BigBlueButton: Open-source web conferencing for remote teaching
BigBlueButton is a free, open-source web conferencing platform developed by a community of contributors for online education. It’s designed to help instructors deliver live lessons and to make remote classes more interactive for students. The whole application is available at no charge for personal and commercial use.
Main capabilities for instructors
- Share your desktop, slides, or video to present material clearly.
- Record sessions for later review so students can revisit lectures.
- Use an interactive whiteboard to draw, annotate, highlight, zoom and write directly on slides.
- Broadcast audio and offer a real-time chat channel to keep communication flowing.
Ways students can participate
- Breakout rooms let learners collaborate in small groups during a live session.
- Live polls provide quick feedback and let teachers assess understanding.
- Built-in emoji reactions help students signal comprehension or ask for attention without interrupting.
Installation and technical requirements
- A registered domain name and a valid SSL certificate are recommended for a secure public deployment.
- The official installation process requires running several scripts or command-line procedures, many of which are distributed via GitHub repositories.
- A 64-bit Ubuntu (Linux) server is the supported platform for hosting a BigBlueButton instance. Note: learners do not need to install anything — a modern web browser is sufficient to join sessions.
Benefits and cautions
BigBlueButton delivers many advantages for online classrooms: it supports live presentations, recording, collaborative annotation, multi-video sharing (limited only by available bandwidth), and interaction features that keep students engaged. However, administrators or presenters should be prepared for a nontrivial installation and maintenance effort — some technical familiarity with Linux and server administration is advisable.
Alternative worth considering
- i-Ready: a feature-rich option that some users find powerful but more difficult to set up and configure.
Technical
- Web App
- Free