It’s been around since 2002.

I tried out the demo and it seemed to work flawlessly. I remember when the ‘open education’ group initially met all of us getting together virtually via Elluminate, and many wondering if there wasn’t some open source alternative. Apparently there was and is. You might question this kind of technology as simply replicating existing F2F classroom models, but if you or your institution already uses something like Ellumiunate, WebEx, Centra, etc, then this would seem like worth checking out.

Found via a hit from my bloglines saved search feed on a posting from the Moodle discussion boards, which in my mind continues to be *the* most vibrant open source app/community in education I’ve yet to see. – SWL