7/17/2007
Eight colleges and universities have recently adopted Live Classroom, a collaboration tool designed for higher education that allows institutions to build virtual classrooms and conduct courses online.
7/11/2007
Michael Korcuska will become the Sakai Foundation’s new executive director later this month, leading the Sakai community in the continued development of its open source collaboration and learning environment.
7/11/2007
While CLEs are tools they are also much more than tools; they are tools that are developed, maintained, and financed by an evolving community of investors, educators, and software developers.
7/11/2007
Northwestern University has developed an extension for Blackboard systems that allows the CMS to communicate with Xythos applications. The tool, File Bridge, is being made available to colleges and universities as open-source software.
7/10/2007
Maryland's Towson University has formed a partnership with the United States Department of Commerce's National Technical Information Service to offer U.S. government employees discounts on Towson's professional online education programs.
7/10/2007
IBM Corp. has cut a series of curriculum development deals with Indian universities designed to train students in the field of "service science," skills associated with the burgeoning market for offshore technical services and support.
7/10/2007
IBM is using "serious game" technology developed by graduate students at Duke University and the University of North Carolina to help explain the concept of service-oriented architecture to potential customers.
7/10/2007
Northwestern University has developed an open source File Bridge Extension to facilitate content exchange between Blackboard and Xythos applications. The software is available for download freely by colleges and universities.
7/9/2007
A bevy of recent studies on students' experience listening to recorded lectures via podcasts confirms what many lecturers already know: that the pedagogical value of podcasts depends almost entirely on student motivation and the learning "context" of the application.
7/9/2007
Information technology researchers and executives from around the Middle East convened in Qatar recently to participate in an "Arabic Search Engine Workshop" hosted by Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMUQ).
7/5/2007
Education software developer Haiku Inc. has released an update to its learning management system, Haiku LMS. The new 2.0 release, which launched June 20, adds a variety of functional and UI enhancements. A 2.1 upgrade is also expected within the next few weeks.
6/27/2007
At the InfoComm show in Anaheim, CA last week, Luidia previewed several upcoming enhancements to its line of classroom technologies, including new student response capabilities and various updates to eBeam-based systems.
6/26/2007
Education technology developer Elluminate has released Elluminate Live! V8, an update to the company's flagship e-learning, conferencing, and online collaboration tool. The new version adds a variety of functional enhancements and is available now. The company's vRoom, a free conferencing tool based on Elluminate Live!, is also being updated to incorporate some of the functionality of Live! V8.
6/20/2007
Software tools that allow colleges and universities to deliver classes over the Internet, either standalone or as a component of a traditional face to face class, are nothing new. But personalizing the online experience beyond slides can be a challenge.
6/13/2007
McGraw-Hill Higher Education and the National Center for Academic Transformation (NCAT) will jointly develop college learning solutions with an eye toward innovation and affordability.
6/13/2007
Today's students have little patience for trudging to the library and researching a question on paper. For better or worse, they're far more likely to jump online and use tools like Google and Wikipedia to try to find answers quickly.
6/13/2007
Software Secure (Cambridge, MA) has released its Securexam Remote Proctor system, which provides exam security for distance learning environments. Working with Troy University's (Troy, AL) distance learning program--which maintains an advanced distance learning program--the system eliminates the need for remote students to take exams on-site or in the presence of a proctor.
6/6/2007
Education technology developer DyKnow has released DyKnow Vision and Monitor 5.0. Both tools, designed for classroom environments, add enhancements in the areas of compatibility, user interface, and various productivity features.
6/6/2007
A free product that helps make writing assignments less subjective and more understandable to students is saving Santa Ana College Professor John Howe huge amounts of time and helping him grade writing assignments much more consistently.
5/31/2007
Education software developer Desire2Learn is releasing version 8.2 of its flagship Desire2Learn Learning Environment starting June 1. The new version expands and optimizes LE's capabilities and introduces new features to enhance the user experience.
5/30/2007
Apple has launched a new iTunes feature called iTunes U, a new department in the iTunes Store that provides free education resources from American colleges and universities. The idea is to share resources from these campuses, such as lectures and research, free of charge.
5/30/2007
The Sakai Foundation recently released version 2.4 of its Sakai Collaboration and Learning Environment (SCLE), an update six months in the making. SCLE is an open-source course management system targeted toward schools, colleges, and universities.
5/29/2007
The Supreme Court of British Columbia has ordered Vancouver University Worldwide (VUW) to stop granting degrees in the province. The court had upheld a suit by the B.C. provincial government that argued that for profit distance education provider VUW was breaking the province's Degree Authorization Act by offering degrees without authorization.
5/23/2007
I became involved with hybrid teaching simply as a common-sense approach to the challenge of transitioning traditional faculty from classroom to online learning environments while I was director of a center for instructional technology at a university in the South.
5/23/2007
The University of Washington, in an effort to improve access to classroom materials for students, has deployed IP-based audio encoding devices throughout 24 classrooms, standardizing on Barix Instreamers.