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Learning Apps/Tools

Which Technologies Will Shape Education in 2008?

2/1/2008

Mobile broadband, collaborative Web technologies, and mashups will all significantly impact education over the next five years, along with "grassroots" video, collective intelligence, and "social operating systems." This according to a new report released this week by the New Media Consortium and the Educause Learning Initiative, the 2008 Horizon Report.

Collaborative Computing at the University of Washington

1/30/2008

Perhaps more than anything else, the sight of a group of students clustered around a single computer screen, jostling for space and a better view, made Karalee Woody aware of the need for better collaborative computing tools at the University of Washington.

Panopto Beefs Up Free Lecture Capture Suite

1/30/2008

Education technology provider Panopto has released an update to its lecture capture and streaming tool, CourseCast. The latest version, CourseCast 1.5, adds several enhancements in the areas of lecture distribution, editing, and workflow. It remains free for educators through the Socrates Project, which provides access in exchange for participation in the software's ongoing development efforts.

Office 2003 SP3 To Be Pushed Out in February

1/30/2008

Don't want Office 2003 SP3 rolled out across your desktops next month? Then make sure you don't have Microsoft Update set to automatic.

IBM Debuts Web 2.0, Collaborative Technologies

1/29/2008

IBM has unveiled several new collaboration tools and Web 2.0 technologies, including IBM Lotus Mashups, a forthcoming commercial mashup maker designed to allow "non-technical users to easily create enterprise mashups." At the Lotusphere conference in Florida last Wednesday, the company also introduced new versions of Lotus Connections and Lotus Quickr, a rich collaboration tool.

iTunes U--Educators Do 'Cool Stuff' with Technology

1/24/2008

Speaking to a standing-room only crowd at FETC 2008 in Orlando, FL Thursday, presenters Ann Barron, James Welsh, James Takacs and Luis Perez--all from the University of South Florida (USF)--shared their insights on planning, producing, and administering the university's educational podcasts, hosted through Apple's service, iTunes U.

Digitization and DRM at Ball State

1/23/2008

A years-long project at Ball State University to digitize a huge range of content is using advanced encoding technology and digital rights management (DRM) to help manage and make available thousands of hours of content stored in its libraries. The university has also recently expanded its digital offerings to include high-definition TV.

S.A.T. Prep in Second Life: It's Social Once Again

1/23/2008

The Princeton Review already has its SAT LiveOnline courses, and Ohio University already has an island and an expert Second Life (SL) developer. Together, they are offering a series of SAT strategy sessions in a Second Life site within the Ohio University island at Second Life.

A New Social Context for Information

1/16/2008

Welcome to the first issue of a new Campus Technology e-newsletter, Web 2.0, pertinent to the times and to higher education. A term that grew in currency over the past three years, "Web 2.0" refers to the next generation of the Web, which we now have. This newsletter will capture the latest buzz about Web 2.0, suggest the implications of that buzz for higher education, and point toward interesting and useful Web 2.0 sites and functionalities for educators and students.

Podcasting and Education

1/16/2008

Is podcasting spreading like wildfire across campuses, or does it just seem like it? Can good podcasts on your school's site boost enrollment? How can educators get started in podcasting on a budget? What's the first rule to follow in considering whether or not to create a podcast?

Office 2008 for Mac Arrives

1/15/2008

At the Macworld Conference & Expo, Microsoft has officially released Office 2008 for Mac, the latest version of the company's ubiquitous office productivity suite. Office 2008 was originally supposed to have shipped last summer but instead arrives today in three versions, including a new education edition. The company is providing guided tours of the latest edition at the Macworld convention through Thursday.

Creating Life-Size Molecules in Second Life

1/9/2008

The debate continues over just how useful virtual worlds like Second Life are for educational purposes. We spoke with Drexel University's Jean-Claude Bradley, who is e-learning coordinator for the College of Arts and Sciences, and an associate professor of chemistry. Despite his initial skepticism, in 2007 Bradley helped establish Drexel's presence in Second Life, Drexel Island, and used Second Life last semester to augment portions of his Introduction to Organic Chemistry course. He has blogged extensively about his use of the medium. Here, he discusses the benefits--and drawbacks--of the much-discussed virtual world.

