Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology
News
Kentucky School System Extends CMS Collaboration Functionality
5/12/2008
The Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS) said it will deploy the Wimba Collaboration Suite across 16 colleges to connect students and educators through online video, voice, text, application sharing, polling and whiteboarding."KCTCS fills an important role across the state of Kentucky by providing a quality education that is both affordable and accessible to hundreds of thousands of students," said Sandra L. Cook, system director of distance learning technologies. "Our goal is to continue to expand these opportunities. Working closely with Wimba over the past several months, it is clear that the Wimba Collaboration Suite will be instrumental in helping us towards that goal."
KCTCS is the largest provider of postsecondary education and workforce training in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, with 67 campuses statewide, serving 92,000, students in credit programs and 180,000 people in continuing education programs.
KCTCS will also roll out Wimba's new academic-centric instant messaging platform, Wimba Pronto, which was announced by the company in March. Pronto allows students to collaborate in real time online with classmates, participate in online faculty office hours and gain access to campus services. Communication can be done through instant text, audio and video.
Besides Pronto, the Collaboration Suite consists of three other modules. Wimba Classroom is a virtual classroom that supports audio, video, application sharing and content display. Wimba Voice adds synchronous and asynchronous vocal collaboration to a course management system (CMS). Wimba Create allows instructors to convert Word documents into web pages with navigation and interactive features.
The suite integrates with existing university CMSs, including Angel, Blackboard, WebCT and Moodle to enable instructors to manage their course content and create customized rooms from within their CMS environment.
Dian Schaffhauser is a writer who covers technology and business. Send your higher education technology news to her at dian@dischaffhauser.com.
Cite this Site
copy text (above) for proper citation
Recommended Reading
- Scripting Gurus Debate Dynamic Languages
Tim Bray, co-inventor of XML and Sun Microsystems' director of Web technologies, hosted a lively post-Script Bowl panel discussion on the future of dynamic scripting languages at this year's JavaOne Conference.
- Northcentral University Adds Campus Security Specialization
Northcentral University, which offers higher education degrees earned online, announced the introduction of a new master's and doctoral business degree specialization, Business, Corporate and Campus Security. The university focuses on the education needs of law enforcement and security professionals.
- RIAA Outsources Fingering of Students Who Share Music Illegally
The RIAA is outsourcing the hunt for music thieves. Its largest target currently is those who operate from within colleges and universities, a move that has piqued the attention of Educause.
- Microsoft Expands Education Footprint in Asia Pacific Region
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates announced new partnerships to extend accessibility and computer literacy in the Asia Pacific region during a speech in Jakarta at a government leader gathering earlier this week.
- IT Struggling Over Security, Compliance
IT pros are having a hard time balancing security, software patch management and IT auditing with a host of other duties, according to a survey released Monday by Shavlik Technologies.
- Toronto College Upgrades Network with Gigabit Ethernet Wireless Links
Toronto-based George Brown College has gone public about its deployment of six BridgeWave GE60 wireless links to upgrade its campus-wide network.
