January 24, 2014 at 11:22Online Learning Center Based on Free Software in 15 Minutes, or Once Again about BigBlueButton
This article is a continuation of the article "Free distance education" ( http://habrahabr.ru/post/161783/ ). This time, most attention is paid to the practical application of the BigBlueButton online conference server (hereinafter BBB) in conjunction with Moodle.
The fact is that after writing the article “Free distance education” there were many calls, how to use BBB separately from moodle, how to organize user authorization, BBB capabilities for the number of simultaneous clients, development of special modules inside BBB for their local tasks (for example, video demonstration inside the virtual room). You can answer these questions, but then you need to compose some kind of FAQ section, and in principle it is already on the official website. This time I would like to describe the process of creating an online learning center in our organization, share experience and provide ready-made images of virtual machines so that an interested reader can quickly deploy and test such a system on his network, if he is of course interested.
The purpose of the work is the organization of an online learning center that allows you to solve the problem of conducting educational and methodological events in remote form, as well as conference calls based on free software. At the end of the article, links to ready-made virtual machines are provided, they can be launched, network interfaces configured, and as a result, an online learning center should be ready.
The history of the development of distance learning today has more than 100 years. Isaac Pitman is considered the ancestor, who began in 1840 with the help of mail to teach students shorthand in the United Kingdom. I first heard about distance learning from my father’s stories. He was born and studied in Turkmenistan, received methodological instructions and assignments by mail, completing which he was able to pass entrance exams to a Russian university in 1980. Today, the active development of information technology and the increase in the bandwidth of information networks allow the transfer of knowledge from continent to continent in huge volumes and, importantly, this happens almost instantly.
There are two main types of distance learning: in online mode (interactive lecture, webinar) and in offline mode (lecture notes, tests, educational and methodical complexes). The main difference between them is the availability of training materials and the organization of the educational process. I believe that distance education can never come close to full-time in quality. However, it is online learning with interactive elements, when everyone (students and the teacher) gather at the same time in a virtual audience and can ask a question by voice or text in the chat, will allow at least a little closer to the full-time learning process. The logical question will be: why then, in general, online training, if there is a classic - full-time? I will give a simple example:
By and large, any distance learning center, online education center, or as it is now very fashionable to call “IDO” (distance education institute, probably already at every university) is a small site with the ability to order the desired course or subscribe to an existing one. As a result, there is a web portal where authorization takes place, as well as a web conferencing server that allows you to conduct the classes themselves. In our center at the university, two main tasks were solved: a distance learning course for passing the exam for students from districts, as well as organizing online lectures for students. If the need for the first part of the work cannot be challenged, then the second is a consequence of the new requirement of the ministry: “The norm for universities should be the presence of at least 20 percent of programs implemented in the network mode” (http: //www.rg. com / 2013/10/29 / kontent.html). In our organization, many took this situation with indignation, but personally it seemed to me correct and correct. For students, it is much more convenient to connect to the learning portal and directly to the lecture to follow the presentation slides from your personal laptop, especially at in-class lectures, which is important, because the lecturer still manages such a presentation. As for students who connect remotely for a good reason - I think everyone here understands some advantages. after all, the lecturer is still in charge of managing such a presentation. As for students who connect remotely for a good reason - I think everyone here understands some advantages. after all, the lecturer is still in charge of managing such a presentation. As for students who connect remotely for a good reason - I think everyone here understands some advantages.
If everything is simple with the choice of the engine for the center site (Wordpress, DLE, Joomla - choose what you like), then we also decided on the choice of the web-conferencing server in the last article. In fact, the choice of open source solutions is not large: BigBlueButton and Openmeetings. We settled on the first.
In the course of working with BBB, both advantages and disadvantages were revealed.
1. Integration with popular CMS.
2. The ability to record.
3. Adaptation of the system for events in a remote form (in the latest version of November 8, 2013, 6 formats of virtual rooms were laid in for a webinar, video chat, assistant lecturer, etc.).
4. A set of tools for working in the interactive whiteboard mode (text labels, markers) on top of the presentation.
5. Using FreeSwitch for voice.
6. Broadcasting the desktop (maybe it will be easier for someone to use third-party software such as a virtual camera, which also allows you to broadcast the contents of the desktop).
1. The complexity of configuration and use. You can use BBB only in conjunction with something (for example, Moodle), or add your own module for authorizing users and delimiting rights.
2. Strong dependence on “slow” connections, if several packets are lost, the session dies, the user has to re-enter the virtual room.
3. Limit on the number of users. BBB is a very good system for working in small groups, however, the RED 5 server itself, the base of the BBB has a limit on the maximum number of clients (more about RED 5 here habrahabr.ru/post/143554 ).
