eLearning eVolution

Hi there, Amber here,

During my first week at Elluminate I had a chance to speak with Dr. Scott Garrigan.

Dr. Garrigan is the Director of Professional Development with a non-profit organization called the Center for Advancing Partnerships in Education or CAPE, located in Pennsylvania. CAPE is involved in a dual enrollment program with schools and participating instructors to provide high school and college credit to students who wish to learn a new foreign language that may not be offered at their current institution. The list of languages available include: Japanese, Chinese, Russian and Arabic.

This was the first I had ever heard of a program like this existing. I think it is really exciting that communities like this are enhancing our educational system. My high school didn’t offer any programs similar to this, but I think it is a great idea!

CAPE is able to extend its learning capabilities to schools all across Pennsylvania. Some of their instructors are located as far out as California. CAPE makes use of Elluminate to create a virtual classroom and engage students. Here high school students may receive up to 3 course credits that can transfer with them to their college of choice. Talk about awesome. I think now is the perfect time to be a language student!

The organization began about 5 years ago. The programs were offered solely as non-credit enrichment programs. The only language available was Japanese. Fast forward to last year when the program had over 300 students learning Japanese in levels 1 through 4. The program looks to expand to a level 5 Japanese class, where students will be given the opportunity to take the A.P. test. This test will guarantee college credit no matter which institution they choose for higher education.

You can learn more about Dr. Scott Garrigan or the Center for Advancing Partnerships in Education by checking out their website. There you can find a long list of upcoming presentations and workshops. You can also check out recorded presentations and other cool videos in their gallery.

If I have sparked any curiosity with you about Elluminate explore the website at http://www.Elluminate.com, or you could set up your own free vRoom.

Well, that’s about all I have for you this time. Until next time bloggers….keep on bloggin’.

Amber

Hi everyone, Amber here,

As you may or may not know I have just recently joined the exciting Elluminate team as the Online Marketing Associate. Before I begin blogging about my experiences, I thought you may want to know a little more about me. I recently graduated from Endicott College in Beverly, MA, where I received a B.S. in Communications. During my four years with the school, I completed several full-time internships with some local TV stations. Yes, I did see my 15 minutes of fame, but it is fading just about as quickly as it came.

I have an interest in blogging and podcasting and thought it would be cool to blog about my experiences at my new job, especially about learning to use a new technology. I look forward to blogging with all of you!

Just in case you didn’t already know, Elluminate has its very own podcast feed! Here are a few different links you might want to check out:

• Podcast
• Center of Excellence
• vRoom Stories

Well, it’s August 1st. What better time to start a blog then at the beginning of a new month? I also picked today because I had my very first “Ah-Ha” moment here at Elluminate. Let me tell you about it.

To learn as much as I can about Elluminate’s web conferencing products, I have been participating in the live training sessions (free to everyone, by the way) available on Elluminate’s website. As I say, sometimes it’s best to learn by doing. I liken this experience with playing a new board game. Who really reads those pesky directions anyway? Sometimes you just have to wing it and jump right in. I really found this form of training accommodating, and not just for me. I can see how future educators should really learn about this format. How could you possibly expect your students to become familiar with it if you don’t really understand it yourself?

Ok, so back to my “Ah-Ha” moment. I was nearing the end of my training session (Part III for Moderators), when our online teacher Amanda brought us to a new screen and showed us how to add multimedia content. Super cool! I thought this could be a fun tool for my own use, but then it got me thinking.

With the recent buzz about self-created videos, the moderator could easily focus attention in a real-time session by showing a short video and guiding discussion about it. This could be accomplished by simply adding in a relevant video from a popular social video site. Or, even better, students could create their own Free vRoom session and publish it next to their own video on one of these sites. Then the students could join this vRoom at a specified time and discuss the video in real time! One of Elluminate’s key words is engage. And what better way to enagage than allowing students a new vehicle to discuss their own creations.

Well, just an idea. Anyhow, I’m out. Until next time bloggers….keep on bloggin’.

Amber