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Learning Apps/Tools

Bringing Composers into Classrooms Through Skype

8/27/2008

Two Pennsylvania teaching colleagues with an interest in music and technology are bringing remote experts into classrooms at almost no cost, using Skype's free videoconferencing technology.

Let the Games Begin! Google vs. Microsoft

8/27/2008

Pursuing a strategy as a consumer of services and choice, Drexel University has partnered with both Google and Microsoft to provide students with massive e-mail mailboxes, gigabytes of file storage with collaboration tools, Web-based calendars, personal blogs, and more.

Tiffin U's New Online College to Use Pearson's eCollege for Course Management

8/27/2008

Beginning this fall, students in Tiffin University's newest online program, Ivy Bridge College, will use eCollege, a course management system from Pearson, for all of their online courses. The 2,350-student Tiffin U is located in Tiffin, OH and offers both on-campus and online classes. Since 2005, those online courses have been managed through Jenzabar Internet Campus Solution.

Luidia Releases eBeam Interact 2.1 for Interactive Whiteboards

8/27/2008

Luidia has released a new version its eBeam software for use with classroom-based interactive projection environments. eBeam Interact 2.1 offers both new and upgraded features, including enhanced screen recording and a comprehensive online image gallery, as well as the company's Scrapbook Image Writer feature.

McGill U Library Scanning Rare Books with Kirtas

8/26/2008

McGill University Library in Montreal will be using a Kirtas Technologies APT BookScan 2400RA to digitize its collections. The company says that the 2400RA is capable of acquiring page images at the rate of 2,400 pages per hour. The library will be working with Ristech, a Canadian reseller, to implement the digitization solution.

Columbia and U Hawaii Moving Forward with Sakai

8/25/2008

Two universities are moving forward in their work with Sakai. The University of Hawaii System has adopted Sakai as its official learning and collaboration service, effective this fall, and Columbia University has recently upgraded to a new version of the open source learning management system as part of a pilot program in several schools and departments. At the beginning of August, the New York institution upgraded its Sakai pilot from version 2.4 to 2.5.

Higher Ed Growing into BI, Data Warehousing

8/21/2008

As a long-time expert in data warehousing and business intelligence (BI), David Wells has seen the technologies gradually come into their own in higher education. Now a consultant--Wells was formerly director of education for The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI), a sister institution of Campus Technology--he continues to advise colleges and universities on data warehousing and BI issues.

LectureShare Updates Free Course Management System

8/21/2008

LectureShare has released an update to its free online course management system at lectureshare.com. New features include enhanced compatibility with common file types, a new student comments feature, and new gradebook functionality.

Digital Arrays for Evidence-Based Learning

8/20/2008

Our culture is redefining itself and we are redefining how we see learning. It is time for educators to get out of the box of seat time, finally, and consider evidence-based learning.

'That Which Weaves Together': The NSF Cyberlearning Report

8/20/2008

Trent Batson takes a look at the National Science Foundation's Report of the NSF Task Force on Cyberlearning, "Fostering Learning in the Networked World: The Cyberlearning Opportunity and Challenge."

The Power of Wikis in Higher Ed

8/20/2008

Over the last six years, Stewart Mader has staked his career on the power of wikis. Mader first worked on wiki adoption initiatives in the IT department at Brown University, becoming fascinated by their power and potential. In this first half of a two-part interview, Mader talks about powerful ways to use wikis in education, content ownership issues, and how wikis tend to be used--and why.

Sakai 2.5.2 Gets Performance Boost; New Modules Released

8/20/2008

The Sakai Foundation has released the Sakai Collaboration and Learning Environment 2.5.2, the first maintenance update to the open-source learning management system since the 2.5 release in March. The new version includes performance enhancements, as well as a number of bug fixes and other enhancements.

Colorado State Launches New Online School

8/18/2008

Colorado State University has selected Campus Management Corp. to provide the infrastructure for its new online campus, known as CSU-Global Campus. The technology the Ft. Collins campus will use includes CampusVue, a student information system, and CampusPortal, an integrated, configurable Web site software.

