Phidgets

Phidgets def. A phidget is a physical representation and/or implementation of a GUI widget.

Check out this YouTube video of a raise hand phidget created by Yunatio Li (yuntao2006 at gmail with a dot com), a graduate student at the University of Carleton. Yunatio's supervisor is professor Michael Weiss.

This video demonstrates how an instructor could be notified, by a physical device, when a remote student raises their hand during a presentation in BigBlueButton. Here's another video that demonstrates logging into BigBlueButton using a smart card reader.

Very cool!

Open Source Components

We have just finished creating a page listing all the Open Source components used to create BigBlueButton. Turns out that there are over 14 different components, click here to view the list.

Release 0.6!

We're releasing BigBlueButton 0.6 today. The major change in this release is the new integrated VoIP module. That's right, you don't have to use a phone or skype anymore to connect to the voice conference, just connect your headset and click the shiny new icon.