Electa Live

Pros: It might be ok for large classes, chalk and talk with limited interaction between student and teacher.

Cons: Can’t use interactive PowerPoints; can’t share screen and camera at the same time; video conferencing is laggy; microphone issues.

Overall: This software is probably best suited to a lecture type situation. It allows users to upload PDFs and PowerPoints and annotate them. All PowerPoints are ‘flattened out’ so animation and sound will not work, leading to the dreaded death by powerpoint situation. It allows you to share a website, without sharing your whole screen, which could be useful but sadly the lag is so bad it can’t be used for YouTube clips for example. It’s also not possible to pause clips for any input. If there are more than 2 students in a group, microphone feedback is shocking so be sure to mute all and do not allow spoken interaction. The bandwidth is not sufficient to share a screen and keep a camera on which makes things difficult for some learners and of course impossible to pick up on non-verbal communication. As is common, iPads and Chromebooks will not fully function with all features such as being able to control the screen remotely. Security seems to be an issue as students can interrupt each other’s lessons by arriving early. There is the ability to create a poll or quiz which again may be useful for a large class lecture, as would not require microphones to be on. Breakout rooms are also possible. In short, for a large class, ‘chalk and talk’ input this will suit but anything requiring more active learning will not. Customer service has also been absolutely shocking - extremely rude despite us paying for 10 classrooms. We are looking forward to switching to an alternative as soon as possible as staff are already turning elsewhere.