We are always looking for ways to save you money. This month our credit crunch tip is DimDim.

No e-learning strategy these days is complete without webinars or virtual classrooms. Until recently you were restricted to proprietary  software for reliable meetings. Not anymore, there is now a great open source alternative called DimDim.

You have a number of options if you want to use DimDim:

• You can download and install the open source software
• Buy a low cost hosted version from numerous vendors
• Use the free version from the DimDim site

What does DimDim offer?

You have all the main features you would expect of web meeting software:

• You can share presentations
• Use a whiteboard
• Screencast your desktop to show any application you have running
• Use audio
• Have public and private chats
• You can record sessions

Your participants dont have to install any software, it all runs through a web browser making it relatively easy for everyone.

We have been playing with DimDim and whilst it took a little while to work things out we got the hang of it quite quickly.

On the demo site we found the screencasting a little slow when you changed screens or switched between applications but this is something that can happen with proprietary tools such as Webex.

Open source software and freeware is changing the way we use the internet and offering opportunities for significant financial savings. We predict that just as Skype changed the nature of telephony and Moodle became a dominant learning management system, that tools such as DimDim will change the nature of web meetings.

www.dimdim.com