Bb merger frenzy

Bb - ellumninate- Wimba - become one!

Blackboard (VLE)  announced this week a pair of acquisitions in the “synchronous learning and collaboration” software business - Elluminate Inc. and Wimba Inc. - for a combined $116 million in cash. 

The provider of enterprise software for the education market said the two companies combined provide services to more than 2,600 institutions in the K-12, higher education and professional education markets.

Wow, this is big news.  But is it good news or bad news?  That of course depends on your stance.  If you have Elluminate or Wimba already, could you be facing the support debacle that transpired after Blackboard took over WebCT a few years ago.   Not good, and I think Bb are stil suffering the fall out from that poorly managed merger.  Let's hope they've learned their lesson?

So where does that leave Bb now? In a very strong position I'd say. My take on it is that the corporate and education sectors  are using VLE's much less given the rise of web 2.0 apps and of course the rise of Moodle giant slayer. This fall in their bread and butter market and the impending explosion of live webinars would have certainly dented share dividends.  Corporate training budges are being routinely decimated in this economic climate, which now makes it a neccessity to use webinars (Connect Pro, Dimdim, Wimba and Elluminate, etc) to train many staff with them leaving their home or office. Mi££ions can be saved.

Of course those just wanting  Elluminate or Wimba as a stand alone product may face a price rise? Or those who need them to plug into other VLEs may be thwarted in the future - by being forced into using Bb just to get Ellumniate or Wimba? Who knows? Or will one of these tools go to leave just the best from Wimba & Elluminate, that would not be such a bad thing?

Uncertain times, but definitely a bold and visionary move by Bb to keep it's market share by investing in synchronous technology - now we (well most) have the bandwidth to exploit these tools.

BTW,  if you need an alternative webinar tool like DimDim.com , visit my page on all things webinars.

Tin eye

Just been told about this new "image plagiarism" tool : http://www.tineye.com/.  It helps you reverse search for an image. Useful also for catching up on the results of those Friday afternoon Photoshop tennis sessions (b3ta.com)

logisphere

Today I had a bit of fun "reviewing the new and; very funky logiech SPHERE webcam. Not the most technically indepth review, but as you can guess I liked it. Oh and BTW it was recorded using the simples Iflip video camrea. The face tracking function kinda works, if U don't dance around the office! Ideal for those webinars?

review of logitech sphere webcam from kevbrace on Vimeo.

Aggregated

I attended a lecture by Professor Phillip Long ( one author of the 2010 Horizon report) last week. Read the full story on a new Aston blog :  http://clipp.blogs.aston.ac.uk/2010/05/aggreagted/ -

Plenty of links to look at - and especially on sharing course material ( as he was one of the instigators of the MIT Open courseware initiative.

irubric & rcampus

After trawling through another of my regular Google Alerts on e-portfolios this link caught my eye.  It began as an interesting link to a web based tool to create a set of rubrics for assessing e-portoflios: called irubric . Very neat idea, for those just embarking on the use of assessed e-portfolios.  And for those (like me) who are not exactly sure what a rubric is :
 A rubric is a scoring tool that's generally used for subjective and authentic assessments. In subjective assessments, rubrics help create a certain level of objectivity. As a result, learners are more clear about the expectations prior to assessment and are clear about their areas of weakness and strength after the assessment. In authentic assessments (which are usually subjective), rubrics help educators communicate and assess levels of performance.

More on the above at URL: http://help.rcampus.com/index.php/Rubrics

• Which also reminds me of the rubric wiki (for digital story telling) developed by the CEAL team in Cheltenham - again this is a proven framework you can pick up and adapt for your own cohorts.

Moving on to Rcampus - from the above irubric pages, I noted that they host e-portfolios and courses (like a VLE) all for free :OD - why pay more?   Looks V good (at first glance)  For more info watch the vid : 

distance nursing

At last, a positive report on a real success story of how distance learning can really make a difference to education. Lead by the UK's most experienced distance learning organisation.  Take note all - distance learning actually works if well designed (using synchronous + asynchronous modes) and very well supported.

Read the full story.>>>>>>>>>>


"...The quality and consistency of support provided on distance-learning programmes is crucial to minimise dropout rates. On the OU nursing course, students are assigned a tutor for each module they take, while another supports individual students throughout their four-year period of study. OU-trained personal mentors, typically a registered nurse, support and assess students in the workplace.

"The workbooks direct your learning, but you got a tutorial every month by video link. We also met our tutor face-to-face once a month with the rest of the group," says O'May. "There were also phone tutorials, emails and online forums. It worked fantastically well."

From 2012, the OU will offer nursing degrees as part of the government's policy to make nursing training degree-standard. But entry criteria will remain the same so that healthcare workers seconded by their employers are still able to study for the degree."

LEAPing ahead

JISC have recently (March 2010) issued a new briefing paper outlining the latest advances in the LEAP2A standards.


"Leap2A is an open specification for transferring learner-owned information between different systems. e-Portfolio tools and systems are now widely used by learners to present evidence of learning, achievements and abilities for many purposes, including application for a job or university, assessment or professional accreditation. During their studies, these learners may invest significant time and effort in collecting, selecting, reflecting on and presenting the information included in their e-portfolios, so it is vital that their work doesn’t disappear or become unusable as learners move to another college, university or into the workplace."


Two large eportfolio platforms are already on board/helping to develop; Pebblepad and Mahara.


Read more and dload the paper....




while I'm on the subject of eportfolio's, there's a neat little PLE Vs VLE blog post (with commoncraft inspired video) by Steve wheeler (Plymouth Uni)