Skoobit Launches Online College Textbook Rental Service

8/13/2008

Skoobit has developed a textbook rental system to allow college students to rent text books for months, semesters, or the year. College students will be able to rent any textbook for as long as needed with the simple commitment of returning it once they're done using it.

Collexis' Lawriter Debuts Social Network for Law Students

8/12/2008

Collexis' Lawriter division has launched a social network for law students. The site, CasemakerX.com, was demonstrated in beta format at the American Association of Law Librarians Conference in Portland in July. A full launch is expected in early fall 2008 to coincide with the incoming class of new law students. Along with the social networking site, CasemakerX will provide free access to the Casemaker Suite of Applications for the American law student community.

Video Spotlight: Google, Microsoft Go Head to Head in Edu Space

8/12/2008

IDG News Service is shedding some light on the current efforts of Microsoft and Google to gain acceptance in the education market. Both offer free services for institutions like mail and storage, along with free collaboration tools for students and faculty. Watch this video to see what representatives from the two companies had to say at the recent Campus Technology 2008 conference in Boston.

Promethean, Simtrol Use Activeboard To Manage Classroom Devices

8/12/2008

Promethean and Simtrol have announced an exclusive partnership that will integrate device management software from Simtrol with Promethean's Activeclassroom technology. The partnership will give classroom teachers the ability to control a variety of separate devices from a single interface on Promethean's Activeboard, doing away with the need for multiple remote controls.

NComputing Device Addresses Budget and Tech Support Crunch at 3 Colleges

8/11/2008

A number of colleges have gone public with their deployments of the NComputing multiuser system, among them Fresno Pacific University in Central California, Florida Atlantic University in southeast Florida; and Palm Beach Community College in Florida. The NComputing access device allows a single PC to serve multiple users, each with his or her own monitor, keyboard, and mouse.

Textbook Publishing in a Flat World

8/6/2008

According to the National Association of College Stores in a 2007 survey, the average cost of a new college textbook was $53. The founders of Flat World Knowledge, which launches with its first run of college textbooks this fall, consider that too high--so high, in fact, that they'll be offering textbooks for free, at least in versions that can be read online.

CourseCast 2.0 Adds Podcasting, Streaming Media Features to Free Lecture Capture System

8/6/2008

Panopto has released CourseCast 2.0, an update to the company's classroom capture system that's available free to academic users. CourseCast 2.0 had previously been available as part of Panopto's beta program for educators since June.

It IS about Technology: Integrating Higher Ed into Knowledge Culture

8/6/2008

For more than twenty years, we educational technologists have talked about "integrating information technology into higher education." The implication was that education would stay the same and information technology would benignly slip in and cause no ruckus at all. This rhetoric no longer applies, if it ever did, and does a disservice to us as we work through the intricacies of this age.

Web Bazaar: The Problem of Abundance

8/6/2008

Walking in the old part of Istanbul, the narrow street awash in shops, each with its appealing bins of gorgeous goods, I kept expecting to find a super market of some sort. But no supermarket ever appeared, just more miles of tiny shops. Welcome to Web 2.0.

Katana Brings Education Content to Sakai Open Source LMS

8/5/2008

Sakai, a popular open source learning management system, is adding content from McGraw-Hill Higher Education to its repertoire of educational tools. Through a technology called Katana, developed by McGraw-Hill Learning Solutions and The ETUDES Consortium, Sakai users will be able to tap directly into McGraw-Hill's electronic learning resources, including online courses, digital media, and curricula.

Google Schedules Road Trip To Show Off Google Apps Education Edition Tour

8/1/2008

Loyola Marymount University, University of San Diego, Kent State University, and University of Virginia are among a dozen schools that have gone public with their adoption of Google Apps Education Edition. At the Campus Technology Conference in Boston Google announced that it counts a million users worldwide on campuses--both K-12 and higher education--using its suite of online services.

Microsoft Launches Free Collaboration Tools for Researchers

7/31/2008

This week, during a summit of researchers in Redmond, Microsoft announced a set of free software tools for helping researchers publish, preserve, and share data. The utilities include an authoring add-in for Word 2007 for capturing document metadata; a Creative Commons add-in for Office 2007; an e-journal service for self-publishing of online-only journals; a research output repository platform; and a collaborative workspace for researchers.