Software that facilitates conferencing, video conferencing, telephony, textual chat, transfer of files, or remote access and software that allows participants to chat via a combination of VoIP, webcam video, and textual modes. Virtual Meeting software often includes capabilities to share screens or applications, file transfer, and record sessions.
Cyberduck is an open source client for FTP and SFTP, and is available for Mac OS X and Windows. It supports secure transfers as well as directory synchronization. The user interacts with the user interface, including file transfer by drag and drop and notifications via Growl. It is also able to open some files in external text editors. Cyberduck includes a bookmark manager and supports Apple’s Keychain and Bonjour networking.
Fetch is a software file transfer client for Mac devices. It’s helpful for sharing large files and website management. Fetch is available for Mac systems and will connect using FTP, SFTP, and FTPS.
FileZilla is free, cross-platform FTP application software, consisting of FileZilla Client and FileZilla Server. It is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. It features an easy to use two-sided interface, one side being the local file system and the other being the server. Users can drag and drop files between the two. Filezilla can also save profiles for connections you frequently use.
It supports FTP, SFTP, and FTPS (FTP overSSL/TLS). Support for SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol) is not implemented in FileZilla Server.
Google Hangouts is an application that allows real-time chat, voice, and video communications between users of Google accounts. While Hangouts is not yet part of the UNCC google apps package (coming in July 2015), you may run across it due to its popularity. Hangouts is free, a part of all privately google accounts, and is sometimes used as an alternative to Skype. Features include:
Hangouts works on a variety of devices and requires only a Google account enabled with hangouts to function. A webcam and microphone are necessary for video chat functions.
Hangouts also has a suite of apps within the video chat system that allow users to share screens, play games together, draw on the screen, and collaborate on documents.
“Hangouts on Air” is virtual conferencing software similar to GoToWebinar or Adobe Connect. It integrates with YouTube for recording and live streaming and allows for a multitude of users to connect to a single session.
Availability: Free Web Application
Comparable:
Piazza is a Q&A web service. It can be described as “mixture between a wiki and a forum” that can be used with learning management systems. Instructors can create a free virtual class and send out access codes to students. Students and the instructor can then create posts with questions. Everyone can join in to supply answers, hints, or discussion. Studies show that students are more likely to supply hints and help the original poster arrive at the answer themselves because they are also interested in learning the material. The instructor can moderate posts to correct mistakes and misinformation, but students posts generally receive responses much more quickly and with more detail than if each student asks the instructor directly.
Piazza integrates with every major LMS (Learning Management System, i.e. Moodle, Blackboard, etc).
PuTTY is a free and open-source SSH telnet client and emulator network file transfer application. It allows users to remotely connect to Unix and other terminal systems via a secure channel. It’s developed for Windows devices.
Saba Meeting is a web conferencing program which lets people interact with one another “live” in a virtual online meeting environment. You can meet, learn and collaborate from anywhere you have access to a computer and an Internet connection using multi-way audio and video, application sharing and content display.
Skype is an application and service that connects multiple means of communication to computing devices. The most outstanding feature allows you to place a phone call from your computer, a technology known as VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol). In addition, users can place audio calls from computer to computer, add a webcam to place a video call, and chat in a textual instant messenger format. Skype also facilitates group calls and video conferences with people communicating simultaneously in several geographic locations.Read more…
Mozilla Thunderbird is a free, open source, extensible, cross-platform email, news, and chat client developed by the Mozilla Foundation.
Thunderbird is an email, newsgroup, news feed, and chat (XMPP, IRC, Twitter) client. It supports POP and IMAP methods of connecting to email servers. It also supports LDAP (directory) address completion. The built-in RSS/Atom reader can also be used as a simple news aggregator. Thunderbird supports the S/MIME standard, extensions such as Enigmail add support for the OpenPGP (security)standard. The vanilla version is not a personal information manager, although the Mozilla Lightning extension adds PIM functionality. Additional features, if needed, are often available via other extensions.
Availability: Faculty/Staff/Students
Comparable: Skype, Saba Meeting, Hangouts
WebEx is a web and video conferencing meeting service that consists of four centers: Meeting Center, Training Center, Event Center, and Support Center.
Meeting Center – sessions can be scheduled in advance and added to your calendar. Integrated voice and video, ability to share content, invite attendees, record the session. Meeting Center also includes a Personal Room with a web address that never changes, allowing students and colleagues to easily find your meetings.
Training Center – sessions can be scheduled in advance. It has all of the Meeting Center features plus polling, testing, and breakout session options.
Event Center – schedule large-scale online events. It has all of the Meeting Center features plus the ability to manage the event from invitations, reminder emails, and follow up communication.
Support Center – ability to view and control a customer’s desktop or applications to help resolve technical issues remotely.
WebEx runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, and mobile devices. UNC Charlotte Faculty, Staff and Students can access the system via webex.uncc.edu.
WinSCP (Windows Secure CoPy) is an open source free SFTP, SCP, FTPS and FTP client. Its main function is file transfer between a local and a remote computer. WinSCP offers scripting and basic file manager functionality. Available only for Windows devices.