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.
12/12/2007
Whether you're participating in digital media instruction personally or merely supporting visual arts programs on your campuses, you no doubt have Wacom tablets up near the top of the equipment list. They're integral in the production of digital art, and they're ubiquitous in all realms of professional creative work.
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.
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.
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.
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.
11/26/2007
Denton, TX-based eInstruction today signed a definitive agreement to acquire Interwrite Learning. Both companies develop classroom technologies for K-12 and higher education environments, including whiteboards and student response systems and software. The combined company will go by the name of eInstruction.
11/21/2007
The 2007 college football season is winding down, and while the last of the autumn leaves falls lazily from the trees in Charlottesville, VA, there's no slowdown for Erik Elvgren, senior producer and animator at the University of Virginia's Athletics Video Services Department (AVS).
11/14/2007
Researchers in MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have developed a new Web-based technology that's designed to take recorded classroom lectures to the next level. The technology, developed by a team led by MIT's Regina Barzilay and James Glass, provides search functionality for classroom video recordings. At present, the prototype only works with MIT's online lectures made available to the public through the university's OpenCourseWare initiative, but it may be made available to other institutions in the future.
11/7/2007
Students at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC, the only liberal arts university in the world for the deaf and hard of hearing, are benefiting from lecture capture software that includes closed captioning. That lets students view videos of lectures on demand, complete with text captions along the bottom of the screen.
11/7/2007
AV technology developer Advanced Media Design has started shipping a new model in its MediaPointe family of digital media recorders, the DMR210e, designed for capturing presentations and classroom lectures. The new model sports a DVD drive and updated design and supports up to 1,500 hours of recording time.
10/31/2007
Chat software (text or media-based) provides an excellent tool in supporting academic dialog (exchange), critical thinking, and knowledge building. The immediacy of the technology provides students with a direct connection with the instructor as well as other students. While chat software is usually used for "chatting," and, therefore, it has a relaxed and colloquial protocol, with a little thought and planning, it can also be used well to support instruction.
10/30/2007
HP has opened up its 2008 Technology for Teaching Grant program, offering $6 million to K-12 and higher education institutions in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. The initiative is aimed at efforts to improve education through the use of innovative uses of technology in the classroom, increase the number of underrepresented students on a path toward high-tech careers, and enhance student success in math, science and engineering.
10/25/2007
Apple has created a new suite of development resources tailored specifically for the iPhone. Dubbed the "iPhone Dev Center," the service provides a range of resources, including guidelines for optimizing Web apps for the iPhone, sample code, video tutorials, and other reference material.
10/24/2007
Audio and even video capture of lectures is becoming more common on college campuses, which post the material to their Web sites so that students can revisit a lecture after the fact. But Drexel University....
10/17/2007
University of California, Berkeley this began making its course lectures and special events freely available on YouTube. At present, this amounts to more than 300 hours of captured courses and events. The university said it will continue to expand the volume and range of videos it makes available to the public.
10/17/2007
Results from an initial study by a professor at Coppin State University in Baltimore indicate that class capture technology that allows students to view lectures online after the fact can improve course retention rates and grades. Chris Brittan-Powell, a psychology professor at Coppin State, developed the study to see whether using technology from Tegrity helped student grades and retention in his courses over a semester.
10/16/2007
Education technology developer Wimba has released Wimba Voice 5.2, an update to the company's audio module for its Collaboration Suite, which also includes Wimba Classroom, Wimba Create, and Wimba Pronto. The new version expands the tool's functionality and end-user features and enhances some existing features.
10/12/2007
Georgia Perimeter College in Atlanta has deployed a Web-based visual communications platform from Visix, AxisTV, to enhance messaging to students on four of its sites. The technology is being used to narrowcast messages to large-screen LCD displays in its Newton County, Clarkston, Decatur, and Dunwoody locations.
10/11/2007
Toshiba has begun shipping a new model in its lineup of combo projectors: the TLP-XC2000U, which combines an XGA LCD projector with an integrated, fold-out document camera.
10/11/2007
Hitachi Software Engineering America has debuted its new StarBoard FX 77 Duo, an interactive whiteboard that supports multiple simultaneous input. Targeted toward the education and presentation market, the whiteboard uses Hitachi Soft's StarBoard software to allow multiple users to interact with the device at the same time and to allow for gestural control of presentation materials.
10/10/2007
Earlier this year, three universities in the U.K. formed an alliance for collaborating on biological and biomedical sciences called the South West London Academic Network. Now the collaborative alliance is deploying technologies to deliver a series of courses that share resources between the three participating universities.
10/10/2007
Hitachi this week debuted a new projector for the education market, the CP-A100. The new 3LCD model is capable of projecting a 60-inch image from a range of 1.4 feet. So teaching class in the broom closet shouldn't be a problem anymore ... aside from the crowding.
10/4/2007
Education technology developer Tegrity has launched a new program for its flagship classroom recording system, Campus 2.0: free, semester-long trials for higher education institutions.
10/3/2007
Panasonic's Professional Display unit has launched two new plasma display bundles designed for classroom presentation. The bundles include one of two 10-series plasma displays and a cart with an optional 802.11 b/g wireless presentation module.