Friday marked the conclusion of the 2012 Educause annual conference in Denver, and Education Dive was there, learning about the latest disruptions and emerging trends in the worlds of higher education and IT. We sat down with numerous leaders, many of whom you will see showing up in our Ed Tech Talk interview series in the coming weeks.
Educause brought together 662 speakers, many of whom you can still find on the show's public webcasts. The show also has an archive of posters that were presented last week, and it's full of useful charts and assessments.
Whether you were on the ground in Denver, following the conference online or are just now catching up on what happened, we thought you might like a snapshot of the biggest news and announcements to come out of the show. So here's a quick recap by company (and in alphabetical order):
- AccessComputing, a project run by the department of computer science and engineering and the Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking, and Technology Center at the University of Washington, introduced a video, "IT Accessibility: What Campus Leaders Have to Say," discussing the importance of accessibility and understanding disability issues within campus IT departments.
- Blackboard Inc's team gave its corporate keynote presentation on Wednesday, and the company rolled out details about its cloud-based LMS resource Blackboard xpLor, which is in beta and scheduled to be available in Summer 2013. Additionally, Blackboard offered up some information about its refreshed, technology-agnostic consulting services, Blackboard Collaborate 12 features and Blackboard Learn 9.1 Service Pack 10.
- The Campus Computing Project's Kenneth C. Green presented on findings from his project's "2012 Campus Computing Survey," including results that show CIOs are more likely than presidents and chief academic officers to describe institutional investments in on-campus instruction and administrative information systems as “very effective.”
- Clay Shirky, a prominent writer and assistant professor at New York University, spoke in his keynote about limitations and issues of openness with MOOCs.
- CourseSmart, hot on the heels of announcing their e-textbook pilot project with Internet2 and Educause, announced CourseSmart Analytics, a new analytics program that will be used to measure student engagement and help institutions keeps up with how and if students are keeping up with digital course materials.
- Desire2Learn announced a handful of new features for its learning platform, including interoperability with Cisco's WebEx conferencing and collaboration software, as well as extra accessibility options through ReadSpeaker and Automatic Sync Technologies integration. More details are available in the press release.
- Echo360 announced its acquisition of Lecture Tools, Inc., in a move that should enable the company to from new digital lecture enhancement partnerships with colleges and universities.
- EdTech Magazine provided a lot of great Educause coverage, spotlighting the impact of mobile devices, optimization, and the evolving role of the CIO.
- Enterasys convened a panel, "The Social Campus and the Innovative CIO," to discuss the social role of CIOs in their campus communities.
- Fiberlink pushed to get some attention for its Maas360 services, which focus on secure mobile device management solutions with apps and support.
- Hobsons debuted its Web-based AppReview interface that will work with its ApplyYourself offerings to help schools manage applications from prospective students.
- Inside Higher Ed offered some solid Educause coverage, posting an assessment of the show floor and a list of takeaways, including cost factors, communications issues and partnership growth.
- Intelladon announced that they would partner with Citrix to fully integrate their learning management system with the Blackboard Learning Platform and Moodle Learning Management Systems, thanks to the help of GoToMeeting and GoToTraining.
- Jenzabar, Inc., unveiled Jenzabar Social, a service for managing Facebook accounts securely that Sarah Lawrence College has already adopted.l
- McGraw-Hill launched its Digital Learning Partnership Program, an expansion of its existing e-book pilot program that will expand its reach into new schools with the goal of improving access to its offerings and student performance. The company also marked milestones that it has reached with its McGraw-Hill LearnSmart study tool.
- Modo Labs released version 2.0 of its Mobile Campus Platform with new Courses and Registrar modules.
- Pearson premiered new features for its learning management system OpenClass with mobile apps and social media integration.
- Rave Mobile Safety announced Rave SafeCampus, a suite for campus safety and emergency management that is slated to be available in the first quarter of 2013.
- SEP Software attended its first Educause conference with a new SEP sesam release that has expanded functionality for Leopard, Snow Leopard, Lion and Mountain Lion, along with a direct plugin for NetApp.
- USEED took home the grand prize in Educause's business competition with its Kickstarter-style platform for startups on campuses.
- Weejot.com launched Weejot for Education, a service intended to get university students using its mobile app publishing service to foster interest in development.
Did you see anything at Educause that we missed? Send us an email to let us know.
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