Jitsi is open source. One can easily implement at their own premises. It offers live streaming thru which one can stream to you tube live. No hassles of storage. Another option is to deliver the lecture and store at local device cloud (open cloud) and share the link to the end users who requires to use the resources

You can automate uploading the files to whatever file storage platform you're already using like Dropbox, Google drive or better yet Firebase or AWS. Then delete the files from Zoom after they are uploaded. You might be able to accomplish this with Zapier. If not, we develop these kinds of custom automations at TinyApp.io

I think Jitsi is clearly underrated and has all the wanted features for a simple video conferencing. Jitsi is opensource and privacy/security concerned (Zoom had some serious security issues). You can easily host your own instance or use the public one or purchase a hosted one. There is mobile & desktop apps and you can easily connect using a browser (a must-have feature for entreprise guests).

About your meeting records, Jitsi has a record feature (to Dropbox on public server and more integrations on private ones) and a Livestream feature to Youtube which is really cool and allow you to have unlimited videos, create playlist, public or not...

So I would definitely go for Jisti !

NB: if your company has a Microsoft 365 subscriptions or a Google Workspace one, you should also consider using them as they are part of you plan :)

Personally, I think that Discord works much better than anything else, even if you don't have Nitro (which is what they call their premium plan). You could seriously do this Jeopardy thing with just Discord (and maybe a bot to make it easier)

Zoom would only let you have a crappy meeting that hackers could easily join. Discord actually has DDoS protection, Zoom just has things that can easily be bypassed.

And if you do want Nitro, it's only $9/mo or $99/yr

I've used Zoom for something similar, and it should work for you. Zoom is widely accessible, including via phone calls. Breakout rooms are included (https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/206476093-Enabling-breakout-rooms).

One challenge with middle school boys might be managing participant behavior. Regular Zoom calls with more than ~20 people can easily get chaotic. Zoom's webinar mode might be more appropriate for this use case. Webinars are an extra $40/month.

Zoom is more popular and have more control over participants, but Crowdcast is more flexible, because of the HTML5 support and can apply widgets on webpages. Both can be used on any platform, but zoom needs to be installed first.

I’m in the same boat as a teacher. I researched both, used both, I like Zoom much better. I like to compare it to Google having the lite version of an app while Zoom is the paid version. Zoom allows the “Host” to control every aspect from password protecting your room to the host admitting people in individually. I know Zoom is normally paid but has a limited free version. Hope this helps but Zoom seems much further ahead.

From my experiences I feel like Zoom is a pretty intuitive program to teach kids, however Skype might be more common amongst them already.

I am a big fan of Microsoft Teams.

They all do the same pretty much but Teams I find the bells and whistles are easier to find, like custom backgrounds... creating groups for topic discussions that remain there until you want to change/edit or delete. Easy to share files.

Hi, Lisa,

I haven't used Skype in a long time. I have I lot of experience with Zoom and Webex. Both for me are very good tools, especially if you have money to pay for (to unlock more features, like more people in a video conference - Zoom).

Nowadays, I've used more Webex with my undergraduate students, I'm using the free account. Cloud recording is a features very useful, especially while using the free account (thanks Cisco!). Webex has control features very useful (e.g., mute, raise hand etc).

Kind regards,

We've been using Zoom for about a half a year and it's stability is unbeatable. We have all-hands on Fridays with 100+ participants. The free tier can easily handle the requirements, the only limitation is that max meeting length is 40 minutes. After that you can immediately restart the meeting, but the pro option is also very affordable. It also features screen sharing and whiteboard sharing out of the box. I also appreciate that it's not mandatory to register an account to attend a meeting.

Google meet, as well as zoom are amazing platforms for online meetings. But I will try to explain the pros and cons of both according to your needs.

1. Network requirements: Google meet requires considerably more bandwidth than zoom, and it isn't a great choice if you have poor internet, or if there are more than 25 or 30 participants. While zoom is pretty lightweight and can support large groups (say about 80) with little to no internet instability.

2. UI: Zoom and google meet have decent UI, but assuming that participants will be using mobiles, they might have a hard time with chatting in zoom as it takes up a lot of space to view all contents.

3. Security: Even though both zoom and google meet provide 100% encrypted connections, I personally think google meet is somewhat better due to the flaws in the recent zoom security patches.

4. Battery consumption: Google meet hogs up your battery when uploading your video and also your video quality, unlike zoom will not be adjusted based on your network, meaning, even if you have poor internet, google meet will upload your video in high quality, sometimes leading to lag and hangs.

NOTE: If you are using the free version of zoom, your meeting will automatically end after 40 minutes. So either keep your games small, or buy the premium version.

In the end I think zoom will be a better choice according to your needs, but if you plan on buying zoom, I recommend you read other reviews about zoom. Enjoy and stay safe!

I would suggest Zoom: - quality sound and audio is great - simple to set up and invite people + it doesn't matter if they have a microsoft, google, etc. email account or operating system - recently it added a couple of security options which could be handy in your situation = for example 'lock meeting' - once all your participants have logged in you can 'lock the meeting' to prevent others from entering. Another on is the enable waiting room, where participants can 'wait' before you allow them in the meeting.

Zoom has lot more features and higher quality. Agree with the other people's advice. Make sure to realize it is 40 min limit for free account - but you can do monthly Zoom subscription and try it out or only use during pandemic and cancel subscription once this is over if you need to.

its good