What is BigBlueButton

Michael T. Bendorf

BigBlueButton Overview

Active open source project Hosted at Google Code Built on over fifteen open source components Runs on Mac, Unix, and PC computers Supports sharing of slides (PDF and PPT), video, whiteboard, chat, voice (using Asterisk or FreeSWITCH), and desktops

Roles
Viewer: no authority within the conference view the presentation as well as chat in a course the viewer would be the students. Presenter all the same capabilities as a participant added features of uploading presentations and sharing their desktop Moderator all the capabilities as a participant added feature make anyone (including yourself) a presenter

Viewer
Raise Your Hand The Web Participants window lets you see all the users logged into the current session. Any user can raise their hand to get the attention of the presenter.

Viewer
See all Participants The Voice window shows all the users that are currently connected to the voice conference bridge, either by calling in directly or using the built-in voice over IP client.

Viewer
Watch presentations The presentation window displays the current presentation Participants can zoom in the presentation using the slider, as we navigated through the slides using the arrow button

Viewer
Public and Private Chat The Chat window enables all participants to conduct public or private chats

Viewer
See each other Share video over the web using a built or external webcam. Multiple participants and a presenter can be sharing their video simultaneously

Viewer
See the Presenterscursor Within the presentation window, viewers are able to see where the presenter is pointing to by the indication of a red circle

Presenter
You are the Presenter Users with the role of presenter appear with a presenter icon next to their name.

Presenter
Mute or Eject Participants You can and un-muting participants in the conference by clicking the icons located at the bottom left side of the module. You can also eject participants from the voice conference by clicking on their name and then clicking the eject button

Presenter
Share any PDF or Office documents A presenter is able to upload any PDF or Office document. You can upload multiple documents and switch between them during the presentation. All participants see the current slide as the presenter moves through their presentation.

Presenter
Share your Desktop As a presenter you have the capability of sharing your desktop with others in the conference. When you share your desktop, BigBlueButton will launch a Java Applet that asks for your permissions to run. You have the option of sharing a portion of your desktop or the entire screen.

Moderator
Make a presenter As a moderator you make anyone (including yourself) a presenter by clicking the participants name and then clicking on the presenter icon.

Viewer Overview Video

How to use BigBlueButton as a viewer. Play Video [3:35]

PresenterOverview Video
How to present information using BigBlueButton. Play Video[3:44]

WhiteboardOverview Video
This video is an overview of the BigBlueButton whiteboard. Play Video[3:27]

Installation
The BigBlueButton 0.71a server runs under Ubuntu 10.04 32-bit or 64-bit, as well as distributions listed below. To setup your own BigBlueButton server: Download the BigBlueButton Virtual Machine (0.71a) Install from packages on Ubuntu 10.04 (0.71a) Install from source on Ubuntu (0.71) Install from source on Debian (0.70) Install from source on Install on FreeBSD/PC-BSD (0.70)

BigBlueButton Virtual Machine

Prerequisites: VMWare Player/Workstation for Windows or Unix VM Fusion for Mac A DHCP Server to get an IP address on boot The second point is key: the VM must be able to connect to the internet to update from packages. If it does not acquire an IP address, it won't be able to finish the setup of BigBlueButton.

Installing the bigbluebutton VM

Note: This video refers to 0.64, but the steps are valid for 0.71a.

Play Video[3:08]

BigBlueButton on Ubuntu
Before you install BigBlueButton 0.71a, you'll need: An Ubuntu 10.04 32-bit or 64-bit server 2 GB of memory Root access to the server 5G of free disk space Port 80 is not in use by other applications Note: BigBlueButton uses nginx, which listens on port 80 for http access and tunneling. If you have apache already running on your server, then you'll need to configure apache to listen on a different port.

Install the BigBlueButton apt-get repository key

# Install the package key >wget http://archive.bigbluebutton.org/bigbluebutton.asc >sudo apt-key add bigbluebutton.asc # Add BigBlueButton repository URL and ensuremultiverse is enabled >echo "deb http://ubuntu.bigbluebutton.org/lucid/ bigbluebutton-lucid main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list. d/bigbluebutton.list >echo "deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid multiverse" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list

Install a Voice Conference Server

BigBlueButton lets you choose to use either Asterisk or FreeSWITCH for voice conferencing and provides configuration packages for both. They recommend FreeSWITCH. To install FreeSWITCH: >sudo apt-get install python-software-properties >sudo add-apt-repository ppa:freeswitchdrivers/freeswitch-nightly-drivers >sudo apt-get update >sudo apt-get install bbb-freeswitch-config

Install BigBlueButton
We're now ready to install BigBlueButton. >sudo apt-get install bigbluebutton

This single command is where all the magic happens. This command will install all of BigBlueButton components with with their dependencies. Here's a screen shot of the packages it will install.

Install BigBlueButton
Type 'y' and press Enter Sit back Enter a password for mysql's 'root' user Note: The mysql password should not contain the following characters as ! # [ ^ $ ] ( ) as they will cause the bbb-web install script to break.

Do a Clean Restart
To ensure BigBlueButton has started cleanly, enter the following commands: >sudo bbb-conf --clean >sudo bbb-conf --check The output from sudo bbb-conf --check will display your current settings and, after the text, " Potential problems described below ", print any configuration or startup problems it has detected. Normally, there is no text following this message.

Integration
In addition to work on the BigBlueButton core, Blindside Networks develops and supports a number of integration modules with other open source applications: Moodle 2.0 Moodle 1.9 WordPress Joomal

Installing the BBB Moodle Extension

Moodle 2.0 Integration

Installing the BBB Joomla Extension

Joomla 1.5 Integration

Thanks!
--Michael T. Bendorf-Technology Administrator A-C Central C.U.S.D. #262 Google Voice: 217.408.0043 bendorfm@a-ccentral.us