Hosted Training Solutions for Remote Classroom Teaching

Due to Australia’s vast landmass, commuting for business, studies or leisure within the country has become an issue for many. Teachers, guest lecturers and students feel the need of an application that allows them to congregate in an environment that supports real-time collaboration without incurring heavy expenses. Cisco WebEx is one of the most popular conferencing applications used in the country, with various features that allow users to create a virtual conferencing environment at minimal costs. This solution consists of Training Center, Meeting Center, Event Center, Support Center and Jabber as the core tools. Cisco WebEx Training Center has gained popularity in Australia as it enables users to deliver their targeted messages to all participants faster than any other medium using a high speed Internet connection. For students and teachers, this solution offers a wide number of tools needed for hosting a class remotely without losing the practicality of a conventional training session. The biggest advantage of WebEx Training Center is the hands-on lab feature, which enables students to carry out the necessary experiments and tests virtually. Another important feature of Training Center is the online conferencing tool, which allows teachers to host classes in real-time despite the geographical distance between them and the students. They can also emphasise upon honing the crucial skills of the students through virtual breakout sessions. Using the video conferencing application of the solutions, they can even show procedures and concepts in minute details and demonstrate correct processes without actually being present of the students at any point of time. Whiteboarding and annotation tools of this conferencing application are ideal for hosting remote brainstorming sessions in real-time for seamless collaboration. In order to assess student engagement during the training session, Cisco WebEx Training Center has been integrated with tools that allow teachers to monitor the audience participation levels. The Visual Attention Indicator feature of the solution is ideal for tracking the attention levels of the target audience, individually as well as in a group. The instant polling feature of the conferencing application allows the teachers to take group consensus at any point of time conveniently. Along with polls, test results and after-session reports can play a vital role in the evaluating the performance of the class hosted using Cisco WebEx Training Center. Public and private chats can be started amongst students conveniently for individual queries and gathering the requisite responses. Testing and grading students also becomes easier for teachers using WebEx Training Center, as they can evaluate and score the performance of any particular individual or a group before starting the virtual class, during it or after the event has concluded. Standard online web conferencing features like desktop, document, file, and application sharing features are present in this solution for streamlined communication. Australia’s conferencing market is expected to account for approximately $ 321 million in 2012 and such online training solutions can prove to be key growth drivers in the market.