THE Journal — eLearning/Web
Xignite Unveils Web Service Mashup Platform
Xignite is offering subscribers an on demand service that lets users create custom business applications via a Web services mashup platform. The platform, called Xignite Splice, enables composite Web services applications to be built using a visual development environment.
(1/16/2008)
Tips for Using Chat as an Instructional Tool
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.
(1/16/2008)
Podcasting from the Seashore in Cape Cod
Every year fifth graders in the Dennis-Yarmouth Regional School District in South Yarmouth, MA spend five days at the seashore. For some, according to Lory Stewart, director of instructional technology, it's their first trip to the beach, in spite of the fact that they live on Cape Cod. Likewise, many have never been away from home, let alone for four nights.
(1/16/2008)
Web 2.0 in Education: Trends for 2008
While the technologies collectively known as Web 2.0 have penetrated the consumer sector rapidly over the last four years or so, the process has been much slower and more measured in education. There were some breakthroughs in 2007, with upward trends in the adoption--or at least availability--of Web 2.0 technologies in the areas of teacher professional development and supplemental instructional technologies, such as podcasting, streaming media, and blogging.
(1/16/2008)
New Free Platform Aims To Ease Sharing of Digital Collections
A new Web platform for publishing collections and exhibitions online got a nod of fame last week when it was referenced in The Washington Times profile of George Mason University's Center for History and New Media, which the paper called "at the forefront of the new wave of collecting history." The free, open-source platform is named Omeka, a Swahili word meaning "to display or lay out goods or wares; to speak out; to spread out; to unpack."
(1/15/2008)
K-12 Online Teaching Endorsements: Are They Needed?
According to the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (2007), "Research shows that the single most important school-related factor in raising student achievement is the quality of the teacher in the classroom. Today, in the era of high standards and increased accountability, boosting teacher quality is more crucial than ever before" (p. 4). The nature of the 21st-century classroom is rapidly changing. Online education in K-12, also called virtual schooling, is growing at about 30 percent annually (North American Council for Online Learning [NACOL], 2007). With this rise comes an increase in demand for experienced teachers to teach online, which adds another dimension to this issue of teacher quality.
(1/10/2008)
Smart Debuts Notebook 10; New Whiteboards Also Launched
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.
(1/9/2008)
Catching Bullying in the Web
Administrators at Beavercreek City Schools have always known the value of student safety, but it wasn't until recently that the Ohio-based district moved its system onto the Web in an automated format that allows it to closely monitor issues like bullying, accidents, and bad behavior.
(1/8/2008)
Panopto Makes Lecture Capture System Free for Educators
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...."
(1/8/2008)
GWT: Advanced AJAX Security
Billy Hoffman gave a talk on advanced AJAX security at the recent Google Web Toolkit (GWT) conference in San Francisco. Hoffman manages HP Security Labs, which was SPIDynamics until HP acquired it this year, along with Hoffman. He focuses on automated discovery of Web application vulnerabilities and Web crawling technologies.
(1/7/2008)
Teachers To Go Head to Head in Tabula Gaming Tournament at FETC
Educators this month will go head to head in a multi-player educational gaming tournament at the FETC 2008 conference in Florida. In the event, the "State Challenge Multiplayer Educational Games (MEG) Tournament," presented by Tabula Digita, competitors will represent their states in an effort to bring home a site license of Tabula's DimensionM Evolver Multiplayer gaming software.
(1/7/2008)
Scientific Learning To Buy Out Soliloquy
Scientific Learning Corp. has announced that it will acquire Soliloquy Learning from JTT Holdings. Both Scientific Learning and Soliloquy provide technology solutions for education. The acquisition will cost SLC about $11 million and is expected to be completed this month. (A definitive agreement to acquire the company was reached in late December.)
(1/3/2008)
Worksheet Magic Plus Adds Mac OS X, Vista Support
Gamco, a division of Siboney Learning Group, has released an update to its Worksheet Magic Plus software, a tool for teachers that allows them to create supplemental classroom materials, including puzzles, tests, and other materials. The release is the first of Gamco's titles to run on Vista and also offers Mac OS X support.
(1/3/2008)
Google Web Toolkit Gets Minor Update, Unofficial Leopard Build Released
Google has released Google Web Toolkit 1.4.61, a minor update to its open-source AJAX development environment. The company has also released an unofficial build for Mac OS X 10.5 ("Leopard").
(12/14/2007)
Premier Assistive Technology Launches Capture Software for Podcasts
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.
(12/14/2007)
Oregon High Schools Log On to Online Media
The Oregon Department of Education late last month signed on with the Monterey Institute for Technology and Education to receive course materials online, including podcasts, streaming video and audio, and textual materials. Through the deal, some 205 high schools in the state, representing about 125,000 high school students, now have access to the materials through the agency's servers and through HippoCampus.org.
(12/14/2007)
Flash Adds H.264 Playback Component
Adobe this week released an update to Flash CS3 Professional, it's Web application development environment. The latest version (9.0.2) adds a variety of new features to bring the application up to speed with current players. It's available now for Mac OS X and Windows. The company has also released an Update to Photoshop Lightroom, its RAW image editing and photo management software.
(12/14/2007)
Apple Updates Podcasting, Streaming Media Software
Apple has released updates to several of its applications, including its podcasting and audio production suite GarageBand and its streaming media suite QuickTime Broadcaster. Other updates released this week include QuickTime and Apple Java. All of the updates are relatively minor, adding security and bug fixes, although Broadcaster also includes performance improvements and support for additional formats and standards.
(12/14/2007)
Coding (and Consulting) Kid-style with Scratch
In the past, Karen Randall's classes at schools in St. Paul, MN have performed service projects that consisted of organizing a blood drive, selling toys to raise money for tsunami victims, and creating a brochure for a non-profit neighborhood organization.
(12/13/2007)
ProfCast Lecture Capture Software Adds Logging to Podcast Manager
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.
(12/12/2007)
Microsoft Rolls Out Office Live Workspace Beta
Microsoft has began a full rollout of the public beta of its Live Office Workspace. OLW, unveiled earlier this year, is a Web-based feature of Microsoft Office that allows for collaboration and sharing of documents. The technologies included in OLW have already been rolled into Microsoft's Live@edu, a portal, communications, and collaboration suite for education.
(12/11/2007)
Corpus Christi ISD Rolls Out eChalk Online Learning Environment
Following a pilot program begun two years ago, Corpus Christi Independent School District in Texas has signed on with eChalk to deploy its Online Learning environment to every school in the district and on Corpus Christi ISD's site. The move will allow the district to share information online with students and parents and extend classroom instruction, while also providing a forum in which teachers can collaborate.
(12/10/2007)
Streaming Media Renewed for Arkansas Schools
Through a recent agreement between Arkansas Educational Television Network and Discovery Education, schools in Arkansas will have access to Discovery streaming, a service that provides education-focused streaming multimedia content. The one-year deal renews an existing agreement, making the materials available to 1,358 school buildings in Arkansas, according to the companies.
(12/10/2007)
Educational Network Provides Free Environment for Course Content
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.
(12/6/2007)
Georgia District Adopts Gaming Suite for PreK
The Henry County School District in Georgia has brought educational gaming its its preK and special education students. This semester, the district purchased 21 copies of AT KidSystems' Cosmo's Learning Systems--a combination of hardware and software targeted toward 2- to 8-year-olds.
(12/5/2007)
