Elluminate Expands Learning Suite with Live 9.5, Plan 2.0
Elluminate has rolled out a new version of its Elluminate Learning Suite, a collection of collaborative software tools for education.
The Elluminate Learning Suite is an expanded collection of Elluminate's collaborative learning tools. It includes Elluminate's flagship Live e-learning software, as well as Elluminate Publish and Elluminate Plan.
Elluminate Live is an e-learning, conferencing, and online collaboration tool designed for use in education. It includes features like note taking, two-way interactive video, archiving and automatic indexing of e-learning sessions, various tools for teachers (timers, pop-up announcements, sorting of participants by hand raising, etc.), whiteboarding, and various other collaboration tools. Live also provides support for a variety of learning management systems, including Moodle, Blackboard, Sakai, WebCT, and eCollege. Elluminate provides an SDK called "Bridge" for integrating its technologies with LMS and portal solutions.
The latest version of the suite, released this week, includes an updated version of live, release 9.5, which adds a number of enhancements in the categories of audio and video, teaching tools, communications, platform support, accessibility, and UI.
Some of these enhancements include improved audio fidelity, reduced audio lag, increased video framerates, and reduced bandwidth requirements. In the category of teaching tools, it adds a new whiteboard text editor, drag-and-drop screen explorer, recording reminder, new preferences for application sharing, and new controls for facilitating and presenting.
Other changes include:
- New accessibility features, including audio notifications for the visually impaired, the ability to add speaker notes in slides for screen reader narration, and improved navigation for screen readers;
- Support for clients on Ubuntu Linux;
- Improved language deployment support; and
- Improved interface elements.
The updated suite also adds Elluminate Plan V2, a tool designed to help instructors and instructional designers organize and package content for online sessions prior to the session being conducted live. Version 2 adds improved capabilities in the area of building interactivity, new session parameter settings, drag-and-drop construction and editing, and a plan validation tool.
Finally, it also adds expanded LMS support, including Angel LMS 7.3 and 7.4 and Blackboard Enterprise 7 or higher, CE Enterprise 6 or higher, and Vista Enterprise 4 or higher. A Desire2Learn bridge is expected later this year.
The new Elluminate Learning Suite is available now. Further information can be found here.