Here are some highlights:
- Major factors that have influenced eLearning are the Internet, globalization, and social networks.

- The education paradigm has evolved from institution centered to learner centered.

- Today’s students want to be empowered to learn the way they want to learn with a personalized experience.

- Learning has to be flexible, offering a physical classroom, asynchronous eLearning, and collaborative online learning, portable learning, and more.

- The eLearning technology adoption cycle is speeding up.

- To build a success flexible learning framework, you need three foundational elements: infrastructure that leverages computers and Internet, learning and social technologies for all students, and professional development to facilitate online teaching.

Take the time to listen to the entire session recording. You won’t be disappointed!

- Beth, Elluminate Goddess of Communication

The tips he passes on deal with planning, creating, practicing, delivering, recording, and getting feedback. Here are a couple of additional resources I’d like to add for getting the most out of your synchronous session.

- Elluminate Plan! enables you to create session content and script activities before the live session. Then during the session, you simply execute the plan to automate routine tasks. This enables you to concentrate on the interaction, which is the point of most live sessions. You can get a free 30-day trial of Plan! here.

- Elluminate Publish! enables you to create podcasts or standalone recordings of any Elluminate Live! session. So this gives you more ways to engage participants even after the fact. You can get a free 30-day trial here.

So the idea is to engage, empower, enlighten, and Elluminate. Sorry. Couldn’t resist.

- Beth, Elluminate Goddess of Communication

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

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

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

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

At Elluminate, we’ve made some additions and changes to our products that enable us to have something for everyone.

- New to the virtual classroom. Begin with Elluminate vRoom, our free, 3-person virtual room.

- Need more seats? Try one of our new single-room, entry-level products. Elluminate vOffice is a personal meeting room for 10 or more participants that starts at $999 for an annual license. Elluminate vClass is a classroom for up to 200 students, with customizable meeting/moderator names.

- Once you graduate to multiple rooms, there’s Elluminate Live!, which easily scales from department to campus to multiple institutions.

- The next step is Elluminte Next>, with new Elluminate Plan! for packaging content and activities before the live session and Elluminate Publish! for creating audio podcasts and standalone recordings from session recordings.

So there you have it. Not too big. Not too small. Just right. If Goldilocks was looking for live eLearning and web collaboration, I think she’d be pleased!

- Beth, Elluminate Goddess of Communication

Next stop: Elluminate Plan! and Elluminate Publish!
I talk to a lot of customers, and many want advice about how to promote and facilitate the use of live eLearning beyond those who enthusiastically embrace using new technology. For us, the answer was to develop Elluminate Plan! enabling instructors or course designers to organize content and activities before the Elluminate Live! session. Then during the live session, routine tasks, like starting the recording, advancing to the next slide, playing a multimedia file, or loading a quiz, are automated, so the instructor can focus on interacting with students. On an institutional level, even those less experienced online instructors can navigate the virtual classroom with confidence.

We also looked at what happens after the live session. Certainly, Elluminate Live! recordings can leverage content, but what if they could be more portable. Enter Elluminate Publish! allowing the creation of industry-standard podcasts and standalone recordings to use when not connected to the Internet. Now content is resuable and portable.

So there you have it: The Elluminate Learning Suite for planning, presenting, recording, and publishing plus the Elluminate Next> bundle, which combines Plan! and Publish! If you want to know more, here’s a few press releases and a Sneak Peek session recording. And you can try Publish! free for 30 days, too. Plan! is being formally launched at NECC 2008 at the end of June at which time a free 30-day trial for that product will also be available. So give ‘em a try.

We think we’re on to something here. Hope you think so too!

- Beth, Elluminate Goddess of Communication

We believe the “next big thing” in the real-time collaboration space is a solution that addresses an entire instructional cycle that includes the design, delivery, archival, distribution, and integration of interactive content and activities on a system-wide level. At the same time, this 21st Century eLearning solution must support communities of practice where experiences are shared, creativity is embraced, and innovative ideas are formed.

In the days and weeks that follow, I’ll be sharing what’s new at Elluminate with you. So stay tuned. We hope you’ll be as excited as we are about what we call EDU 2.0!

- Beth, Elluminate Goddess of Communication

And here’s the best part: there’s also a library of more than 40 recorded sessions on just about any topic you could think of, including:

- Online teaching in international contexts
- Use of whiteboards in synchronous online drop-in tutorials
- Using 3D virtual networks
- Problem-based learning in distance education
- Supporting collaboration and community development online
- Engagement through simulation

Take a look. I’m sure you’ll find something that interests you.

- Beth, Elluminate Goddess of Communication