What are social learning tools (Web 2.0) and how can we use them in teaching and learning? How can these tools help facilitate more effective communication, collaboration, and learning for students?

Dr. Nancy Rubin will explore the pedagogical uses of social media via the Campus Pack social learning platform in this free one-hour webinar. Areas of discovery include course wikis, blogs, journals, podcasts, personal learning environments, and community networks.   Click here to sign up!

With state of the art technology, intelligent deliverability, and expert eMarketing Advisors, Informz is your professional partner for total email marketing success. From campaign creation and targeting, to ongoing training, reporting, and support, you’ll have the tools and expertise you need to send the right message to the right people, at the right time.

Whether you are in admissions, alumni relations or development, email marketing allows Higher Ed institutions to build stronger relationships with current and prospective students, alumni, parents, faculty, friends and donors. With Informz, Colleges and Universities utilize email and other forms of online communication to nurture ongoing relationships with alumni and friends.

There’s been a fundamental change in how students learn about colleges, requiring a change in the way colleges and universities communicate. Informz offers you the best solution to help you engage prospects and their parents. Bottom line, you can recruit more cost-effectively than with traditional print-heavy techniques.

Check them out at www.informz.com

Three Rivers Systems Inc., the only provider of 100-percent Web-based administrative software systems built from the ground up exclusively for higher education, is the developer and service provider for CAMS®, the leading comprehensive academic management solution for colleges and universities.

Headquartered in St. Louis, the company has been delivering innovative technology-driven solutions to the educational community since 1985. It has a large established client base throughout the U.S. and a rapidly growing international presence with clients in North America, South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

CAMS Enterprise™, a Web-based, server-centric management system for higher education, is its flagship product. As the fastest system to implement, easiest to use and most cost-effective, it requires little or no client maintenance. Developed from the ground up with Microsoft Internet technologies, CAMS Enterprise is the only ERP solution that truly integrates its multiple stand-alone systems around a single database. This unique architecture allows CAMS Enterprise to support admissions, registration, financial aid, student services, fiscal management, fund-raising, alumni relations, course management and much more. All are completely integrated via a full suite of portals in one solution that ensures administrators, staff, faculty and students all work with real-time, accurate information. By uniting administrative and academic management, CAMS Enterprise is the only truly integrated system for managing the entire student life-cycle.

Visit them at www.threerivers-cams.com

Avenda System’s eTIPS Identity-aware NAC platform provides comprehensive access security that authenticates and authorizes users and endpoints onto wireless, wired and VPN networks for all markets; enterprises, education, retail, healthcare, government and more.

Built-in policy and rules engines, AAA – RADIUS and TACACS+ servers, 802.1X support, NAC and NAP support, Guest Access provisioning, and deployment and reporting tools are delivered in one easy to manage web accessible appliance. Supports most major releases of Windows, Linux, MAC OS X, AD, LDAP, and endpoint health check applications. Works in mixed network deployments consisting of equipment from all major vendors.
Visit them at http://www.avendasys.com/

Extensis is a software developer that allows creative workgroups and professionals to streamline their workflow and securely manage their digital assets and fonts. Extensis’ products include Universal Type Server for server-based font management, Suitcase for single-user font management and the Portfolio suite for digital asset management. Extensis was founded in 1993 and is based in Portland, Oregon, and the United Kingdom. Extensis is a division of Celartem Inc., which is wholly owned by Celartem Technology Inc., (Hercules: 4330). For additional information, visit www.extensis.com or call 1-800-796-9798.  

Portfolio Server is an affordable, easy to implement and market leading digital asset management and rich media delivery solution. Built on an open and modern platform, Portfolio Server centralizes and archives images, audio, video and document files, automates asset delivery, and ensures brand control for multi-channel marketing.

Universal Type Server is the world’s leading client/server font management solution for any size company. It allows font administrators to manage users and workgroups for compliance and consistency, as well as centrally store, update and control type libraries for ease, efficiency, and security.

BOSSCARS is a modular parking management system that directly integrates with Oracle®-based systems such as SunGard Banner® or PeopleSoft®. Designed specifically for colleges and universities, ours is the only system boasting direct, real-time integration with Campus/Student Information Systems.

Officers have easy access to accurate information on permits, citations, scofflaws, units on duty, appeals, and customers. BOSSCARS is highly customizable, and is available with handheld ticket writers, a web interface, payroll deduction, and more.

