To view the Wimba Pronto Privacy Policy, click here.
Wimba Pronto is a free instant messaging and voice chat tool that allows students and instructors to spontaneously meet live online at any time to discuss their coursework. Wimba Pronto works with course management systems like Blackboard and WebCT to automatically populate students’ contact lists with their classmates’ names, thereby making it easy for students to spontaneously collaborate live online. After all, not all learning can be scheduled – it’s often informal and unplanned.
While Wimba Pronto offers many similar features as other instant messaging tools such as AIM and Yahoo Instant Messenger, Wimba Pronto is unique to education because it integrates with course management systems such as Blackboard and WebCT, thereby automatically populating each student’s contact list each semester with the names of every student in their classes and social organizations. With Wimba Pronto, students simply log on to their computers and instantly see who’s online from their classes, clubs, and study groups – without even logging in to their CMS. Each student can then spontaneously ask questions or make comments to classmates.
*Please note that Wimba Pronto currently works for schools with the Blackboard Learning System 6.3+ and above and with Blackboard (WebCT) Campus Edition 6 and Vista 4. Support for WebCT Vista 3.0, ANGEL, and Moodle is currently being developed.
Spontaneous Learning and Communication
Students can instantly ask their classmates and/or instructors questions about their coursework the moment they need help.
Simplifies Campus Communication
Instead of relying on disparate forms of communication such as the phone, email, chat, and instant messaging, Wimba Pronto wraps all these means of communication into one simple platform.
Student-to-Student Interaction
Research shows that students often learn better from each other than from instructors. Now students can easily ask their classmates for help.
Ideal for Unplanned Communication
Students can meet online at any time, no longer relying on scheduled classes or office hours.
Integrates with popular Educational Technologies
Wimba Pronto automatically populates each student’s contact list based on their classes because it seamlessly integrates with Blackboard and WebCT.
Social Networking
The student community is a vital part of any school. Students can use Wimba Pronto to discuss the numerous social activities they care about.
Features & Functionality
Instant Messaging (IM)
Students can chat with classmates or instructors any time.
Voice-over IP (VoIP) Audio
Talkative students can plug in a microphone to their computers and speak to classmates regardless of location.
Group IM and VoIP
Not limited to one-on-one conversations, entire groups of students can chat at one time.
Contact lists automatically populated
Students’ contact lists are automatically populated with the names of their classmates, thereby eliminating the need to track down peers throughout the year.
Contact lists automatically segmented by class
Students’ contact lists are also automatically created on a class-by-class basis. Each student’s contact list will be automatically segmented by each class a student is enrolled in.
Tightly linked to Blackboard and WebCT
Campus administrators don’t need to create usernames or passwords for their students, as all access privileges are created automatically based on a school’s course management system.
Teachers and T.A.’s displayed differently
Easily distinguish between students, instructors, and teaching assistants.
Integrated "Help"
Display contextual help information or contact Wimba technical support.
Wimba Pronto Requirements
Windows 2000+ or Mac OSX 10.3.9+
128 MB RAM (256 MB recommended)
Internet access at 56k or above
"Wimba Pronto intuitively responds to the demands of the current university environment by offering today's college student state-of-the-art and just-in-time connectedness to the college community, its students, faculty, staff, organizations, and services."
-Christy Talley, Education Program Specialist, Distance and Distributed Education Center, University of West Georgia
"Wimba Pronto brings the powerful, on-demand communication tools students already use to the center of their learning experience by taking what students already do and wrapping it around instruction, rather than forcing students into a box that doesn't match their communication style for the sake of learning."
-Bill Evans, Manager for Distributed Learning Technologies, California State University, Chico
"Wimba Pronto is a significant step forward in providing a robust collaborative environment for students and instructors. Instant communication capabilities extend the boundaries of the classroom, enabling learning to take place anytime anywhere. Students can stay connected and continue to build relationships while expanding their learning within a social context."
-Eric Kunnen, Coordinator of Instructional Technologies, Grand Rapids Community College
"Wimba Pronto strikes me as a terrific enhancement to our course management system (CMS) environment in which our students are online from anywhere at all hours. I realize our CMS facilitates e-mail among classes, but e-mail is so slow...so yesterday! Since our students today are all doing instant messaging already, Wimba Pronto will be great for our students because it will give them instant access to classmates who happen to be online at the same time, without the cumbersome overhead of commercial instant messaging: 1. Agreeing on an instant messaging client (AIM? ICQ? MSN? Yahoo!? Ruckus?) 2. Doing the authorization dance (What is your screen name? "Please Authorize me to add your name..." etc.) 3. The issues of exposing students to the outside world of instant messaging spam, for official, university-sanctioned (or -encouraged) communication. Working with Wimba to have them provide and host their protected academic instant messaging environment sounds like something worth looking into."
-Peter Lafford, Director, Language Computing Lab, Arizona State University
Read about Wimba Pronto (.pdf)
