McGraw-Hill Education tackles three of the biggest challenges facing colleges: Student preparation, retention and career readiness

McGraw-Hill Education, a learning science company, announced the formation of a new group that will partner with higher education institutions to spur innovation and change, tackling three of the biggest challenges they face: Improving student preparation for college, raising retention rates, and building students’ career readiness.

The new Enterprise & Services group builds upon the company’s success in supporting faculty and students at the classroom level through its trusted content, adaptive technology, data and analytics, and open ecosystem of products and services. It applies the company’s focus on outcomes, data and learning science to whole institutions, helping college leaders move the needle on preparation, retention and career readiness.

The need is especially acute as a majority of colleges struggle to retain and graduate students at high rates. For every 10 students that enter college, only seven will make it to sophomore year. Only six will graduate from four-year schools and three from two-year schools. Just two will find a job in a degree-related field.[1] At a time of rapid change and shrinking budgets, college leaders are under increasing pressure to improve these outcomes.…Read More

Sonic Foundry announces new Mediasite Catch solution to serve classrooms of all technical levels

Sonic Foundry, Inc., provider of video creation and management solutions, announced Mediasite Catch, a video capture software solution that is scalable, reliable and economical for classrooms not equipped with extensive audio/video capabilities.

“Sonic Foundry’s heritage is steeped in harnessing the power of video to transform today’s classrooms. With Mediasite Catch, we expand our comprehensive set of video capture and creation tools with a software solution for classrooms with limited technology,” said Gary Weis, CEO, Sonic Foundry. “Along with our other video capture solutions, Mediasite Catch helps customers scale their video deployments campus-wide more quickly and affordably.”

Mediasite Catch expands automation to classrooms with little to no audio/video capabilities and complements the existing Mediasite suite of content capture solutions.…Read More

Crestron transforms the classroom into a dynamic learning environment at EDUCAUSE 2016

Crestron is demonstrating “Technology for every space” at EDUCAUSE 2016, the annual conference bringing together IT professionals and technology providers across the higher education landscape.

Visitors to booth #1345 will experience how cutting-edge Crestron solutions transform classrooms into dynamic learning environments that are interactive, collaborative, and easy to use.

“We know the modern classroom is highly collaborative, and often doesn’t even involve a physical room at all,” said Roger Takacs, Director of Education Programs. “Crestron solutions empower educators and students in every learning space by making it easy to present, share, collaborate, and distribute content using any device.”…Read More

Learning gets personal with Brightspace Autumn16

D2L, a global learning technology provider, announced the Autumn16 release of Brightspace, its award-winning learning management system (LMS). Now, instructors will have new ways to personalize the learning experience and deploy tools for learners to collaborate, demonstrate knowledge, and showcase their employability and soft skills.

“Soft skills, such as presentation style, body language, and verbal communication are important to college and career readiness, according to the U.S. Department of Education. However, they are difficult to assess with traditional learning tools,” said Renny Monaghan, CMO of D2L.
“Brightspace Autumn16 offers new tools for learners to demonstrate their knowledge, relationships, and workplace readiness. Brightspace is the only major LMS on the market that offers broad video capabilities, including a dedicated video assessment tool, that are seamlessly integrated into the learning experience.”

Brightspace Autumn16 Makes Learning More Personal:
• With improved Intelligent Agents, instructors can automate the delivery of personalized, instant feedback to students at critical points in their learning. “Intelligent agents are a godsend. With over 1500 students in my subject, they have made such a difference to my ability to engage and communicate with each and every one of them. With so many students, it would be impossible to achieve the same level of interaction manually. Not only are students highly satisfied in my course (always above 90%) but they have helped increase our retention rate too,” said Jaclyn Boadbent, Senior Lecturer, Deakin University.
• New features have been added to Virtual Classroom, which connects and engages more learners, regardless of physical location. Earlier in 2016, D2L announced broad video capabilities in Brightspace, including Brightspace Capture (for Lecture Capture), video response in Discussions, and the recently announced Virtual Classroom. With this release, learners benefit from new capabilities within Virtual Classroom such as polling, file sharing, status icons, and advanced moderator settings.
• New Video Assignment is seamlessly integrated into Brightspace to help learners demonstrate both their knowledge and their soft skills. Powered by YouSeeU, one of the leading virtual classroom tools, Video Assignment makes it easy to add integrated video-based assessments to any course in Brightspace. With it, teachers can create and receive video-based evaluations that are embedded into any course alongside other learning materials. D2L also announces premium versions of Virtual Classroom and Video Assignment tools available at a discount until December 31, 2016.
• D2L continues to lead the industry with open standards and learning analytics with expanded support for additional open standards, more open APIs, and improvements to our analytics Data Hub.
• The Brightspace Daylight Experience is a new user experience built with a responsive web design so Brightspace can be used on any device. Autumn16 provides a curated library of beautiful images to be used by instructors as well as numerous other visual design enhancements. Plus, it’s faster for instructors to create a quiz and allow learners to choose when, where, and on what device they want to take it.…Read More

Barnes & Noble Education announces advanced OER courseware

Barnes & Noble Education, Inc., a contract operator of bookstores on college and university campuses across the United States and a provider of digital education services, announced the launch of Barnes & Noble Education Courseware to make it easier for faculty to use Open Educational Resources (OER).

The launch furthers the Company’s dedication to ensuring access to the most affordable course materials, and driving positive student outcomes at colleges and universities nationwide.

