What does it look like?

Please experiment Encours yourself with the live demo. If for any reason it does not work in your web browser, please try Firefox. Here is the lecturer screen you should see in the demo:

The lecturer has full control on the slides. Clicking anywhere on the slide area will make a red dot "laser pointer" appear. All other participants immediately see the slide change or laser pointer in real time. The lecturer sees all participant questions and can give or take slide control permissions to individual listeners. The recording status indicates whether the lecturer actions are stored for later use, which is especially useful for making a video replay of the presentation.

And here is the listener screen:

Listeners browse the slides privately, which is especially useful for quickly checking a point on a previous slide when one gets lost! Listeners can request slide control, and revert to private browsing mode when they are done with their question. Previous questions are visible to all participants so people can check for similar queries before asking. This area can also be used as a mini-chat tool.

If Java is installed the integrated audio system is also available. If this is not the case, or if the listener is too shy to ask questions directly (ex: bad english), then the ability to ask a text question comes in very handy.