Thus, as a result of the practical use of BBB, we came to the conclusion that this platform is ideal for working in small groups (up to 20 people). Indeed, when it comes to “practices”, when it is important for the teacher to hear or even see each participant in the lesson, to be able to ask a question and get an answer from a particular participant, give the right to download the presentation and start the report to the next student, ask the student to indicate on the slide that he incomprehensible marker, etc. - BBB is perfect. But there are lecture classes, when there is a lecturer who should broadcast to the public 200-300 or even 500 people, it is important that he be seen and heard along with his presentation. In this case, I would like to just start the media stream with some kind of light video server, and it is desirable to have a minimum of feedback via text chat.
At the same time, it is worth noting the claimed figures for lectorium server loading.
The table shows the results of measuring the video server’s performance when delivering a 500 Kbps video stream on a 64-bit system with an Intel Core i7 2600 processor. Only one processor core is involved in the test. Under the required amount of RAM is understood as the amount of memory occupied by the video server process.
Note, 10,000 is a good figure, but for us, it is unattainable. The server is connected at a speed of 1000 Mbit / s, with a minimum stream we have: a 640 to 480 video stream will give 200 kbit / s + 48 kbit / s voice, total 250 kbit / s. 4 people - 1 megabit or the maximum possible connection for our server is 4000 people. For our tasks, this is more than enough.
Below is a drawing of the general outline of a future online learning center:
To simplify the installation process as much as possible, we prepared a short video that shows how you can deploy an online learning center within 15 minutes on the basis of two virtual machines. The organization of such a center consists in creating two virtual machines: a user authorization server (for example, Moodle open source software) and a video conferencing server (BBB). For convenience, the images of the corresponding virtual machines are laid out so that anyone can deploy and see how it looks in their environment. (Note the password for root is 222123)
1. Virtual machine with BigBlueButton (3.9 Gb)
2. Virtual machine with LAMP (1.7 GB)
The process of creating a virtual machine from a downloaded image is shown. Initial setup.
The process of creating a virtual machine from the second image, installation and configuration of the Moodle open source software is shown.
After two virtual machines are installed and the corresponding changes in the network settings of each are made (the machines must see each other), it is necessary to install and configure the BBB integration module in Moodle and register the corresponding "key".
Thus, this review shows another application of the BigBlueButton free software, conclusions are made on the appropriateness of its use for small groups, and for large groups it is proposed to use Lectorium, the joint use of these products allows you to launch a prototype of an online learning center in any conditions, deploying two virtual machines. Images of such virtual machines are also presented in this paper. The article was written primarily for those who are going to use BigBlueButton in their work, so there is no detailed review of the Lectorium video broadcast server, if you are also interested, contact me. You can also write on any issues related to distance education, we are still interested in providing any assistance in installing, configuring and modifying Moodle, BBB together with our students. For them, this counts as practice, or the completion of term papers.
The fact is that after writing the article “Free distance education” there were many calls, how to use BBB separately from moodle, how to organize user authorization, BBB capabilities for the number of simultaneous clients, development of special modules inside BBB for their local tasks (for example, video demonstration inside the virtual room). You can answer these questions, but then you need to compose some kind of FAQ section, and in principle it is already on the official website. This time I would like to describe the process of creating an online learning center in our organization, share experience and provide ready-made images of virtual machines so that an interested reader can quickly deploy and test such a system on his network, if he is of course interested.
The purpose of the work is the organization of an online learning center that allows you to solve the problem of conducting educational and methodological events in remote form, as well as conference calls based on free software. At the end of the article, links to ready-made virtual machines are provided, they can be launched, network interfaces configured, and as a result, an online learning center should be ready.
Introduction
The history of the development of distance learning today has more than 100 years. Isaac Pitman is considered the ancestor, who began in 1840 with the help of mail to teach students shorthand in the United Kingdom. I first heard about distance learning from my father’s stories. He was born and studied in Turkmenistan, received methodological instructions and assignments by mail, completing which he was able to pass entrance exams to a Russian university in 1980. Today, the active development of information technology and the increase in the bandwidth of information networks allow the transfer of knowledge from continent to continent in huge volumes and, importantly, this happens almost instantly.
There are two main types of distance learning: in online mode (interactive lecture, webinar) and in offline mode (lecture notes, tests, educational and methodical complexes). The main difference between them is the availability of training materials and the organization of the educational process. I believe that distance education can never come close to full-time in quality. However, it is online learning with interactive elements, when everyone (students and the teacher) gather at the same time in a virtual audience and can ask a question by voice or text in the chat, will allow at least a little closer to the full-time learning process. The logical question will be: why then, in general, online training, if there is a classic - full-time? I will give a simple example:
System description
By and large, any distance learning center, online education center, or as it is now very fashionable to call “IDO” (distance education institute, probably already at every university) is a small site with the ability to order the desired course or subscribe to an existing one. As a result, there is a web portal where authorization takes place, as well as a web conferencing server that allows you to conduct the classes themselves. In our center at the university, two main tasks were solved: a distance learning course for passing the exam for students from districts, as well as organizing online lectures for students. If the need for the first part of the work cannot be challenged, then the second is a consequence of the new requirement of the ministry: “The norm for universities should be the presence of at least 20 percent of programs implemented in the network mode” (http: //www.rg. com / 2013/10/29 / kontent.html). In our organization, many took this situation with indignation, but personally it seemed to me correct and correct. For students, it is much more convenient to connect to the learning portal and directly to the lecture to follow the presentation slides from your personal laptop, especially at in-class lectures, which is important, because the lecturer still manages such a presentation. As for students who connect remotely for a good reason - I think everyone here understands some advantages. after all, the lecturer is still in charge of managing such a presentation. As for students who connect remotely for a good reason - I think everyone here understands some advantages. after all, the lecturer is still in charge of managing such a presentation. As for students who connect remotely for a good reason - I think everyone here understands some advantages.