By building Courseware on a foundation of high quality OER, including OpenStax, Barnes & Noble Education has created quality digital course materials that will result in a significant reduction of cost for students, easier implementation for faculty, and ultimately result in better learning outcomes.…Read More

The lecture goes mobile: New app for iOS, Android, and Windows 10 Universal extends access to class content, generates new insights into student behavior

Echo360, at EDUCAUSE’s annual meeting, announced the roll out of a series of new mobile features designed to increase student engagement during class and extend access to course materials, including lecture playback, outside of class.

Using the new features, students can now view faculty-selected content, ask and respond to questions, and review lectures and course material 24/7 from their mobile device. At the same time, the technology generates valuable insights into student learning and engagement, helping to inform faculty decision-making and institutional research and analytics efforts.

A 2016 EDUCAUSE study found that almost all undergraduate students (96%) own a smartphone and over half (57%) own a tablet. 78% of students with a smartphone report using mobile devices in at least one of their courses, and a majority of students agreed technology increases their engagement in learning.…Read More

rSmart to showcase new features in OneCampus service discovery portal

rSmart is ready to take on EDUCAUSE 2016 and showcase the latest features in its flagship product, OneCampus, a service discovery portal. The conference, held in Anaheim, CA, October 25-28, brings together leading higher ed IT professionals demonstrating best practices as well as sharing ideas and effective processes with colleagues.

OneCampus, an Internet2 NET+ service offering, takes a fresh, new approach to organizing web-based campus services. Unlike traditional portals, OneCampus is a cloud-based platform with powerful APIs that allow popular campus programs such as a finance system, LMS, or SIS to push data to OneCampus.
OneCampus features a Google-like search, and ratings & reviews to effectively identify what services are most popular. For users, finding and discovering campus services has never been easier; OneCampus makes it simple to search for essential information with a mobile-friendly, highly intuitive, single sign-on platform. Users can now enjoy exciting features in their own OneCampus portal:

Alerts – Banner alerts provide administrators a quick and easy way to share urgent messages with all institutional users
Global Announcements – Administrators can communicate campus-wide updates or news feeds to all end users in a timely manner
Google Analytics Enhancements – More detailed usage data now sent to Google Analytics…Read More

Stunning report: Great Recession still lording over campus IT

Eight years after the beginning of the Great Recession, almost two-thirds (63 percent) of the CIOs and senior IT officers who participated in Campus Computing’s 2016 survey report that IT funding at their campus “has not fully recovered from the budget cuts experienced over the past four-six years.” And it’s this lack of recovery that’s currently affecting multiple IT issues, such as personnel, instruction, security…and a growing angst with analytics.

The Campus Computing Survey, which surveyed the IT departments of over 330 institutions, is an annual survey part of the Campus Computing Project—the largest continuing study of the role of computing, eLearning, and information technology in American higher education. The project’s national studies draw on qualitative and quantitative data aim to help inform campus IT leaders, college faculty and administrators, policy-makers, and others interested in a wide array of information technology planning and policy issues that affect colleges and universities.

The big takeaway from this year’s Campus Computing Survey? Budget cuts are still occurring in almost every type of institution across the country, and technology solutions that are receiving investments had better be worth the hype.…Read More

Dropbox and Blackboard partner to empower campus-wide cloud collaboration

Dropbox and Blackboard Inc. today announced a strategic partnership designed to make it easier for students and instructors to upload, share and collaborate on documents — increasing the productivity, security, and collaboration at universities around the world. The partnership, first of its kind for both companies, makes Dropbox Blackboard’s Premier Partner for collaboration, workflows, and storage.

Dropbox’s integration with Blackboard will enable students and instructors to use one of the most powerful cloud collaboration platforms in the world alongside the industry’s leading learning management system (LMS). Users will be able to easily and securely access content stored in Dropbox directly from Blackboard Learn. The seamless integration is designed to simplify access to course material, save instructors and students time, and support greater campuswide collaboration.

“Dropbox is already the collaboration tool of choice for more than 6,000 universities and institutions across the globe,” said Jason Katcher, Head of Education for Dropbox. “By enabling existing Dropbox workflows within Blackboard’s LMS, our partnership will make collaboration between the platforms even easier, while providing additional visibility for schools. Dropbox continues to focus on pursuing partnerships and integrations that make it the best place for instructors and students to get work done.”…Read More

Instructure announces general availability of Arc video platform that integrates with Canvas

Instructure (NYSE:INST), a leading software-as-a-service (SaaS) technology company and creator of the Bridge and Canvas learning management systems (LMS), today announced the release of Arc, the next-generation online video platform that enhances learning by turning one-way, passive video into inclusive, productive discussion.

Arc’s two-way video engages learners by transforming content from a statement into conversation. Unlike traditional video platforms, Arc engages students and instructors in both K–12 and higher education. Arc’s innovative interface lets learners and instructors engage and interact with video content in real time by commenting directly on the video timeline. Through this commenting feature, students can learn from each other’s insights as well as from the instructor’s direction and feedback, providing a rich community for students to learn from one another.

“It’s easy for many learners to be distracted while participating in video-based learning. Without understanding where students drop off, it’s difficult for instructors to know how to close the gap,” said Mitch Macfarlane, senior vice president of product and customer experience at Instructure. “Arc takes a uniquely interactive approach to video-based learning. By creating an active and collaborative learning experience, information retention for students is increased. Teachers can now see how students are interacting with their materials and can adjust to optimize the learning experience.”…Read More

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