Wimba Classroom 5.2 Expands Classroom Capture Support, Adds MP3 Downloads
At the NECC 2008 conference in Texas this week, Wimba launched a new version of Wimba Classroom, the virtual classroom component of the company's Collaboration Suite. The new 5.2 release expands options for classroom capture and adds a variety of other functional and ease of use features.
Wimba Classroom is a virtual classroom that supports audio, video, application sharing, and other interactive features for online classroom environments. It's designed for pure online classes and blended learning situations and is targeted toward both student instruction and teacher professional development applications for both K-12 and post-secondary education.
The new version 5.2 expands some of the existing features from the previous incarnation of Wimba Classroom and also adds new enhancements. Some of the new features include:
- Integrated support for downloading MP3 files stored as classroom content;
- Support for more devices for classroom capture;
- New features for the whiteboarding toolkit, including highlighter and rectangle tools;
- New features for students taking over presentations (called "Presenter On-The-Fly");
- Enhanced user interface, including the ability to resize participant and chat areas; and
- An Analytics API tool for reporting on attendance and participation.
Wimba Classroom 5.2 is available now. It supports Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux. Further information is available here.
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About the author: David Nagel is the executive editor for 1105 Media's online education technology publications, including THE Journal and Campus Technology. He can be reached at dnagel@1105media.com.
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