De-coupling Course Content Management from the LMS/CMS

1/9/2008

Sandy Schaeffer makes a call for higher education technology decision-makers to put pressure on the LMS vendor community to begin to un-bundle their products... with particular emphasis on greater flexibility in terms of content management.

Lombardi Accepts Mellon Award

1/9/2008

Julian Lombardi, the assistant VP for Academic Services and Technology at Duke University, accepted a prestigious award this past December for Duke of $100,000 from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, for leadership and development work in advancing the Croquet environment in open source.

Smart Debuts Notebook 10; New Whiteboards Also Launched

1/9/2008

Smart Technologies this week debuted a new full-version update of its Notebook collaborative learning software and also launched new interactive whiteboard systems. The new Notebook 10, which will make its first public appearance at the Macworld Conference and Expo next week in San Francisco, adds 30 new features for lesson creation and delivery.

Panopto Makes Lecture Capture System Free for Educators

1/8/2008

Rich Media software developer Panopto is making its CourseCast lecture-capture technology available free to qualified educational institutions, including K-12 schools, colleges, and universities. The software is being distributed though the company's new Socrates Project to provide free access in exchange for participation in "ongoing beta and developer programs aimed at continually enhancing the technology...."

Software Aids Collaborative Teaching and Learning at U Georgia

12/12/2007

Active, collaborative learning is a laudable goal in the classroom, but with individual students at computers throughout the room, it's not always easy to achieve.

The ePortfolio Hijacked

12/12/2007

The idea of the electronic portfolio in higher education in the US has transmuted from a focus on learning to a focus on accountability. Trent Batson hopes to clarify the difference between the terms "ePortfolio" and "assessment management system."

BSU Standardizes on Apple Hardware for Dual-Boot Initiative

12/11/2007

In the mixed computing environments common on university campuses, supporting multiple operating systems and myriad hardware configurations can be a nightmare for IT. In the past, one solution has been to go with a single platform. Great for IT. Not so great for users. But at Bemidji State University in Minnesota, they've come up with another solution....

ProfCast Lecture Capture Software Adds Logging to Podcast Manager

12/11/2007

ProfCast has released a new version of its eponymous software designed for capturing and distributing classroom lectures as enhanced podcasts. ProfCast 2.2.0pb4, a public beta of the presentation capture software, includes fixes and enhancements to previous 2.2 releases and is available now for Mac OS X.

Educational Network Provides Free Environment for Course Content

12/6/2007

ChitChat has launched a new online tool for educators. Dubbed the "Educational Network," the service provides free online hosting for class Web pages and multimedia content and allows educators to share materials with one another.

University of Pennsylvania Library Serves Up Live, Chat-Based Help

12/5/2007

Catering to the way students communicate, more and more university libraries are providing instant live chat services to users who need help while accessing the library over the Internet. For example, a chat screen may pop up when an online patron clicks on a Help tab from the library's main page. A librarian then corresponds via chat to answer the patron's question.

Oklahoma Consortium Adopts D2L for Higher Ed

12/4/2007

The Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education has adopted Desire2Learn as the learning management system for the Oklahoma Higher Education Consortium, a public higher education consortium that focuses on the selection and deployment of technologies to be used in Oklahoma's colleges and universities.

Wacom Expands Flagship Tablet Line

12/3/2007

Wacom today launched two additions to its flagship high-end tablet lineup, the Cintiq 12WX and the Cintiq 20 WSX. The new models expand the range of sizes available for the tablets, which integrate a display and pressure-sensitive interactive input for visual arts applications, delivering for the first time a Cintiq priced (barely) below $1,000.

PAT Launches Capture Software for Podcasts

12/3/2007

Premier Assistive Technology released Premier Presentation Capture software as a component of its Premier VideoCast Studio. The software is designed for recording classroom lectures and make them available as video and audio podcasts.