BOSSCARS is a highly adaptable system for:

• Web Interface
• Handheld Ticket Writers
• Payroll Deduction
• Online Payments
• Cash Drawer
• Lost & Found
• Key-Tracking
• Hearings
• Lottery
• Permit Fulfillment
• Event Management
• Parking Gates Interface-GATES (BOSSGATES)

Read about BOSSCARS here

At TopSchool, we believe there is a unique opportunity to provide educational institutions with an integrated, extensible, easy-to-manage and economical platform for Student Lifecycle Management delivered in a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) subscription model for the industry.

The company’s innovative; on-demand Student Lifecycle Management (SLM) system manages recruiting through retention and includes a customizable student portal, an easy-to-use Prospect Management (CRM) component and an intelligent reporting suite. TopSchool’s Saas model translates into quick and inexpensive implementation, easy configuration, no maintenance costs and no upgrade fee. TopSchool gives institutions the power to direct their own administrative tools so they can embrace growth opportunities.

Check them out here!

redLantern’s u.achieve™ (formerly known as DARwin) provides a dynamic and concise degree audit report allowing colleges and universities to take their students’ educational experiences to the next level. u.achieve provides an advising tool to educate students about an institution’s program requirements and explore alternate degree programs, allowing them to make intelligent decisions about their best path to graduation. u.achieve Benefits

Students
u.achieve provides students with accurate degree progress information, when and where they need it.

• Up-to-date, real-time degree progress
• Displays powerful interactive progress graphs
• Provides an online advising tool for graduation planning

Advisors
u.achieve provides advisors with an application that enables them to give students direction toward degree completion.

• Provides up-to-date, real-time information
• Enhances student/advisor relationships
• Displays accurate and consistent exceptions and transfer processing

Institutions
u.achieve provides institutions with a robust and flexible tool to help students graduate on time.

• Helps increase student retention through to graduation
• Reduces paperwork and allows for 100 percent automation
• Allows schools to generate analysis reports

u.achieve

Meeting demands, expanding capabilities

redLantern™ has developed an innovative software solution, u.direct™, (formerly known as Degree Completion Planner) that works as a powerful advising and planning tool to provide students with a clear path to meet their graduation goals. This interactive tool allows faculty and staff to build a template of courses that will fulfill requirements for degree programs offered at your institution. Students can view these templates and select the courses they want to take as they develop a detailed term-by-term, multi-year, academic course plan. Students and advisors can build multiple personalized degree plans with the easy-to-use drag and drop capabilities, allowing them to factor in all of the student’s degree interests.

Students

• Gives an interactive student plan builder, to layout a path to reach long-term and short-term goals
• Takes away the guess work for graduation requirements
• Provides course recommendations to complete remaining requirements

Advisors

• Provides consistent degree plans, resulting in efficient advising
• Offers an advising tool that will cross check with your degree audit
• Allows advisors to spend better-focused time with students

Institutions

• Furnishes your institution with a competitive edge to enhancing student experience
• Enhances graduation rates by providing the resources students need to complete their requirements
• Provides course recommendations to complete remaining requirements

www.redlanternu.com/udirect

Your recruitment approach can be as unique as the student body

The u.select portal provides access to data that helps you plan for recruitment campaigns, leverage education trends and track interest in programs, campus locations and more.

Maximize Your Investment

• Target a broad range of students with real-time information
• Highlight your campus on a community-driven student portal
• Connect your data with student education decisions
• Attract students from beyond your current reach

Monitor Student Action
Obtain access to a variety of statistics

• Number of accounts for your school
• Number of plans saved for your school
• Number of plans saved by your users
• Number of courses added
• Other statistics including pageviews, visits, demographics

www.transfer.org
www.redLanternU.com

A Visualizer is the most flexible presentation tool of our times. It can pick-up any kind of material (books, photos, 3-dimensional objects etc.) quickly and easily and provides a high resolution output signal for video/data projectors, monitors, interactive whiteboards or videoconferencing systems. 

Compared to rather “stiff” Power Point presentations, a presentation with a Visualizer is much more flexible and “alive” because anything can be displayed at any time, with no fixed order and without any advance preparation.

Real-time, live presentation: You can point, write, mark, zoom in and out and get different views and angles on an object. It is a true live-interaction tool.
A 3D scanner.

