6.An LMS that Gathers Data from the Entire Ecosystem
Brightspace Autumn’15 release from software company D2L aims to solve some of the biggest challenges facing education–low engagement and high dropout rates–by enabling teachers to receive student learning data from across the learning ecosystem and interact with learners in a more mobile way. Instructors using Brightspace will receive real-time intelligence about their students’ learning activities on mobile devices, online or in class. “As education continues to evolve, D2L remains committed to reinventing its platform for the mobile-first, cloud-first world,” said John Baker, CEO of D2L. The company has also enhanced its analytics solution, Brightspace Insights™, and introduced The Learning Analytics Blueprint, comprised of a team of experts in change management, data governance, and data science that can help customers manage their analytics-driven education transformation. The Brightspace Autumn ‘15 release includes dozens of new features. For more information, visit here.
7.Student-Centric Mobile Products
A company with a theme this year’s theme was Cengage Learning and its “Recharge with Cengage Learning” which focused on best practices in implementing education technology and student involvement. The company promoted this theme by highlighting its expanded institutional offerings, including the company’s student-centric mobile products and the recent acquisition of the education technology company Learning Objects. The acquisition of Learning Objects—which aims to offer customized and adaptive learning programs and courses to higher education institutions through its content-agnostic digital learning environment and instructional design services—will help institutions create both competency-based and traditional online programs and courses integrating publisher content, open educational resources, faculty content and other ed tech vendors’ tools. Chief Technology Officer George Moore spoke to data-driven decision-making, with booth demos of the recently-launched MindTap Mobile and 4LTR Press Online. In addition, Learning Objects General Manager Derek Hamner and Chief Learning Officer Jon Mott, Ph.D., discussed how the company provides customizable learning solutions for institutions and publishing partners.
8.Online Collaboration to the Next Level
Citrix announced that Campbell Law School has standardized on Citrix for lecture capture/recording, hosting, online collaboration and file sharing. The campus says it supports the educational needs of its students, as well as the research and teaching demands of the faculty and staff due in large part to workflow and communications cloud technology through Citrix ShareFile, Podio and GoToMeeting products. For example, professors and students use Podio, a cloud-based collaboration tool, as a single, integrated environment to procure information in an accessible, integrated manner. Likewise, as Campbell Law offers students a flexible learning environment, GoToMeeting allows students to form group discussions and meetings from any location and device, as well as share notes, assignments and review work – all in a collaborative setting. “Legal technology is changing quickly and dramatically, and it’s critically important that we stay abreast of the changes,” said J. Rich Leonard, Dean, Campbell Law School. “Many of our students end up in solo firms or small firms. They’re looking for new and cutting-edge software that will let them do core legal work more effectively than they ever have before, but that will also let them run their business affairs, keep up with their accounts and stay in touch with their clients – all with an integrated system. In this vein, the Citrix solutions fit the bill.” Find out more here.
9.Turning Analytics into Action
Two large companies, Civitas Learning and Echo360 announced a partnership that aims to allow colleges and universities to create a more complete picture of student success on campus thanks to actionable analytics. Increasingly, higher ed institutions are using historic and predictive data to identify student challenges or opportunities to accelerate, intervene or inspire effectively, to improve learning and completion. Civitas Learning is using data science to build institution-specific predictive models for student intake, persistence and graduation. Many schools, however, lack real-time information about whether a student is engaged and learning in class. Echo360’s teaching and learning platform is used by over 3 million college students to take time-synched lecture notes, ask questions in class, review lectures, build study guides, flag confusing content, and collaborate with peers and faculty during and after class. Through the partnership, institutions will be able to integrate these classroom insights highlighted by Echo360 into Civitas Learning’s analytics ecosystem.
10.A Platform to Address Retention
Ellucian announced Howard University as a beta partner for Ellucian Pilot, the company’s student success tool to help improve institutional accountability, retention and student outcomes. Under this partnership, Howard University will use Ellucian Pilot to drive measurable student outcomes and help guide the product’s development. Ellucian Pilot, which can be implemented on-premise or in the cloud, allows institutions to address retention, accountability and success by providing a holistic view of each individual student’s experience. With Ellucian Pilot, institutions can share information about students without silos, across campus departments to deliver support. Ellucian Pilot uses the power of analytics and social engagement to intervene early with students if they’re struggling to meet standards. “Howard University is a beacon for Historically Black Colleges and Universities, as well as other like-minded institutions. It’s not just our goal to graduate students within four years, but to do so in a way that sets them up for success in careers and in life,” said Precious Smith, Deputy Director, Center for Academic Excellence at Howard University. “Ellucian Pilot allows us to wear our laurels as we prepare our current students to be service-driven leaders of the future.” For more information on the product, visit here.
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