CollabrATEC

Viewpoint

By Ruth Reynard

• 04/29/09

What is amazing to me is that most classrooms and even some virtual learning spaces are still designed with a type of learning in mind that is constrained, fixed and teacher-driven. That is, most classrooms still suffer from what I call “the fireplace” syndrome in which something has to be fixed to a wall (a blackboard, a white board, a projection screen, a smart board, etc.) and usually fronted by some sort of teacher desk or podium.

This can also be the case virtually according to how the … Continue Reading

The FavorBoard is…

• know you’re going to miss class?  need class notes?
• looking for someone to help you with econ?
• want to organize a study group?
• need a ride home or to class?
• looking to organize an intramural soccer team?
• need tickets to tonight’s concert?
• looking for a summer internship?
• just want to meet some of your classmates?

GET HELP FROM YOUR PEERS!  POST ANYTHING!

For more information, visit http://www.campuslend.com/index.php.

Elluminate this week introduced a new software tool designed to provide educators and students with live, collaborative video capabilities.

The new Elluminate VCS offers real-time collaboration tools and interoperability with existing videoconferencing tools. The multipoint video solution is designed to allow academic institutions to “leverage large investments in legacy videoconferencing infrastructure by including desktop PCs,” according to Elluminate. “Primarily a software solution, Elluminate VCS requires a Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) server that operates exceptionally well on network speeds less than typical DSL connections and works with existing legacy H.323 infrastructure.”

The system offers … Continue Reading

• By Linda L Briggs
• 04/01/09 

If there’s a single most powerful benefit from using a collaborative software tool called ClassSpot, according to Stanford’s Menko Johnson, it’s this: It lets an instructor control multiple display screens in a classroom simply and cost-effectively. “That’s huge,” Johnson said. “Whenever you have a classroom beyond a single display, you enter a whole new environment of multiple computers displaying different things at the same time…. But how do you run this multimedia show without letting it take over the entire class?”

Johnson, who is currently an instructional designer and technologist at the … Continue Reading

University of Georgia Student Offers Inside Look at the 21st Century Campus

In science-fiction and fantasy books, seers and prognosticators usually are ancient men with white beards down to their knees. They wear cloaks. They carry scepters. Sometimes, they’re even wizards.

Andy Homrich, however, is … Continue Reading