eLearning eVolution

My last post talked about the rising cost of fuel driving (pun intended) a significant rise in online class enrollments. Here’s something else for academic institutions looking to save big time on gas to consider: the virtual field trip.

For example:

- Florida Virtual School uses Elluminate Live! for virtual field trips, like “visiting” the Grand Canyon using Google Earth, connecting with a class in England to hear a speaker from Parliment, and sending streaming video of a trip to a zoo to those students who couldn’t attend in person. Learn more.

- Tom Moncrief from Union County Public Schools uses Elluminate vRoom to take his students on virtual field trips to interview the cast of the musical Rent or view a laparascopic surgery and talk to the surgeon. Learn more. Plus here’s an article about another virtual field trip organized by Moncrief during which some fifth-grade students got some face time with NASA engineers.

So where do you want to take your class today? I guess the answer is that you’re only limited by your imagination. But you sure don’t have to be limited by the cost of gas.

- Beth, Elluminate Goddess of Communication

Lots of buzz these days about saving gas by attending classes online. According to The New York Times, 79% of the nation’s 15 million college students live off campus. So it’s not surprising that higher gas prices lead to higher online enrollments. Some schools are reporting increases of 100% or even more. Get the whole story.

So with no end in sight to rising prices at the pump, it seems likely this trend will continue. To those who complain that they don’t get the same benefit from an online class, some schools are blending online and onsite classes, where students attend face-to-face only one night a week instead of three, for example. Something else to consider is to keep the interaction of the traditional classrom going by including synchronous content with existing asynchronous distance learning. That’s where Elluminate comes in.

According to Don Carter, director of the eLearning Center at Northern Arizona University, the school integrated Elluminate Live! into Blackboard Vista 4 so that it would appear as one more tool in the course management system. Don says the biggest advantage is that the Elluminate sessions can be scheduled, accessed, and managed for enrollment, all within the CMS. And since all courses at NAU have a Bb Vista shell, this allows any course to have a simple and direct means for accessing the Elluminate collaboration environment.

If you want to know more about what Don’s up to at NAU, click here. To learn more about Elluminate’s intelligent integration solutions, click here.

- Beth, Elluminate Goddess of Communication

In today’s world of public relations, blogging, podcasting, and multimedia is where it’s at. While Elluminate and our new Elluminate Learning Suite received some much appreciated traditional media coverage, we also want to highlight some not-so-traditional recognition.

We’ve always been very proud of the awards we’ve received. But here’s a first! Susan Nash Smith, the eLearning Queen, has bestowed us with one of the inaugural Corgie Big Bark Awards that recognize innovations in eLearning. Bow WOW!

- In The Royal Treatment: Education Product Reviews and Interviews, Ken Royal presents a You Tube video with our own Gary Dietz demoing Elluminate Plan! at NECC 2008.

- Rod Murray of Thomas Jefferson University interviews Gary about our flagship Elluminate Live! products and our new Elluminate Next> bundle on Rod’s Pulse Podcast.

As you can see, the classroom is not the only thing going virtual!

- Beth, Elluminate Goddess of Communication

Well, NECC 2008 is over and by all accounts, our launch of the Elluminate Learning Suite is a resounding success! Why?

One reason, I believe, is that we are doing something quite unique. We have a comprehensive famliy of products that address live eLearning and collaboration, not just during the actual real-time, online session but before and after as well. We help you plan, and we help you publish. What a concept!

Second, we’ve also figured out how to help academic institutions facilitate adoption, even by those who are less-than-enthusiastic educational technology users. And we can intelligently connect with any LMS, CMS, or portal out there. We’re here to help – really.

Third, we have a full range of products from a free 3-seat virtual meeting to single-room environments for 10-200 partricipants to an enterprise-ready solution for thousands of users.

And last but not least, we have a great team of people who make it all happen! We actually believe in our mission of providing enabling technology that transforms teaching and learning on a global level.

Forgive me, but I am just feeling a bit celebratory today and really proud of my company.

- Beth, Elluminate Goddess of Communication