Altilab2005 - Distance Education Blog

Tokbox interface

Distance learning can be isolating. At least this is what I hear from students who choose to take on the challenge of an online class.  As an instructor, you can use a variety of tools to connect with your students online and some tools allow features to be a little more personable than others and some are definitely more flexible than others and more accessible. I believe it is a matter of preference.

To connect with students and encourage students to connect with each other, a distance instructor can use TokBox. This is a free service that allows you to embed a video “chatbox” anywhere and send personable messages.  Office hours for an online instructor don’t have to be just plain old text chat or even launching a web conference tool and sit there by yourself for a period of time waiting for someone to “enter the room”.  If you are connected to your personal online messenger, chances are that TokBox can detect that you are online and you can make yourself available for a video chat. Paired with SlideShare, TokBox can serve as a fast way to view a slideshare presentation or document and collaborate without having to install a chat client and using your preferred messaging client: AIM, GTalk, Yahoo or MSN messenger.  For instructors utilizing online photo repositories such as flickr and Picasa, TokBox allows sharing these applications right inside of your personal video web conference call.

Personal TokBox Conference Call

For the technically inclined, TokBox also offers an API (Application Programming Interface) with specific calls and routine references to apply the TokBox video chat into any custom web application.  Certainly the use of TokBox is geared to get quick response and collaboration with video chat and messaging and nothing more. With a limit of 20 users per personal conference call and its document sharing limitations, it is not a web conferencing tool robust enough or comparable to enterprise tools such as Adobe Connect or Elluminate Live.   TokBox catches my attention for instruction and I can see some convenient use of it, can you see the possibilities?