Benefits and uses include:

• Used in place of an overhead projector.
• Used in place of a whiteboard/chalkboard.
• Functions as a 3D Scanner
• Distance learning with its streaming functionality.
• Scanning 35mm slides.
• Can be used with a SMART Board.
• A video conferencing system.
• A room camera.
• A video recording device (AVI files)

Check them out here: http://www.wolfvision.com/wolf/basicinfo.html

In response to employers’ growing need for digitally literate workers and the corresponding need for educational institutions to prepare students with in demand, applied problem solving and technical skills, Educational Testing Service (ETS) and Certiport have developed the iCritical Thinking™ Certification powered by ETS.

The iCritical Thinking Certification features real-time, scenario-based tasks designed to measure a student’s ability to navigate, critically evaluate, and analyze the wealth of information available through digital technology. In just under an hour, test takers demonstrate the capability to accomplish everyday tasks by effectively incorporating and integrating technology such as:

Web Use – E-mail, Instant Messaging, Bulletin Board Postings, Browser Use and Search Engines
Database Management – Data Searches and File Management
Software – Word Processing, Spreadsheet, Presentations and Graphics

When incorporated successfully, the outcomes-based exam supports incoming student evaluation and placement, student ICT literacy assessment, and curriculum development and deployment decisions. The iCritical Thinking Certification is designed and suitable for students from grade 10 through college, as well as teachers, employers, the adult workforce, and those seeking employment.

The program will be available to Certiport testing centers in English; other language versions will become available in subsequent releases.

For more information about iCritical Thinking Certification exam powered by ETS, visit www.certiport.com/icriticalthinking.

WebCheckout is a browser-based resource scheduling and management system used in the education market for AV equipment, computers, media, and rooms. WebCheckout is a stand-alone system that integrates with central administrative systems and other WebCheckout modules such as Help Desk/Repair, Media Booking, Billing, and Control System Integration.  

Check them out here: http://www.webcheckout.net/

“it’s learning” is a global company providing an Individual Learning Platform tailored to meet the needs of educators.  With almost 2 million users and 3,000 schools and universities partnering with us, we enable a scalable system for advanced course management, online discussion, video-conferencing, Web2.0 applications, ePortfolio and mobile access.

Our Enterprise SaaS architecture ensures that our support services are available to help you reach your educational goals, not just learn which buttons to push.  When universities migrate from their legacy LMS to the “it’s learning” platform, they find that user enthusiasm sky-rockets and that faculty and students begin to engage in ways that truly enhance the educational process.

Click here to check them out

The rSmart Sakai Collaboration and Learning Environment (CLE) is the company’s fully packaged, tested and supported distribution of the open source Sakai software. Similar to the way RedHatTM distributes and supports the LinuxTM operating system, rSmart distributes and supports Sakai. The CLE provides a feature rich, fully scalable, enterprise ready software application that is unique in its ability to support teaching and learning, project collaboration, group interaction and ePortfolios.

The rSmart Sakai CLE comes preconfigured to support different types of online group sites, including: course sites, project sites and portfolio sites. Each site type contains a unique selection of roles and tools, designed to facilitate group interaction in the designated context. In addition, users have their own personal workspace in which to collect and organize their resources, maintain a personal calendar, web page or blog, and view aggregate information across all their group sites.

Learn more here!

Panopto CourseCast is a comprehensive knowledge capture solution that empowers faculty, instructional technologists and students to quickly and effectively capture and broadcast presentations, student notes and live events. With simple record and go functionality, direct integration with leading course management systems such as Blackboard and Moodle, and keyword search, Panopto is a simple and powerful end-to-end knowledge capture platform.

Check them out here!

Specifically designed with the needs of educators in mind, the PS660 works seamlessly with interactive whiteboards and connects via High-Speed USB 2.0.

Key features:

• High-Definition 1080p, UXGA, SXGA, and XGA
• 15x Optical Zoom
• One-touch video/audio recording and playback
• Built-in microphone
• SD card – accepts up to 32 GB
• Compatible with all interactive whiteboards (IWB)
• Time-lapse photography
• Automatic and manual slideshows
• HDMI out
• 2 VGA out
• 2 VGA in

Visit www.mylumens.com to check them out!

Codetalker provides “person to person” real time interpretation for Blackberry phones. With over 3,000 interpreters, the proprietary Codetalker supports over 175 languages, 24/7/365 anywhere on earth with cellular connectivity.No customer service intermediary asking for pin codes or account verifications (a critical waste of time in an emergency), simply click and connect directly to your requested interpreter. Use your speakerphone or public address system to engage a larger audience.

Check them out here!

