eLearning/CMS
- Aplia Launches Web-based Interactive Homework System
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5/9/2008
Cengage Learning's Aplia division has launched a new Web-based homework system called Grade It Now. The system combines aspects of practice problems with graded problems to encourage students to improve results as they work.
- Graduate School, USDA Standardizes on Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro for E-learning
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5/8/2008
The Graduate School, USDA has standardized on Acrobat Connect Pro, a Web conferencing and e-learning platform from Adobe Systems. The school is a self-sustaining government entity created 87 years ago by the United States Department of Agriculture to provide adult continuing education.
- Texas A&M System Signs Distribution Deal for Virtual Clinical Learning Lab
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5/8/2008
Texas A&M University has signed a license agreement with BreakAway Ltd., a developer of game-based technology, for the worldwide rights to Pulse!! The Virtual Clinical Learning Lab. Pulse is a federally funded project in development at the Corpus Christi campus that allows medical professionals to practice decision-making protocol and experiential skills on PCs in a virtual hospital setting. The agreement grants BreakAway the rights to develop, market and distribute Pulse.
- Tegrity Records 325,000 Hours of Lectures
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5/8/2008
Ed tech developer Tegrity reported this week that usage of its Campus 2.0 classroom capture system hit record levels last year, including, among other things, capturing 325,000 hours of faculty lectures on Tegrity servers in a 12-month period.
- Unicon Launches uPortal 3 Services
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5/7/2008
Technology integrator Unicon has announced that it's now providing commercial support for uPortal 3.0, an open source campus portal solution designed by members of the education community.
- IBM Expands Team Collaboration, Social Networking Software
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5/6/2008
IBM has introduced a new tool for migrating content from Microsoft SharePoint and other data repositories into Lotus Quickr. The new Lotus Quickr Content Integrator, which recently began shipping, is designed to bring content from existing repositories into Quickr's "team places" for collaboration and sharing.
- Georgia Tech To Implement CalDAV in Sakai
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5/6/2008
Georgia Tech announced recently that it's contracted with open source service provider Unicon to integrate CalDAV within its Sakai implementation. CalDAV is a calendaring protocol that allows for event and meeting sharing across various platforms via WebDAV.
- Adobe Connect Pro and Presenter Beef Up eLearning Features
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5/5/2008
Adobe has introduced a new version of Acrobat Connect Pro, the company's virtual meeting and eLearning tool. The new version includes enhanced integration with Blackboard, as well as several editing and management improvements.
- Woz To Address Blackboard Crowd
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5/2/2008
Blackboard Thursday announced details for its upcoming BbWorld '08 conference, which will be held July 15 through 17 in Las Vegas. The show will feature about 140 sessions covering education technology strategies and issues, as well as keynote addresses from Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak (largely credited for inventing the first practical personal computer) and U Miami President Donna Shalala.
- Online Writing Remediation Program Targets Incoming Freshmen
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5/1/2008
Ed tech developer Vantage Learning has launched a new edition of its writing remediation program, targeting high school seniors and incoming college freshmen. My Access! College Edition extends the standard "School Edition," designed for K-12, with greater emphasis on analysis and interpretation, as well as additional features.
- Classroom and Community Intersect in Workflow Management
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4/30/2008
Integrating the classroom with the community to give students hands-on experience is a laudable goal, but not always easy to do. At the University of Arizona, J. Leon Zhao's upper-level and graduate business students gain an understanding of workflow management software and business applications through real projects in the surrounding business community in Tucson.
- Creighton U Updates Distance Learning Program with iLinc
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4/30/2008
Creighton University in Omaha, NE has implemented a suite of services from Web and audio conferencing company iLinc to update the distance-learning platform for its online doctor of pharmacy program. The school evaluated the software from several Web conferencing vendors and chose the solution from iLinc, in part because it integrated with Active Directory to enable single sign-on and authentication.
- Wyoming Colleges Bolster Digital Libraries with 'Academic Complete' Database
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4/29/2008
The Wyoming Community College Commission, which has seven colleges, and the University of Wyoming have subscribed to the ebrary Academic Complete e-book database, according to the company.
