Wimba

I was pleasantly awoken last night at 1:16am by Kathleen Matthews, our Director of Marketing Communications, who texted me the following message from the black-tie SIIA CODiE awards ceremony in San Francisco:

We won! Best Education Solution! (& last category of the entire awards ceremony).

Woohooo!  In the software industry, the CODiEs are the equivalent to the Oscars, Grammys, Emmys, or the Super Bowl, so we couldn’t be more ecstatic.  As a company that constantly prides itself on being 100% laser-focused on education, we’re certainly happy to have some affirmation.  So…

I’d first like to thank the eight CODiE judges who patiently sat through numerous demos of the entire Wimba Collaboration Suite.  They had to learn about Wimba Classroom, Wimba Create, Wimba Pronto, and Wimba Voice in a relatively short amount of time...but apparently they were blown away! 

Second, since I work with our customers every day, I’d like to thank all of our loyal and supportive users who have worked so closely with us for nearly a decade.  They’ve watched us grow and mature and have collectively become the most innovative institutions in the world when it comes to cutting-edge distance education.  Without our customers, we’d be nothing.   You’re the ones who find new and exciting ways every day to use the Wimba Collaboration Suite to increase engagement, improve outcomes, decrease costs, and increase revenue and retention rates. 

And finally, I want to thank our Engineering, Quality Assurance, and Product Development teams who actually make the countless components of the Wimba Collaboration Suite.  While our Marketing, Sales, Services/Support, and even Finance departments are the more visible departments of our company, our developers, testers, and product designers comprise the oft faceless engine of the company that keep things churning.  Without their unrivaled knowledge and dogged determination I wouldn’t be blogging about our CODiE victory today.  These guys don’t get enough recognition and their heads are usually too buried in millions of lines of code to look up.  So congrats, all...savor this one...it doesn’t get any better than this!

And to Carol Vallone and Barb Ross, our new acting CEO and COO, respectively,...looks like you’ve stepped into a great place! 

Now we patiently await for Kathleen to send us pictures from the ceremony (I promise I’ll post them soon...)

Woohoo!!!
Matt

Earlier today a colleague of mine sent out an email about preparing institutions in the event of a major swine flu outbreak.  This got us - and our customers - about what measures are already in place in case disaster strikes.  And I’m pleased that many schools have already thought ahead, and that they’re including  us as part of their plan.  From Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, disaster plans have been discussed and hatched thanks to being able to meet live online with Wimba Classroom and Wimba Pronto.  In fact, Chuck Wright of the University of Utah just made this great YouTube clip about the University of Utah could carry on if it had to close its campus. 

Earlier today, the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) just released its
2009 research report, Leadership for Web 2.0 in Education: Promise & Reality.  This report takes a thorough look at how Web 2.0 technologies influence and shape all facets of today’s K-12 schools.  And of course, several elements resonated with me, particularly with how they relate to Wimba.

First, CoSN reports that nearly three-quarters of respondents (superintendents and curriculum directors) said that Web 2.0 technologies had been a positive or highly positive force in student’s communication skills and the quality of their schoolwork.  Over 50% of those same administrators believe that Web 2.0 has had a positive impact on students’ interest in school, interests outside of school, self-direction in learning, sense of community and culture, peer relationships, relationships with parents and family, and homework habits. 

As a result, respondents feel that Web 2.0 tools help:
1.    Keep students interested and engaged in school
2.    Meet the needs of different kinds of learners
3.    Develop critical thinking skills
4.    Develop capabilities in students that can’t be acquired through traditional methods
5.    Provide alternative learning environments for students
6.    Extend learning beyond the school day
7.    Prepare students to be lifelong learners

Also, supporting the fact that Wimba Pronto is populated by and links to directly to a school’s existing course management system, over 60% of district administrators polled in the report believe that the use of Web 2.0 tools “should be limited to approved educational sites.”

