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Rich Media >> Get Rich Quick
7/22/2005
| INSIDE RICH MEDIA |
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| Will video enhance this lesson? D'es an audio file add anything other than bandwidth? By asking questions like these, Bloomsburg University educators get students to think critically about how to apply the technologies they’re learning, and how to apply those lessons to field experiences in their internships and beyond. |
“The way we do it, all learning activities are informed by this giant database of what someone needs to know,” Jemison explains. “When you take a step back and think about how we’re using this technology to make sure our people are qualified, I’m not sure we can get media richer than that.”
But there’s more. In addition to creating and distributing exams with the help of interactive technologies, UVM’s approach also uses rich media to make sure no one is cheating. Thanks to technology called Securexam from Software Secure (www.softwaresecure.com), the school administers Web-based exams in a secure environment that literally locks down all other computer functions until the test is complete.
In order to make sure students take exams in a controlled environment, test-taking students must report to proctored exam rooms and log on to their laptops. Securexam’s browser automatically populates part of the exam password, based on its encryption technology; for added security, the rest of the password is supplied by the proctor. The technology even facilitates off-site exams, too. Thanks to the lockdown browser approach, all that the students need in order to take the test outside of the college’s Burlington campus is a computer room and a proctor.
The final piece of UVM’s rich media puzzle comes in the form of SearchLX, a powerful search tool from Learning Objects (www.learningobjects.com). The tool enables students and faculty members alike to search all of the content in the Blackboard learning management system. Jemison bills it as a “stellar” review tool for students, giving them access to files in a variety of genres: written words, audio, video, and more. She notes that the review tool is particularly useful for some of the image-based disciplines such as histology and micropathology, both of which boast beautiful image sets.
In the case of surgery rotations, the tool also enables students to use their laptop or PDA to call up a video of a surgical procedure just seconds before they perform the actual procedure, learning as much through first-hand emulation as through plain old study.
“Given that we are a medical school, our faculty members are faced on a daily basis with innovations in revisiting science,” Jemison says. “Rich media allows for that kind of innovation by innovating itself, and by reassuring users that they’re getting even more than they possibly could under the old system.”
The Incubator
UVM’s rich media applications are blazing new trails in modern-day rich media
usage. And at
The Digital Arts Alliance, a consortium led by the Pearson Foundation that promotes digital arts in K-12 education, is expanding its membership with the addition of Fordham University. This follows on the heels of three other organizations joining the group back in July--the National Education Association (NEA) Foundation, the Foundation for Investor Education, and Employers For Education Excellence (E3). Opinions are mixed on what the new Payment Card Industry (PCI) DSS 1.2 standard will mean for security pros going forward. However, the mandate is clear: protect data. Research teams from six universities have been selected by NASA to become members of its Astrobiology Institute with the aim of exploring the "origins, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe." Teams were each awarded five-year grants, averaging $7 million each, according to NASA. Amazon announced Wednesday that it is conducting a private beta test of Microsoft's server products running on Amazon's hosted computing platform, which is called Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). Amazon expects to offer companies the ability to run their applications on EC2 using Microsoft Windows Server or Microsoft SQL Server sometime in the fall, according to an announcement issued by the company. Implementing a customer relationship management (CRM) solution can require "difficult or even painful behavioral challenges" for administrators in higher education, according to Nicole Engelbert, a lead analyst with research and analysis firm Datamonitor. "It means re-orienting yourself to your students. That can be tough, so you need to be ready for that." Here's a bit of trivia for your next high-tech happy hour: A "nog" (in addition to being a Christmas favorite) is a wooden block built into a masonry wall so that joinery structure can be nailed to it. For the founders of Piscataway, N.J.-based startup Bluenog this obscure bit of carpentry nomenclature was the perfect metaphor for an integrated software suite that includes a content management system (CMS), rich portal features and business intelligence (BI) capabilities.
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