In a large online class, a teacher might give a lecture to as many as a thousand students. To bing a manageable amount of interactivity to such a large class, you can organize the students into much smaller groups and give each group their own small classroom (or “breakout room”). Here, the students can engage in real-time audio and video discussion while still listening to their teacher. Four students is the recommended size for a small classroom and the number of small classrooms is unlimited. You can also assign a teaching assistant (TA) to each small classroom, if desired.
Agora calls this use case a Breakout Class. It combines the advantages of exposing large numbers of students to high-caliber courses and teachers with the benefits of small-group discussion, which enhances student engagement. This arrangement is well suited for such scenarios as language training for young children and K-12 education.
Student One
Student Two
Feature | Description |
---|---|
Real-time communication | |
Real-time messaging | The teacher, students, and TA can all chat with each other through text messages. |
Whiteboard | The teacher can share a Powerpoint slide, a Word or PDF file, or even an audio or video file on it. |
Recording | The teacher can record the class and share the recording through a link for future review or evaluation. |
Class management | The teacher starts or ends the class, and manages the students' privilege for sending audio, video, or real-time messages. |
Device and network test | Before the class, the teacher can test whether the microphone and camera are working properly. During the class, both the teacher and the students can monitor the network quality in real time. |
Screen share | The teacher can share the screen with the students. |
The Agora technical solution has the following advantages:
Low latency
Agora SD-RTN™ is Agora's proprietary network for audio and video transmission, covering more than 200 countries and regions. The intelligent routing algorithms it uses ensure that the average end-to-end latency worldwide is less than 400 ms.
High service stability and accessibility
Agora's services are in accordance with SLA (Service-Level Agreement), ensuring an over 99% login success rate and 99.99% service accessibility throughout the year.
Resilience to packet loss
Agora's anti-packet-loss algorithm ensures a smooth audio and video experience when the packet loss rate reaches 60% or a smooth audio experience when the rate hits 70%, minimizing the freeze rate and dropped calls.
High audio quality
The following technologies ensure that the speaker's voice always stands out from a noisy environment:
High-definition video
Agora optimizes the video experience from the following perspectives:
Extra functions
You can also add the following components or services to your project:
Whiteboard: You can add a whiteboard to an online classroom, which can be used to write things down, share a Powerpoint slide, and share the H5 animation courseware.
Recording: You can even embed recording in your class with our on-premise recording or cloud recording service.
Traceability
Compatibility
Our SDKs are compatible with more than 20000 devices, covering over 18 platforms and development architectures, including Windows, macOS, Web, iOS, Android, and Electron. This ensures that the teacher and the student share the same experience.
Agora provides an open-source sample project Scene-Examples/BreakoutRoom on GitHub, which demonstrates how to use Agora SDKs to implement the Breakout Class scenario on Android and iOS.