Therefore, I couldn’t help but love how all of these findings support the rationale for adopting Wimba Pronto and the rest of the Wimba Collaboration Suite at K-12 schools.   The Suite is most comprehensive source of Web 2.0 and additional educational collaboration tools that help students learn in different ways.  Some students are visual learners, other are audible learners, and while some learn better in formal online settings, others need more informal instructional methods.  The Suite covers it all - and CoSN’s report definitely agrees.

Yesterday, Hollyanna White of Chattanooga State University and Kathrine Bailey of Austin Peay State University (TN) presented as part of our new ‘Brown Bag’ subset of the Wimba Distinguished Lecture Series.  While they both detailed how their respective institutions utilize the Wimba Collaboration Suite, what I thought was particularly remarkable was the sheer number of non-instructional uses of Wimba they’ve both found.  In addition to offering courses via Wimba, they’ve both truly considered the entire institution when planning on how to maximize online collaboration technology.  For example, Austin Peay alone uses Wimba for:

• Virtual Academic Support
• Faculty Training
• Presidential Listening Meetings
• Corporate Meetings
• Depositions
• Guest Speakers

In the latest online version of T.H.E. Journal, writer Dave Nagel explores a speech given at the FETC Virtual Conference & Expo by Steven L. Paine, state superintendent of schools for West Virginia.  According to Nagel, Paine noted that 21st-century learning is not an option; it’s a necessity for students who must go out and compete on a global level. “Students deserve it. The world demands it," Paine told the virtual audience, and to make it happen, he said that changes need to be made in the way K-12 institutions assess students and in the way teachers are developed. 

I thought this was particularly rousing for two reasons.  First, the fact that Paine was critical of himself and his own team in West Virginia was quite admirable.  As we know, change can only truly occur when one honestly assesses oneself.  It certainly appears that Paine has done just that and is now on the way to making necessary adjustments.   Second, the fact that Paine recognizes the imperative role that technology now plays was quite appealing.  While it’s easy to declare that technology is important, to have a specific understanding of why it’s important and what role it can play is the true test.  But I’m happy to report that West Virginia Virtual School is one of the leading technologically-based schools in the country, and even world-renowned West Virginia University utilizes Wimba not only for only classes, but even for recruiting students from all over the world as Rick Bebout explained last week during the Wimba Distinguished Lecture Series.

So my hat’s off to the folks thoughout West Virginia.  A little honesty and a critical look in the mirror can make quite a difference!

A few days ago my long-time friend and colleague here at Wimba, Mark Bevenour, met with a large group of educators in the Baltimore-Washington DC area on the campus of University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC).  He gathered several UMBC faculty, IT staffers, and instructional technologists for two hours to have open discussions about best practices of online collaborative learning - and it was all recorded and posted on YouTube.  All 2+ hours of best practices and real-life examples of using collaborative technology can be viewed here on YouTube.   Thank you so much, UMBC!

For the many of us who live up and down the eastern seaboard of the United States, we’re still busy shoveling out our cars and slogging our way through a foot of snow on the way to work and school while enduirng sub-freezing temperatures.  Yep, it’s been of those weeks ever since we got nailed by a huge snowstorm Sunday and Monday.  So while I sit here in my home office (ok, my living room) waiting for my landlord to come and check my radiators - as I write this I’m literally wearing a hooded jacket and a blanket - I stumbled upon a wonderful blog posting about some folks in South Carolina who used Wimba because they couldn’t make it to a conference due to inclement weather.  Even though so many of us now take web conferencing via Wimba Classroom for granted, we tend to forget its true breadth.  While many predominantly use Wimba Classroom to hold live online classes, office hours, or meetings, a few of the presenters at the  The Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education Conference beamed out their presentation so others not at the actual conference could attend virtually.  Great thinking!

Ok, now where is my landlord?...If only Wimba could also be used to heat a New York apartment!

