Trend Toward Self-Paced Online Classes

The Chronicle of Higher Education recently featured the article "Will Technology Kill the Academic Calendar?" which discusses the trend of some community colleges to offer classes that allow students to start and complete the course at any time and that consists of assignments without deadlines. The discussion includes whether this module is primarily financially driven and whether students' needs can really be met without a cohort and the structure of a traditional semester.

Captivate vs. Camtasia

I've used both Captivate and Camtasia for creating online library tutorials. I like them both I generally favor Captivate because it has a few more features. Michael Steeleworthy of the blog the zeds : library science did a recent post comparing the two tutorial creation softwares. His job is to make recommendation to other librarians concerning which software to use and, in this post, he makes a case for why he generally prefers Captivate.

Great Video Tutorial Resource

Khan Academy features a many short online video tutorials concerning a number of different topics, especially in the areas of math and science. This may be a good resource to point students to who need some extra help. Here's an example of an Algebra linear equations tutorial:

Too many choices and not enough time...

An interesting column in the New York Times that talks about yesterday's hot new commodities and what they still mean to online learning opportunities.

Blackboard news prompts blog notice

It's all the rage in the discussions today, so I thought I would let you know here. Blackboard has purchased Wimba and Elluminate, two competing synchronous learning environments. (Competing each other, not Blackboard.) Despite what Blackboard says, I would agree with those with whom I've talked that buying either Wimba or Elluminate would be a "strategic move"; to buy both is to play smackdown on smaller Blackboard competitors who have partnerships with the tools. Here's a few links to peruse

• Inside Higher Ed Piece
• Barry Dahl's blog
• Wimba Press Release