Sorry, I forgot to a) include the full requirements -- now below, and
b) thank everyone contributing to rockin' open source telephony, and especially anyone who takes time to answer my naive questions! THANKS!
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Short version: can Freeswitch create subconferences on-the-fly & let a moderator speak to all of them?
Long version: We lead live experiential learning workshops, where we are constantly saying "get a partner and share about x" and then "now get in groups of 4/6/8" to share about that and then finally we come back to the "big room" where we take a few shares from the big group. In particular we would like to place participants in small groups where they interact with each other, but all groups can hear the facilitator.
I'd like to do something similar over the phone, and am wondering if a programmer could fairly easily accomplish this in Freeswitch.
It's critical that the presenter still be able to speak to everyone, even when they are in small subconferences.
Thinking that Asterisk could do it, I wrote up some requirements below. They're definitely not all "must-haves". I heard from several Asterisk experts that the "one-way" nature of this requirement (subconference hears presenter but not the other way around) meant that Asterisk really wasn't suited for it.
Below are the full requirements. Do people think they're do-able? Easily? What platforms would allow that, especially open-source?
ps. If there's a video it's likely always simply the presenter delivering that. Ideally would have ability to connect with POTS but if this can be done
in a computer-only method (is there still such a thing?) I'd still love
to know about it.
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Brian Burt, Founding Partner
Financial Circles
Empowerment in Community
www.FinancialCircles.com415-308-4258 mobile (best)
510-251-1189 office
brianDELETE-ME@FinancialCircles.com=====================
- - - "Financial Circles teaches people to master money so that it serves their dreams. We offer courses and an active network where people wake up to possibility, master concrete financial and business skills, and take action on what truly matters to them." - - -
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Telephone Subconferencing Features Requirements Outline
Financial Circles
Overview:
I lead live experiential learning workshops, where we are
constantly saying "get a partner and share about x" and then
"now get in groups of 4/6/8" to share about that and then finally we
come back to the "big room" where we take a few shares from the big
group.
I'd like to do something similar over the phone. In particular we would like to place
participants in small groups where they interact with each other, but all
groups can hear the facilitator. There
are simple and more advanced features related to this, and we would like to
find a platform that can support the advanced features, but start implementing
only the simple features.
We are leaning towards SIP / Asterisk as a platform and are
seeking comments. Specific questions:
- We are
open to changing these requirements to take advantage of existing
platforms … what's out there?
(Hosting / software / services?)
- What
"easy pieces" can be configured that handle some of these, that can be
more easily extended later?
- What
contract resources are available for work along these lines?
Base Requirements
#B1 Subconferences by order of entry
- Participants
(say 20-40 people) all call the same call-in # at the same time. (There's a separate facilitator
number/code.)
- We
have stipulated subconferences of say 4 participants (could be 2-8). Then the first 4 participants to call
are put in a subconference, the 2nd 4 are then put in the next subconference
etc.
- There
are two modes
- In
"small group" mode: Each subconference can hear the facilitators when
they speak. However when the subconferences
talk they only talk to each other.
- In
"big group" mode it's a big conference call where everyone can hear each
other
- Ideally
we have a "walk-around the room" role/feature, where one of the
facilitators can decide to "pop in" to the various subconferences to
interact within a subconference.
#B2 Subconferences
Determined Ahead of Time
- Each
participant gets a unique code to dial in with.
- Similar
to #1, but the subconferences are put in subconferences according to a
pre-determined order, say for example with an XML "set-up" file. This is for when we have groups that
for various reasons should be grouped together.
- Ideally
the set-up files are configurable for "each way" meaning I could configure
person A to hear B but not person B to hear A.
- Ideally
we can load in different set-up files and switch them on the fly.
Comment: If we can #2
but #1 is difficult we can usually just provide unique access codes to each
participant, handling the bulk of #1.
Eventually we might want to do a #1 where we can widely broadcast the
dial-in number.
Advanced Features (related to either #1 or #2)
A2-A4 Participants in subconferences can "pound out" to join
a separate "help" subconference
- A2 In
one version, hitting say "#2" will take the participant out of their subconference
and put them in a general help subconference. This has one of the facilitators in it,
and everyone can talk and hear each other.
- A3 In
another version hitting "#3" would put the entire subconference into the
general help subconference
- A4 In
other version hitting #4 would notify one of the facilitators that this subconferences
is "raising it's hand" and the facilitator would be able to drop into that
subconference by selecting in an interface to drop in.
- A
variation of that is that a facilitator could decide to join several of
the groups that are raising their hand into one subconference
A5 – Queued line for questions
- By
hitting say "#6" a participant in a subconference can "get in line" to ask
a question in front of everyone
- The
facilitator can take the next "question in line" and then that
participant's question becomes something sent to all the subconferences
- Optionally,
an assistant in the background can talk to the people in line one at a
time, and decide say how to order them: whether to put them in the front
of the line, bump them out altogether, put them in a special help
conference etc
A6- Mute all but facilitator
- The
facilitator when addressing the subconferences can hit a button to mute
everyone within the subconferences.
So, when muted everyone only hears the facilitator. When unmated the subconferences hear
each other.
A7 – Reporting
- See a
report showing who came and went when
- Potentially
see what people hit "# codes" when (who hit #2 when)
A8 – Recording
- It
would be good to record the main conference
- and ideally
the subconferences
A9 – voting by number showing instantaneous results
- Facilitator
can ask people to vote on something.
Say it's a three-way vote and the choices are "#91, #92, or #93"
for the three choices. Then the
facilitator can take a vote and the numbers are displayed on a facilitator
screen.
FEATURES INTEGRATING WEB CONFERENCES
Outside of the telephony approach, there are many features
on our "nice to have" list integrating a web conference (viewing a
presentation, and typical web conferencing features) with the telephony
subconferences. Features might include:
- Enabling
chat within the same subconference, especially if a moderator can
participate in multiple chats simultaneously (a window for each
subconference, with chat used to "speak to the teacher")
- Enabling
"white board" for subconferences (so they can write notes as they go, and
all see them). Again ideally
moderator can see these.
- Show a
different web page to each subconference group, especially when the group
is pre-determined (group these 5 people, who you'll recognize each by
their unique participant code, rather than "first 5" then "next 5")