MapleSim is the high-performance, multi-domain modeling and simulation tool. It combines an intuitive physical modeling environment with powerful symbolic techniques that generate model equations in symbolic form, helping teachers to quickly demonstrate the connection between concepts and the underlying mathematical theory.

Check them out here!

Maple is a technical computing software which contains a highly advanced symbolic computation engine, powerful numeric solvers and an intuitive technical document interface. Maple 13 includes completely new 3-D plotting facilities, powerful new learning and problem-solving tools, and additional resources to enable users to find answers to questions quickly. New plotting facilities include extensive annotation tools and fly-through animations, making 3-D plots more meaningful and easier to interpret.

Check them out here!

Atomic Learning’s 21st Century Skills Collection includes professional development resources and curriculum materials to empower educators to infuse 21st century skills into course materials. This collection includes:

• Teacher Assessment to gauge technology skill levels and provide prescriptive training paths
• 21st century skills concept training that explores terminology and how these skills relate to the models and frameworks that have been developed by other organizations
• Professional development projects discussing how 21st century skills can be integrated within the context of a specific subject and commonly taught topic.
• Workshops that cover Web 2.0, Seven Steps to a Flat Classroom, and much more.
• Tech Skills Student Assessment to measure a student’s ability to apply technology skills, an important part of being 21st century-ready.
• Tech Integration Projects for seamless integration, including teacher resources and assessment rubrics.
• Full access to all tutorials and training included in the Technology Skills Collection.

Visit us today at www.AtomicLearning.com/highed.

DyKnow Software Suite

The DyKnow Software Suite, which includes DyKnow Vision® and DyKnow Monitor®, helps educators maximize class time, gather student feedback, foster collaborative learning and promote effective studying with student response tools, class capture, content delivery, collaborative learning and anytime-anywhere accessibility.

DyKnow Vision is an instructional tool that allows educators to instantly transmit content to students computers for annotation, broadcast a student’s screen and even empower students to lead class or share work from their seats. Educators can use Vision’s Polling tool to gather immediate feedback and gauge student knowledge. DyKnow notes and audio can be saved for replay and review – anytime-anywhere. DyKnow Monitor allows educators to minimize electronic distraction and foster responsible computer use by blocking non-curricular applications and URLs, locking the keyboards and mice on student computers and even taking remote control of a student’s workstation.

DyKnow software’s unique design allows for central server management and bandwidth optimization, in turn reducing administrative requirements while allowing hundreds of computers to be connected in wired and wireless computing environments. The software works on laptops, Tablet PCs, desktops, netbooks and interactive whiteboards.

Visit www.DyKnow.com/highed to watch videos from schools using DyKnow software.

MAX EX:

The MAX EX and MAXAttach EX analog conference phones provide premium, full-duplex audio with unmatched expansion capabilities.  Integrating ClearOne’s professional audio technology HDConference, MAX EX brings you unbelievable clarity, unique expandability, and incredible ease of use. MAX EX is the solution for small conference rooms as a single unit, and also covers medium to large conference rooms as an expanded system. You can daisy chain up to four phone units complete with microphones, loudspeakers and controls for unrivaled room coverage, flexibility and control.

For more information visit the website.

CHAT 150

The CHAT 150 USB connects to PCs for rich, full-duplex audio communications and can be used with VoIP softphones, web collaboration applications, instant messaging and any other application requiring high quality two-way audio. The CHAT 150 provides full-duplex capability and contains HDConference, ClearOne’s suite of audio technologies developed for professional conferencing systems, including echo cancellation, noise reduction, adaptive modeling and automatic level controls.

For more information visit the website.

Chat 50:

The CHAT 50 personal speakerphone is a high quality audio peripheral that connects to a wide variety of devices and provides crystal-clear, hands-free audio communications. The CHAT 50 provides unmatched full-duplex capability and contains HDConference, ClearOne’s suite of audio technologies developed for professional conferencing systems, including echo cancellation, noise reduction, adaptive modeling and automatic level controls.

For more information visit the website.

EQUELLA is a Digital Repository that incorporates Learning Objects, Learning Content Management and integrated Content Authoring.  EQUELLA integrates with popular course management systems and has been implemented worldwide within a variety of Universities, Community Colleges, State-bases school systems, corporate and Government institutions.  EQUELLA is the principal offering of The Learning Edge North America. For more information visit the website

Camtasia Relay software is lecture capture, streamlined. Record lectures from a Mac or PC in a classroom, office, conference room…anywhere.  Automatically publish for all to view on the web or mobile device. No technical decisions for professors, all the heavy lifting is done at a central server.

