The main benefits of Beam Your Screen are as follows:

• Show anybody what’s going on your screen (i.e. any application/website/document)
• Browser based – no need to download a separate client
• Conference bridging facility; people can ring into the meeting, phone number provided
• Easy to create and send invitations
• Very simple to use
• Annotation tools
• Launch from your task-bar
• Record conferences
• Beam Your Screen to up to 25 participants

Who’s it for?

• Delivering remote training (especially training on new software or IT)
• Screencasts
• Webinars

Beam Your Screen sits in your taskbar and will give you notifications as and when people join your conference.

Beam Your Screen gives a lot of options, and an easy way to invite participants. Clicking on ‘Email Session Information’ automatically formats an email that includes all relevant information for anyone wishing to log into your conference. They simply open the link in their browser to see your screen.

Choose whether you want to share your whole screen or a single application. Also vary the quality according to your connection speed.

You can also record a Beam Your Screen session pretty easily. It won’t upload to a server but you can save it to your hard drive.

Take Control

One of the most popular e-learning situations is showing people how to use software. Conducting training in an ‘over-the-shoulder’ way can really help your trainees to learn. Some possible uses -

• Present material to trainees such as powerpoint or video while you explain core concepts
• Share your desktop to show what you’re doing
• Upload a handout for your training session
• Allow trainees to interact with a whiteboard and Q&A functions

Record and Replay

Most software we review on this site has the ability to record meetings, and that content can also be replayed by your trainees or yourself.

Some collaborative software (notably Live Meeting) has the option for you to store those recordings on the server, which means anyone you grant access to can download the recording at a later date. You might also consider more complex scenarios where a training event consists purely of recordings, which can be accessed one by one.

Remote Classroom

Although it stretches slightly into the realm of full-blown video conferencing, there’s also the opportunity to broadcast video in a classroom, or record classroom-based teaching which can then be broadcast online. Some software is better suited to it than others, but this is fast becoming a popular way to use video conferencing software.

What are your options?

Most of the software we’ve reviewed on this site has the capability for basic e-learning situations, and as we stated before the most common e-learning useis for IT training where they all do a great job.

Microsoft Live Meeting

Live Meeting professional is in our opinion the most feature-rich solution for e-learning. If you’re doing anything more than simple IT training, then you’ll appreciate the ability to create public event pages, and also set up your own tests which you can then login to see results. A well-thought out package.

Read Overview – Microsoft Live Meeting

Read Review – Microsoft Live Meeting

Citrix Goto Meeting

Dubbed as one of the simplest to use, GoToMeeting is very easy to get up and running and it’s possible to run very quick e-learning sessions with this application. Your participants do need to download a small client, so it’s not entirely web based. Again though, it’s easy to set up.

Overall, although it doesn’t have all the features of Live Meeting, it’s simple and fast to use.

Read Overview – Citrix GotoMeeting

Read Review – Citrix Goto Meeting

DimDim

Alternatively if you want something that doesnt’ require any software at all and can be conducted on any computer with any browser, then definitely consider DimDim. It’s very fast and has a lot of features considering it’s browser-based. Recording training is also a possibility with DimDim. The price is also a standout feature of this – typically costing far less than many of the other similar applications, and aimed at small businesses and professionals.

Read Overview – DimDim

Read Review – DimDim

Beam Your Screen

Sometimes all you really need to do is show someone your screen and phone them up to talk through it. Simples! Beam Your Screen doesn’t have some of the advanced capabilities of Live Meeting, but it will let you conduct very basic IT training sessions. It’s pretty fast to get up and running and is browser based, but there’s no video link. A telephone conference bridge is provided.

Read Overview – Beam Your Screen

Read Review – Beam Your Screen

Webex

Market leader Cisco in fact has many different products suited to different environments. Their standard product Webex copes with e-learning quite well, and lets you set up training events and show your video. There’s also free-phone audio conference bridging if that’s required – otherwise you can use your webcam and microphone.

Read Overview – Cisco Webex

Read Review -  Cisco Webex