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Learning Apps/Tools

First Look: Adobe Creative Suite 4

9/23/2008

Adobe debuted Creative Suite 4 Tuesday, with all-new versions of its major development, design, publishing, and video/motion graphics applications, along with new and modified pricing and licensing schemes for both K-12 and post-secondary education. We have a inside look at the new features in each of the core applications, along with preliminary findings based on a pre-release of the Creative Suite 4 Master Collection.

Turnitin Integrates Plagiarism Tool into New Online Writing Service

9/23/2008

iParadigms, creator of the Turnitin plagiarism detection service, has released a set of tools designed to help students improve their writing skills through enhanced teacher-student communication and peer collaboration. The Web-based WriteCycle suite of services combines the company's Turnitin service with its new GradeMark Digital Grading service and a peer review collaboration and feedback tool.

Universities Adopt CoWare Processor Designer as Teaching and Research Tool

9/22/2008

Two universities have recently gone public with their use of CoWare Processor Designer for teaching application-specific processor architecture. Both École Polytechnique de Montréal in Canada and RWTH Aachen University in Germany have adopted the tool, which enables developers to program chips for specific uses.

Smart Meeting Pro Expands Language Support

9/22/2008

Smart Technologies has recently added seven new languages to its Smart Meeting Pro collaboration software, intended to address the needs of a growing global customer base.

Lecture Capture Drives Academic Gains at Saint Mary's U

9/19/2008

A new study by Saint Mary's University of Minnesota concluded that students who used the on-campus lecture capture archives, recorded by Tegrity, tended to have a higher cumulative GPA than those who didn't.

Education IT Spending, Fueled by Telecom, To Top $56 Billion by 2012

9/19/2008

In the United States, IT spending in education will reach $47.7 billion by the end of this year and is expected to top $56 billion by 2012, according to a new report from Compass Intelligence, an IT consultancy and market research firm. This growth in education--both K-12 and higher ed--is being fueled in particular by expenditures in telecommunications, collaborative technologies, and outsourced IT services.

Is College Necessary in a Knowledge-Drenched World?

9/17/2008

Maybe you've heard people ask: "Who needs large lecture halls to learn? Who needs a sound studio or post-production facilities when you can have them on your laptop? If high-end lab equipment or scientific simulation software is also available via the Web, why do you need to visit a campus to run an experiment?" Is "Why attend college at all?" now a serious question?

Echo360 Unveils Web-based Editor for Digital Lectures

9/17/2008

Echo360 has announced enhancements to its lecture capture platform, EchoSystem. Foremost is a Web-based editor that gives instructors the option to tailor their recorded lectures.

Kadoo Launches Site for Managing, Storing, and Selectively Sharing Digital Content

9/17/2008

Kadoo has launched a site where users can manage, store, and selectively share their digital content from one place. The service was created by executives from Blackboard, which produces products and services for the education market.

Northern Michigan U Issues 6,000 Laptops to Students

9/15/2008

Northern Michigan University has deployed 6,000 Lenovo ThinkPad R61 notebooks to its full-time students to provide access to 724 Web-based classes this fall. This is the 10th year that NMU has issued ThinkPads to its student body.

eCollege Partners with Cdigix for Rich Media Integration

9/15/2008

eCollege has announced a partnership with Cdigix that will give students at institutions using the company's course management system integrated access to rich media assets, including audio and video, among other things.

Mead Moves Into Interactive Whiteboards

9/12/2008

School supply company Mead is taking the plunge into education technology with the launch of a new interactive whiteboard. Dubbed, appropriately enough, the Mead Interactive Whiteboard, the new model incorporates a 77-inch interactive projection screen, multimedia pen, mounting hardware, and software suite targeted toward education.

U Texas at Austin Adopts Annual Copyright License from Copyright Clearance Center

9/11/2008

The University of Texas at Austin has signed an agreement with Copyright Clearance Center to adopt CCC's Annual Copyright License for academic institutions. This license gives librarians, faculty, copy shop staff, and others with pre-approved permission to use content in coursepacks, e-reserves, course management systems, and research collaboration.

34 Washington Colleges Move into Online Course Delivery

9/10/2008

The Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges is rolling out a new system to deliver online classes, presentations, and meetings. The organization recently signed on with Elluminate to use that company's Elluminate Learning Suite across its 34 member colleges.

Driving Google Apps for Education

9/10/2008

Google Apps bus image

A humble little old bus left Google's Mountain View, CA campus Monday for a 5,000-mile trek across the US to visit 10 college campuses, beginning with southern California's USC. Of course, the 30-year-old bus was converted to biodiesel, updated with solar panels and other green features, stocked with tons of technology and wireless Internet, and given an adorable "Google" paint job. It departed on schedule, chock full of Google Apps for Education demos and tech experts (riding along or flying to meet the bus) with new ideas to discuss with students and faculty.

Long Beach Students Get Chinese Language Tutoring Direct from Beijing

9/10/2008

A class at California State University, Long Beach has signed up to receive online tutoring in Chinese from eChineseLearning. The company, based in Beijing, provides Chinese language lessons for academic, business, and personal use through Skype. The program was piloted earlier this year by eight students in CSU's Asian and Asian American Studies Department who were studying the fundamentals of Chinese. Each student received an hour of tutoring each week.

Office Live Workspace: Shadowed by Google Docs?

9/9/2008

Microsoft last Wednesday touted the success of its online extension to Microsoft Office, a free browser-based application that's still in beta release. One million people so far have signed up to use the Microsoft Office Live Workspace Beta after six months of the beta's public availability, according to an announcement issued by the company.

Teachers Domain Expands Content for Educators, Adds New Editions

9/9/2008

Teachers Domain, a free online resource for educators, has announced expanded content in science, math, art, social studies, and language arts. The online library is also launching two new editions: Teachers' Domain College Edition, designed for higher education, and VITAL New York on Teachers' Domain, providing resources for New York teachers that are aligned with the state's core curriculum.

Washington Colleges Adopt the Angel LMS for Online Courses

9/8/2008

Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges has licensed the Angel Learning Management Suite (LMS) to deliver online courses available through WashingtonOnline (WAOL). The board consists of 34 schools that serve 450,000 students annually.

Zoho Launches Online Document Management Tool

9/8/2008

Online collaborative technology developer Zoho has launched its new Zoho Docs, a Web-based document management tool that's designed to integrate with Zoho's online spreadsheet, presentation, and document creation software.

DV Kitchen Web Video Publishing System Released

9/4/2008

DVcreators.net has released DV Kitchen, a new video encoding and publishing application for Mac OS X designed specifically for creating materials to be posted on the Web.

Adobe Makes ColdFusion 8 Free for Students, Educators

9/3/2008

Adobe has made its ColdFusion 8 Web development platform free for educators and students. The offer is available for all public and private accredited K-12 schools and colleges and universities.

Gathering Your Digital Pencils for Back-to-School

9/3/2008

Trent Batson considers a list of back-to-school resources for Web 2.0.

Tips for Getting Started with Educational Wikis

9/3/2008

Campus Technology speaks with wiki expert Stewart Mader, who discusses choosing between commercial and open source wiki products, getting started with a wiki, and why Wikipedia is the single biggest stumbling block to wikis in higher education.

U Alabama Hunstville Adopts Angel

9/3/2008

The University of Alabama in Huntsville said it has adopted the Angel Learning Management Suite (LMS). The Angel LMS makes course content and a variety of collaboration tools available online for 24/7 access.