For the professor: The recording process is as easy as click to start recording, click to stop, and click one more time to submit the recording to the server. Shortly after, happy students are watching in the format that works for them. Camtasia Relay takes care of the details so you can focus on your lecture.

For the IT department: With features like LDAP authentication, on-demand recording, automatic email notifications, and flexible encoding and publishing settings, Camtasia Relay makes lecture capture easier than ever. Plus, Camtasia Relay runs securely on your existing networks, Windows servers, Macs and PCs.

Simple recording and delivery is here… from presenter to viewer with no manual steps in between! Empower students with the ability to stop, rewind, and replay lectures.

For more information visit the website

Digital Signage Software

Since 1991, Omnivex digital signage software has been implemented by educational institutions around the world to effectively communicate with staff and students.  The software manages all aspects of digital signage networks, including content creation and management, acquisition and distribution of real-time data from multiple sources, and monitoring and controlling remote hardware devices. In addition, the software can tie into emergency response mechanisms (such as fire detection systems) to automatically display local or campus-wide security messages.

For more information visit the website

Hitachi ID Management Suite is a complete identity and access management solution that enables organizations to more securely and efficiently manage the user life cycle across enterprise applications and systems.

Hitachi ID Management Suite combines the power of Hitachi ID Systems technologies, Hitachi ID Identity Manager for user provisioning and Hitachi ID Password Manager for password management with more targeted products including Hitachi ID Group Manager  to manage user access rights, Hitachi ID Access Certifierto review user rights and clean up stale privileges and Hitachi ID Privileged Password Manager to securely manage privileged passwords.

eBridge Solutions is a web-based document management company that allows colleges and universities to store paper and electronic student, facility and employee files together online in an organized manner.

Use up to seven (7) index values to classify records by things like Last Name, First Name, School Year, Program and Document Type. Save time and money by making documents available to unlimited users from any computer with Internet access. Eliminate file cabinets and off-site storage. Increase compliance and service levels.

Visit www.eBridgeSolutions.com today for more information.

Historically, software deployment required a significant investment due to the time it takes IT to individually image machines with new software, updates, and patches.  InstallFree  delivers a cost effective solution by way of Application Virtualization.

InstallFree provides application virtualization software that lowers the cost and complexity of managing applications, while increasing their portability and compatibility.

The best part? InstallFree utilizes your current infrastructure and can be run on a completely locked down PC, giving users control while keeping the machine clean.

InstallFree encapsulates applications in a clean environment, and delivers them to users via the InstallFree Bridge.  Users get their virtually applications streamed to them upon logging in; each application is locally processed and runs as if it were natively installed, ensuring a seamless user experience.

Check them out here

Today’s e-learner expects more than plain looking, text-only content.  Online students learn best when they interact with their coursework through interactive content, videos, pictures and sound.

SoftChalk provides the ultimate ‘mash-up’ solution that allows instructors to easily create engaging, interactive, and professional looking content for the digital learner. Lesson content includes learning activities, quizzes, and text annotations that reinforce student learning, as well as the ability to seamlessly integrate digital media.  Instructors create lessons that can be packaged for delivery in any learning management system, on a file or web server or CD-ROM.

Check them out here!

It has since expanded to provide credential management and delivery services for educational program applicants, job seekers, colleges and universities, and centralized application services. With the launch of its innovative portfolio product in 2009, Interfolio now offers a rich, multimedia enabled Web presence for professionals and academics who wish to showcase their life’s work.

Check them out here!

The software allows you to manage not only student records but also administrative departments into a single database. The software is also extremely flexible and therefore can accommodate schools of any size. The system not only easily creates a single database of data but also has flexible data mining and reporting capabilities, allowing easy navigation.

The software can integrate the following activities:

• Admissions
• Student billing
• Payroll
• Records/Registration
• Financial Aid
• Campus Security
• Student Housing
• Degree Audits

Click here to take a closer look

The laptop was constructed with premium magnesium, strong metal hinges and long lasting paint finishes, making it more durable than ever.

It also offers a broad range of security and data protection options that can easily be integrated into the computer. These features will ensure that all your important data will be kept for your eyes only.

Other features include:

* Back up Lighting
* Multi-factor authentication system
* Extended battery service
* Laptop tracking devices
* Precision turn key board

Click here to take a closer look