April 2007 — eLearning
Print this articleClick here to receive your FREE subscription to T.H.E. Journal
A Virtual Treasure Trove
An Elluminating Technology
For ease of use that approaches magic, take a look at Elluminate Live. The program makes use of two-way audio, direct messaging, live video, closed captioning, user profiles, an interactive whiteboard, application sharing, breakout rooms, polling/quizzing, and file transfer—all in pursuit of real-time online learning and collaboration. The technology works in a computer lab, where each student has a PC and can use the program to collaborate with other students across the country to survey parents about their smoking habits. It works in a classroom, where the teacher can project a webinar onto an interactive whiteboard, and the class can discuss the Civil War with a historian, with the teacher relaying student questions to the host. It works in a conference room, where teachers can share strategies for teaching foreign language with their peers around the world. It works for users with low or high bandwidth— and it works in real time.
ON THE SAME PAGE: Today’s students can connect
with peers, teachers, and subject experts from all over.
And according to Rajeev Arora, Elluminate’s vice president of marketing and strategy, it isn’t complicated. He says a half hour’s training is all that’s needed to use the technology. Also, schools can choose to install the software or have the company host it.
Stan Silverman, director of technology at the New York Institute of Technology, says he uses the program “for everything….Every day is a new discovery of the application.” Silverman runs NYIT’s Technology Based Learning Systems, which supports online course activities for about 5,000 students and training for K-12 educators. The most requested training is for Elluminate Live. “When we do a demonstration, they go into shock,” he says. “[They say], ‘I never imagined the technology had matured to this level.’”
Silverman calls the program an “intellectual enabler.” He says it’s important not to merely plug what you’re doing into Elluminate Live; it’s critical to know the application’s capabilities and to make the most of them.
Access Granted
It’s become standard to use eLearning for visiting faraway places and talking with people who are often otherwise inaccessible. But how far can the technology be taken? How about using it to replace human activities entirely and do them faster or better? What about for, say, grading essays?
