Wimba Collaboration Suite Enhances Moodle Integration

• By David Nagel
• 11/03/08

Wimba recently announced that it's expanded its support for Moodle, the popular open source learning management system. The enhanced support is designed to make it easier to integrate the Wimba Collaboration Suite in Moodle environments and broaden the features available, including a new new voice-mail feature that instructors and students can use to talk (literally) about homework or other issues.

The Wimba Collaboration Suite includes four of Wimba's communications tools: Classroom (a virtual classroom environment); Pronto (an instant messaging and voice chat tool); Voice (a live audio tool); and Create (a utility for converting Word documents to LMS-friendly formats). Through its Moodle Module Integration, the Collaboration Suite can be accessed and used like any other tool within Moodle. With the latest update, Moodle 3.3 Module Integration, introduced last week, Wimba has added in several new workflow and feature enhancements.

These include:

• Integration with the Moodle 1.9 WYSIWYG editor that allows instructors to use voice content "anywhere the WYSIWIG editor is utilized";
• A voicemail feature for leaving voice messages via e-mail;
• An improved workflow for adding Wimba Voice activities to courses; and
• Support for adding Voice Boards, Voice E-mails, Voice Podcaster, and Voice Presentations to Moodle courses as blocks or activities.

"Through this new integration with Moodle we aim to help educators enhance teaching and learning, no matter what platform they use," said Steve Kann, Wimba co-founder and senior vice president of engineering, in a statement released last week. "We are committed to helping academic institutions provide rich, collaborative experiences and we believe this upgrade with Moodle is a testament to that."

Further information can be found here.