- rSmart Releases Commercial Sakai CLE Update
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4/29/2008
Education support services provider rSmart has rolled out an update to its commercial implementation of the Sakai Collaboration and Learning Environment, bringing it in line with the latest major release from the Sakai Foundation. rSmart's version is built on the regular Sakai software but also includes additional functionality and contracted support.
- NASA Gets Serious about Educational Gaming
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4/23/2008
NASA this week moved a step closer to branching into educational gaming. The agency presented its vision of a science education-focused massively multiplayer online game to more than 200 potential software development partners in a workshop Monday sponsored by NASA Learning Technologies, an educational technology incubator project.
- Will the CafeScribe Acquisition Give a Boost to Electronic Textbooks?
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4/16/2008
The digital textbook is one of those technologies that seem obvious but can take a long time to gain traction. In March, the concept got a boost when long-time textbook distributor and retailer Follet Corp. acquired Salt Lake City-based Fourteen40, and, along with it, CafeScribe, a Web site in its beta phase of offering electronic textbooks.
- Yale Pilots Digital Media Integration with Sakai
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4/15/2008
Yale University is piloting a new program that brings integration between its open-source learning management system, Sakai, and its digital asset and digital rights management system, C-Labs from Cdigix. Yale has used the Web-based DAM/DRM tool since 2004 to deliver online digital media to students in about 400 courses.
- UMass Signs Agreement with China To Offer Online Courses
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4/10/2008
As free-Tibet protesters continue their efforts to block passage of the Olympic torch on its way to Beijing for the opening of the Summer Games, one US campus has decided that the best approach to changing the course of history is by educating China's populace.
- U Wisconsin Expands Collaboration with Office Live Workspace
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4/9/2008
Students at the University of Wisconsin at Parkside can now enjoy file collaboration capabilities via a free software-and-service product from Microsoft called Office Live Workspace. The university, which last year outsourced its student e-mail accounts to Microsoft Live@edu, now offers students, faculty, and staff the ability to store, share, edit, and collaborate on documents in common Microsoft file formats.
- University of Houston Study: Hybrid Courses More Effective for Students
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4/8/2008
A technical report from a University of Houston Department of Health and Human Performance researcher finds that students in a hybrid class that incorporated instructional technology with in-class lectures scored a letter grade higher on average than their counterparts who took the same class in a more traditional format.
- Desire2Learn Launches Web Services for Learning Management
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4/4/2008
CMS/LMS developer Desire2Learn this week launched Web Services 1.0, a set of Web-based enhancements for the D2L Learning Environment and D2L Learning Platform. Modules included with the 1.0 release include "organization structure management, enrolment management, and gradebook entry and lookup," according to the company.
- Blackboard Vows To Press On
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4/2/2008
Despite last week's apparent setback in the Patent Office, Blackboard is vowing not to go down without a fight even as Desire2Learn and the Software Freedom Law Center--the two groups that sought to have the patent revoked--celebrate victory. We have the first interview with Blackboard's chief legal officer, Matthew Small, since the action. He discussed Blackboard's plans moving forward and why he sees that patent as still being valid and strong.
- Tegrity Bolsters Classroom Capture with Campus 2.0
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4/2/2008
Ed tech developer Tegrity has released an update to Campus 2.0, the company's enterprise classroom capture and student achievement system. The new version adds a wide range of features, from new recording and editing tools to enhanced administrative and reporting functionality.
- Free Lecture Capture System Gains Widespread Academic Support
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4/1/2008
Software developer Panopto reported to us this week that hundreds of educational institutions have applied for its Socrates Project, which allows K-12 schools, colleges, and universities to adopt the company's CourseCast system at no charge. The program, launched late last year, is aimed specifically at academic institutions.
- Blackboard Bumps Learning Systems to 8.0
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3/28/2008
Blackboard this week brought its Learning System CE and Learning System Vista in line with Learning System Enterprise edition, bringing the entire line to version 8.0. The company said the new releases represent a major advance toward its goal of unifying the codebase of its learning tools and infusing them with Web 2.0 technologies.
