Digital Media
- Project Wonderland: Good Avatars Make Good Neighbors
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7/2/2008
Sun Microsystems's Project Darkstar and the Wonderland Toolkit for building 3D spaces show why virtual reality is better for education than video conferencing. And Project Wonderland has announced its first education space.
- Sun, Stanford Working To Archive History
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7/2/2008
In May in San Francisco, experts from leading universities, libraries, and research institutions around the world met as part of an ongoing effort to address a pressing issue: archiving the world's history, right up to today.
- Facebook and Collegiality: A Serendipitous Social Niche
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7/2/2008
Facebook is a way to greet a colleague as if she or he is on your own campus: a wave at a distance, a hello at the corner burrito place, a honk as you both leave the campus parking lot. Informal collegiality has been extended over the miles.
- Wake Forest U Aims To Reduce Note Taking with Classroom Capture
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6/30/2008
Students taking a course in venture capital at Wake Forest University have, over the last semester, benefited from the use of Recordant audio-capture technology that allows Web-based archiving, searching, and playback of course lectures. The university said one of the goals was to get students to close their notebooks and focus on comprehension, secure that they'd be able to access the captured lectures later on.
- Podcasting in Instruction: Moving Beyond the Obvious
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6/25/2008
The lightweight, mobile nature of podcasting has the potential of moving education beyond familiar constraints of coursework and promoting a level of networking and input never seen before. But challenges still exist. Can more be achieved with podcasting that would heighten student engagement and maximize knowledge building in instructional contexts? Can we move beyond the obvious in their use?
- Adobe Releases Acrobat 9, Creative Suite 3.3
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6/25/2008
Adobe has now released Acrobat 9, announced earlier this month, along with an updated Creative Suite (version 3.3), which incorporates Acrobat 9 Pro software. The new version expands functionality for students in the areas of collaboration and the creation of electronic portfolios.
- The Educational Software Paradox: Can We Learn To Unlearn?
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6/25/2008
New "educational" software and applications are usually not as educational as one might think. As a whole, applications developed in the name of learning have ended up favoring the institution and preserving the status quo. Given existing dynamics, it could not be otherwise.
- Mediasite 5.0 Debuts; New Classroom Recorders Coming in July
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6/20/2008
Sonic Foundry debuted a new version of its lecture capture platform Thursday at the InfoComm and EduComm conferences in Las Vegas. Mediasite 5.0 adds about 100 new or enhanced features for recording, playing back, and managing classroom recordings. The company also announced new hardware recorders for automated lecture capture, which are scheduled to ship next month.
- Learning in the Webiverse: How Do You Grade a Conversation?
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6/18/2008
Academics have long talked of the "academic conversation." Now, Web 2.0 has called our bluff. We live in the midst of a non-stop world conversation. But, are conversational skills (in writing) important and, if so, how do we teach them?
- Elicitus E-learning Authoring Tool Adds Embedded Sound Recorder
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6/17/2008
Harbinger Knowledge Products has released version 7.0 of Elicitus, its e-learning authoring tool. The new release provides usability enhancements, including an embedded sound recorder.
- Emantras Partners With Odyssey Press, Brings On-Demand Printing To REED Platform
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6/16/2008
Digital education and learning-enhancement company Emantras announced its partnership with digital printer Odyssey Press. The partnership with Odyssey will add on-demand printing for end users of Emantras' REED (Rapid e-Book and e-Journal) platform.
- Cisco Purchases DiviTech, Enhances Video-Delivery Offerings
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6/16/2008
Networking giant Cisco announced plans last week to purchase Denmark-based DiviTech A/S. The company, specializing in digital-service management (DSM) solutions, helps a variety of service providers create, modify, and manage video networks.
- Free Lecture Capture Platform Adds Blackboard integration, Podcasting Features
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6/11/2008
Panopto told us this week that it's releasing CourseCast v2, an update to the company's classroom capture system, and making it available to educators free through its Socrates Project beta program.
- U Oregon Project Applies GIS to Historic Maps
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6/10/2008
An interdisciplinary team from the University of Oregon's School of Architecture and Allied Arts and the College of Arts and Sciences collaborated with scholars in Rome to produce a new Web site dedicated to the work of one of Rome's great vedutisti--or cityscape artists. The intention is to provide a rich historical resource for educators, scholars, students and others.
- Smart Wireless Classroom Audio System Set for August Release
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6/10/2008
Smart Technologies this week introduced a new classroom audio system. Dubbed "Smart Audio," the system provides wireless audio (using both microphones and third-party audio devices, such as MP3/4 players), along with integration with Smart interactive whiteboard systems.
- NYU Launches Radio Channel on Sirius
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6/10/2008
New York University (NYU) and Sirius Satellite Radio announced the launch of Doctor Radio, powered by NYU Langone Medical Center. Radio channel 114 will feature physicians hosting live call-in radio shows broadcast daily.
- Can We Trust Students to Learn in Web 2.0?
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6/4/2008
A core debate about learning design arises from the fear that, if we allow learners too much freedom, they will not learn the right things. Web 2.0 exacerbates that fear because it is beyond the control of educators.
- iTunes U Expands International Reach
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6/4/2008
Apple Tuesday expanded the international reach of iTunes U, bringing in 10 universities from the UK, Ireland, New Zealand, and Australia, all of which are providing content via the iTunes education portal free of charge.
- Canada's McMaster University Gets into Rare Book Business Digitally
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5/28/2008
Canada's McMaster University Library and United States-based companies Kirtas Technologies and Lulu.com will be partnering this fall to make rare books available to the public.
- Frankenstein in the University
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5/28/2008
In our day-to-day encounters with new media, online education, and vendor software products, we may sometimes be tempted to believe that encroaching technology is controlling the way people teach and learn. Is there a monster in our midst, determining our actions?
- Microsoft Shuttering Book Digitization Efforts
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5/27/2008
Following on the heels of Microsoft's announcement that it would pay customers who search for and buy products through Microsoft Live Search cashback, the company's Microsoft's Live Search team announced on its blog that it would be taking down its Live Search Books and Live Search Academic projects Web sites in coming days.
- Paper-Based Materials Distorted Ways of Learning
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5/21/2008
Analog materials, slow, heavy, costly, and hard to distribute, came to define education especially after the introduction of print. Adaptations to the limitations of analog came to seem the right and only way to teach and learn. But now digital media are restoring communication and collaboration capabilities, returning us to more natural (and historic) ways of learning.
- Purdue Implements Classroom Capture for Campus and Distance Learning
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5/16/2008
Purdue University has selected Winnov's Cbox 3 to record classroom lectures and enhance its distance learning programs. The Cbox 3 lecture capture appliance is used at Purdue's School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.
- New Dartmouth Dorm Cluster Broadcasts Energy Usage to Students
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5/14/2008
Dartmouth College's recently completed McLaughlin Cluster residence halls have been recognized by the United States Green Building Council for its environmental sustainability, winning Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design ( LEED ) gold certifications. The recognition makes the fifth LEED certification for Dartmouth buildings in four months. LEED certifications were recently awarded to two other residence halls as well as two academic facilities.
- Surviving Surfeit: How Do We Cull Important Information Now?
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5/7/2008
Trent Batson questions whether we need to archive almost "everything" just because we possibly can in the digital age.