I’m happy to announce that the Wimba Collaboration Suite has been named a finalist for the SIAA CODiE Awards in the category of Best Education Solution - Best Collaboration Solution.  We always like to crow about such good news!  According to SIIA President Ken Wasch, “The competition is particularly steep this year during the 24th Annual SIIA CODiE Awards, making selection as a CODiE Finalist a real achievement.” Wasch further added that “All the companies on this year’s list of CODiE Finalists should feel justifiably proud of their accomplishment in making it to this stage, and have much excitement to look forward to regarding the upcoming CODiE Awards voting!”

Wow, I think this may be only my second or third posting in 2009.  But I have an excuse, and the title of this posting explains it all.  The bottom line is that we’ve been heads-down here at Wimba since the start of the new year, as all departments are cranking out numerous projects. 

For example, our Marketing team here at Wimba has been busy prepping for Wimba Connect 2009, sending out numerous newsletters, and organizing/leading numerous regional webinars and Distinguished Lecture Series presentations.  Our Engineering and Product teams are working their tails off getting new products ready, and our Services folks have been cris-crossing the globe in order to train and implement the Wimba Collaboration Suite at K-12, further education, and higher education institutions worldwide.  Phew! 

Over the last few weeks we’ve been inundated with best-of-2008 lists as well as with what’s-ahead-in-2009 lists.  Well, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, so I just want to quickly point out an interesting tidbit from Inside Higher Ed’s list of 2009 predictions.  Among other prophecies, the writer, Lev Gonick of Case Western Reserve University, believes that video conferencing and web conferencing will play an important role inside the classroom this year.  What better way to connect students and faculty while reducing one’s carbon footprint, saving travel time and gas, and increasing enrollment and retention rates?  I agree with Lev 100%!  You can obviously learn more about online video conferencing via Wimba Classroom here.  Here’s an excerpt from Inside Higher Ed: Smile, Interactive High Definition Video Conferencing moves from the Board Room to the Research Lab and the Lecture Hall Facing budget pressures and public pressure to go green, corporations around the world are investing in next generation video conferencing. Moving operating dollars into infrastructure investments in this collaboration platform technology has led to significant reductions in travel costs, better space utilization, and a growing conscientiousness about carbon footprints. As businesses continue to look for capabilities to support global operations, video conferencing has become a daily part of many companies. The logic facing corporations now confront the university community. Over the past 18 months some public universities have been mandated to reduce their carbon footprints. Most everyone else is facing growing operating pressures pinching travel and other budget lines. New students care about pro-active green initiatives as part of their university experience. Over the next 12 months look for double digit growth in campus adoption of next generation video conferencing tools, including integrated collaboration technologies.

I once again want to thank Cory Stokes of the Utah Education Network, Diane Stonebrink of Estrella Mountain College (AZ), and Peter Lafford of Arizona State, each of whom gave wonderful accounts of their creative usage of Wimba during a presentation on Tuesday.

Diane talked about ESL instruction via Wimba Voice, Peter discussed language learning via Wimba Voice and even led the audience in a rousing rendition of the ASU fight song (he’s like a songbird), and Cory recounted the numerous ways that 15 colleges and 40 K-12 school districts in Utah use Wimba Classroom for everything from live classes to online meetings.  Cory perhaps made the most powerful statement of the 45-minute presentation when he mentioned how several autistic students better interact with their teachers now.

And on the non-instructional side of things, he told how the Blanding campus of the College of Eastern Utah - in very rural southeastern Utah - is saving a great deal of money because it no longer needs to have its staff drive 4-to-5 hours to get to meetings in Salt Lake City (which, of course, entails a 4-to-5 hour trip back and often an overnight stay).  He says that the savings Wimba has brought to that small branch campus has made Wimba a very compelling service to everyone throughout the state.  “The cost of a [Wimba] license saves the state more money than the cost of the license itself.”

