Experimental Breakout Rooms !

Breakout rooms are experimental at this time. We can only test small scale 3-4 students (which should be enough in most common case since 2-4 people will be paying at a table). 'Send to Breakout" button is at the very top right corner of your console. It opens JitSi video/chat room for each table and sends the students to it. The button turns “Back to Lobby,” which closes the JitSi rooms. Those and Zoom does not seem to interfere with each other, so you still have everyone in Zoom, but before you break them out “Mute All” Otherwise, everyone will be able to hear you over Zoom. The ability of the teacher to visit individual rooms is done by clicking on the "Talk To" button on the student table. 

Here is a link for the students to test compatibility with breakout rooms; it is also available in the student's section: 

The service is provided by JitSi and 8x8. There is no extra cost, at least for now; we hope they keep it that way for small groups. We have tested with Safari, Chrome, Edge, iPad, and Android, all of which seem to work well. On some browsers, there is an annoying message advertising JitSi's App, but there is a clear button to continue to Web Conference. Also, there is an initial pop up offering the Google calendar extension. There is a checkbox to never show it again and little “x” to close it. We are trying to get rid of those. Give it a try with small groups; the worst that can happen is the user will not be able to talk to the others at the table. Once you say “Back to Lobby,” the JitSi video screen on the table is destroyed. In the long run, 8x8 has a $10/month service for meetings with more than 12 people. You will have a choice of it and Zoom. Shark with JitSi will be a true one-click experience for the student. We will know more after we test our screen share from the teacher's end.