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Oovoo versus Tinychat for use in educational applications
by Jim McDermott

So you might have received an invite to Oovoo if you’ve ever sent me an email to my gmail address because Oovoo, a multiperson video conferencing tool, sent out invites to everyone in my gmail without ample warning.  I hate doing that to people.  But if you received it, I highly recommend that you give it a try.  Oovoo cranks up my imagination for educational applications of this very smooth tool.  Imagine doing a video conference with up to six people that appear in clear windows and can see each other as well.  Quite a sight — think Brady Bunch but you and live.

The application in education is outrageous.  How about students interviewing an expert from different schools — would definitely be welcome from the special guest’s perspective because they can reach more schools at the same time while giving students an opportunity to think on their feet about the questions they ask.   You can do multi-classroom debates so your eighth graders can learn about defending a position in a panel style format.   I’m sure you can think of other good applications.  How would you use this in your classroom?

Tinychat.com is another tool that I stumbled across that does the same thing as Oovoo except that it is web based and doesn’t require an account to be create initially.  You can try it risk free with no installations and no annoying account creations.  They each have their advantages.  Here’ s an informal comparison of the two:

I haven’t paid for either yet but I’m weighing the options and will probably go with a month of Tinychat when I have a specific project that I will use it for.  Can’t imagine having a monthly bill for a service that is a personal novelty and a special occasion in the classroom.  I chose Tinychat over Oovoo because it doesn’t require installation (gold to classroom teachers)  but depending on the classroom project, I’d choose Oovoo if I wanted to have the session recorded which is pretty likely.