To meet online we use two applications. The main one is a Centra meeting room, which provides a window with a large whiteboard for making drawings, text chat, Power Point slides and a voice feature. All these features are very helpful for productive discusions and explanations of problems. However, some students experience problems with entering the Centra meeting room. This could be because most of them are novices in dealing with online meeting software or because of some technical problems like low internet connection speed or an old Java version.

Most of these problems can be resolved quickly with a help of the online tutor. Therefore we use AOL Instant Messenger as a backup software where the tutor and students can send each other messages in case a student experiences troubles with Centra. We request our students to install AOL IM and provide their tutors with their AOL screen names. However, we usually do not use AOL IM to for online tutoring sessions. It is normally used when problems with the Centra software are encountered.

Learn more about Centra meeting room.

Learn more about AOL Instant Messenger.