SmartClassroom :: Wednesday, October 4, 2006

News & Product Updates

Desire2Learn Strikes Back

Desire2Learn has filed a response to Blackboard’s infringement suit. They claim that the patent is invalid because Blackboard knowingly refrained from disclosing relevant prior art (including software they had purchased such as Prometheus and previous standards work done through the IMS).

The company basically calls for that immediate dismissal, payment of their legal fees by Blackboard, and also opens the door for possible punitive damages...

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States Offer One-Stop Shop for College Aps

Georgia is now among about 35 states with Web sites that serve as a one-stop shop for applying to state colleges and requesting financial aid. This one is called gacollege411.org and it is an effort by education officials to make college more accessible by demystifying the daunting task of applying to schools while helping students enroll within their borders. It is an idea that is gaining momentum in more states.

The $1.5 million site is modeled after a similar site in North Carolina, and has already registered more than 100,000 students and families in the past 18 months. The site includes free prep classes for the SAT college-entrance exam, applications to more than 100 colleges, virtual campus tours, and information on getting one of the state’s full-ride, lottery-funded scholarships...

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KSU Claims World’s Largest Course Podcasting Initiative

Kansas State University said it would convert 6,000 recorded classes to an enhanced podcast format this year, which it said would result in the largest educational podcast implementation ever. KSU students currently have access to several hundred lectures in podcast format, some converted from older recordings, and some being created automatically.

The school will continue to offer its students access to these and future class recordings on demand, either online or via MP3 players. The school will use its current podcasting vendor, Tegrity, to convert the lectures. Tegrity provides the university recordings of about 152 classes across campus each year, which it had been capturing automatically and making available via KSU’s in-house course management system.

When the school upgraded the service to include an automated podcasting module, it began to convert class recordings from previous semesters to an enhanced podcast format, indexed and enhanced with class slides and annotations. Bryan Vandiviere, Web presentation technology coordinator for KSU, said both students and faculty have taken to the technology. “And with so many students…already possessing iPods, this is a familiar and highly convenient way for them to receive and review their course content.”...

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Featured

  • abstract illustration of a glowing AI-themed bar graph on a dark digital background with circuit patterns

    Stanford 2025 AI Index Reveals Surge in Adoption, Investment, and Global Impact as Trust and Regulation Lag Behind

    Stanford University's Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) has released its AI Index Report 2025, measuring AI's diverse impacts over the past year.

  • modern college building with circuit and brain motifs

    Anthropic Launches Claude for Education

    Anthropic has announced a version of its Claude AI assistant tailored for higher education institutions. Claude for Education "gives academic institutions secure, reliable AI access for their entire community," the company said, to enable colleges and universities to develop and implement AI-enabled approaches across teaching, learning, and administration.

  • lightbulb

    Call for Speakers Now Open for Tech Tactics in Education: Overcoming Roadblocks to Innovation

    The annual virtual conference from the producers of Campus Technology and THE Journal will return on September 25, 2025, with a focus on emerging trends in cybersecurity, data privacy, AI implementation, IT leadership, building resilience, and more.

  • From Fire TV to Signage Stick: University of Utah's Digital Signage Evolution

    Jake Sorensen, who oversees sponsorship and advertising and Student Media in Auxiliary Business Development at the University of Utah, has navigated the digital signage landscape for nearly 15 years. He was managing hundreds of devices on campus that were incompatible with digital signage requirements and needed a solution that was reliable and lowered labor costs. The Amazon Signage Stick, specifically engineered for digital signage applications, gave him the stability and design functionality the University of Utah needed, along with the assurance of long-term support.