BigBlueButton – the world’s most popular open source web-conferencing system has released a new version recently. The BigBlueButton 2.7 is an enhanced version with features designed to improve student engagement.

The new version includes the following major features:

• Visual Grid Layout for Cameras – With the new enhanced camera layout which is showing a grid view of participants. Teachers can now easily see which students are participating in the class whether webcams are on or off. 
  
• Emoji Reaction Bar – Encouraging student engagement in BigBlueButton just got easier! The emoji reactions bar aims to make it easier for students to respond with emojis and engage during class.
• Camera as Content – Especially helpful in hybrid learning environments, the new camera as content feature allows educators to display their camera as a full-sized presentation on the BigBlueButton Whiteboard. Now teachers can draw students’ attention to a specific physical area.
• Timer and Stopwatch – The long-requested feature to display a count-down timer or a count-up stopwatch is now available! The timer and stopwatch are displayed to all participants and there is an audio notification when the timer elapses. Teachers can use it for engaging activities or tests in classes that require counting up or down, such as math and spelling games.
• Wake Lock: Keep your screen turned on while using BigBlueButton on Mobile!
• Disable viewing your own video stream to reduce video fatigue, showing that your video is still enabled, but you will not see your own video on BigBlueButton.
• Restore the download of an original presentation that you uploaded on BigBlueButton, which means you can download your presentation without annotations from drawing on the whiteboard.

Which open source web-conferencing system you are using for elearning? Please share with us in the comments section below.

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