If everything is simple with the choice of the engine for the center site (Wordpress, DLE, Joomla - choose what you like), then we also decided on the choice of the web-conferencing server in the last article. In fact, the choice of open source solutions is not large: BigBlueButton and Openmeetings. We settled on the first.
In the course of working with BBB, both advantages and disadvantages were revealed.
Benefits:
1. Integration with popular CMS.
2. The ability to record.
3. Adaptation of the system for events in a remote form (in the latest version of November 8, 2013, 6 formats of virtual rooms were laid in for a webinar, video chat, assistant lecturer, etc.).
4. A set of tools for working in the interactive whiteboard mode (text labels, markers) on top of the presentation.
5. Using FreeSwitch for voice.
6. Broadcasting the desktop (maybe it will be easier for someone to use third-party software such as a virtual camera, which also allows you to broadcast the contents of the desktop).
Disadvantages:
1. The complexity of configuration and use. You can use BBB only in conjunction with something (for example, Moodle), or add your own module for authorizing users and delimiting rights.
2. Strong dependence on “slow” connections, if several packets are lost, the session dies, the user has to re-enter the virtual room.
3. Limit on the number of users. BBB is a very good system for working in small groups, however, the RED 5 server itself, the base of the BBB has a limit on the maximum number of clients (more about RED 5 here habrahabr.ru/post/143554 ).
Thus, as a result of the practical use of BBB, we came to the conclusion that this platform is ideal for working in small groups (up to 20 people). Indeed, when it comes to “practices”, when it is important for the teacher to hear or even see each participant in the lesson, to be able to ask a question and get an answer from a particular participant, give the right to download the presentation and start the report to the next student, ask the student to indicate on the slide that he incomprehensible marker, etc. - BBB is perfect. But there are lecture classes, when there is a lecturer who should broadcast to the public 200-300 or even 500 people, it is important that he be seen and heard along with his presentation. In this case, I would like to just start the media stream with some kind of light video server, and it is desirable to have a minimum of feedback via text chat.
At the same time, it is worth noting the claimed figures for lectorium server loading.
The table shows the results of measuring the video server’s performance when delivering a 500 Kbps video stream on a 64-bit system with an Intel Core i7 2600 processor. Only one processor core is involved in the test. Under the required amount of RAM is understood as the amount of memory occupied by the video server process.
Note, 10,000 is a good figure, but for us, it is unattainable. The server is connected at a speed of 1000 Mbit / s, with a minimum stream we have: a 640 to 480 video stream will give 200 kbit / s + 48 kbit / s voice, total 250 kbit / s. 4 people - 1 megabit or the maximum possible connection for our server is 4000 people. For our tasks, this is more than enough.
Below is a drawing of the general outline of a future online learning center:
Installation process
To simplify the installation process as much as possible, we prepared a short video that shows how you can deploy an online learning center within 15 minutes on the basis of two virtual machines. The organization of such a center consists in creating two virtual machines: a user authorization server (for example, Moodle open source software) and a video conferencing server (BBB). For convenience, the images of the corresponding virtual machines are laid out so that anyone can deploy and see how it looks in their environment. (Note the password for root is 222123)
Download links:
1. Virtual machine with BigBlueButton (3.9 Gb)
2. Virtual machine with LAMP (1.7 GB)
Install and configure BBB
The process of creating a virtual machine from a downloaded image is shown. Initial setup.
Install and configure Moodle.
The process of creating a virtual machine from the second image, installation and configuration of the Moodle open source software is shown.
Integration of Moodle and BBB
After two virtual machines are installed and the corresponding changes in the network settings of each are made (the machines must see each other), it is necessary to install and configure the BBB integration module in Moodle and register the corresponding "key".
Conclusion
Thus, this review shows another application of the BigBlueButton free software, conclusions are made on the appropriateness of its use for small groups, and for large groups it is proposed to use Lectorium, the joint use of these products allows you to launch a prototype of an online learning center in any conditions, deploying two virtual machines. Images of such virtual machines are also presented in this paper. The article was written primarily for those who are going to use BigBlueButton in their work, so there is no detailed review of the Lectorium video broadcast server, if you are also interested, contact me. You can also write on any issues related to distance education, we are still interested in providing any assistance in installing, configuring and modifying Moodle, BBB together with our students. For them, this counts as practice, or the completion of term papers.