I noticed that several of my recent blog postings have focused on our customers near our New York and Cambridge (UK) offices, so I don’t want our Western customers to feel left out.  In fact, there’s some remarkable stuff happening in the mountain states that everyone should know about.  On Tuesday, three of the leading instructional minds out West will co-present as part of the Wimba Distinguished Lecture Series as they give details about how their schools have been doing extremely creative things with Wimba.  Cory Stokes of the Utah Education Network will reveal how his team implemented Wimba at 15 higher education institutions and 40 school districts throughout Utah, Peter Lafford of Arizona State will discuss how he’s long used Wimba Voice for online language instruction, and Diane Stonebrink of the Estrella Mountain College will discuss English-As-A-Second Language (ESL) instruction via Wimba Voice.  The three of them are definitely some of the West’s heaviest hitters.  And this presentation will be even more exciting because Diane and Peter will both give longer presentations at Wimba Connect 2009 in April in Scottsdale - so this promises to whet your appetites.  Have a great weekend, everyone! Matt

If you’re a K-12 teacher, student, or parent and have opinions about technology can shape learning over the next decade, then Speak Up!  You have 17 more days until Speak Up, an annual national research project and survey facilitated by Project Tomorrow, will be available. 

The purpose of the Speak Up project is to:
-Collect and report the unfiltered feedback from students, parents and teachers on key educational issues.
-Use the data to stimulate local conversations. 
-Raise national awareness about the importance of including the viewpoints of students, parents, and teachers in the education dialogue.

So please, Speak Up now!

If you’re reading this entry, then you’ve obviously figured out that after five years we have a shiny new website here at Wimba!  Needless to say, we’re all quite ecstatic.  This new site is more clearly organized than its predecessor, is better laid-out and more visually appealing, and even features our brand new Wimba Connect Users Group, a replacement of HUG.  In fact, to encourage folks to join our new community group, we’re giving away an all-expense paid trip to Wimba Connect 2009, so you should definitely sign up now! 

Most importantly, this new website reflects tremendous teamwork here at Wimba.  Our website team worked across all departments and offices to ensure this new site would nicely reflect the diverse needs of our company, customers, and the entire education community.  It also reflects a significant milestone, as the last time we had a new website was back in 2003 when our company was quite different than it is today. 

So sit back, click around, and enjoy all the new resources we have to offer - and who knows, doing so just might land you in Scottsdale in April!

We even made a cake for our newborn site:

Our closing keynote speaker for Wimba Connect 2009, Mike Wesch, was just named as one of the four “2008 U.S. Professors of the Year” by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education and the Carnegie Foundation for Advancement of Teaching.  Wesch and his three fellow award recipients will be honored in Washington, D.C. today, as they were selected from a pool of nearly 300 professors from across the country.  Read the article in Inside Higher Ed.  I just want to take this time congratulate Mike and his fellow winners (Wei Chen, a professor of biomedical engineering a the University of Central Oklahoma; Jerusha Detweiler-Bedell, an associate professor of psychology at Lewis & Clark College; and Eugenia Paulus, a professor of chemistry at North Hennepin Community College).  Great job and keep inspiring!  ...and keep making those cool YouTube videos too.

Last Friday I was fortunate to have the opportunity to give a webinar as part of the United State Distance Learning Association’s (USDLA) Distance Learning Week.  I spoke about using collaboration software to save - to save time, money, retention rates, and even the planet.  I’m always amazed at the numerous ways educators throughout the world are helping save valuable resources by creatively using new technologies.  Click here if you want to view the archive of my presentation.  Reggie Smith of the USLDA was instrumental in this process - as was my colleague James Rutkowski - so I want to thank them both for their help.

Owls at EDUCAUSE 2008?!? Last week represented my 10th EDUCAUSE Conference, and as they rarely say, the 10th time is a charm.  Or in this case, was charming.  Despite the cool weather in Orlando, the conference heated up Tuesday evening at our customer reception at Margaritaville on Universal City Walk where we got to mingle for hours with numerous customers who have meant so much to us over the years.  And though we had a few breakfast presentations at very early hours, we were pleasantly surprised by how many folks dragged themselves out of bed to learn about our upcoming product development plans.  Thank you, you early risers!  In case anyone missed us while they were there, I at least hope they caught a glimpse - or a hug - of our Wimba Pronto mascot.  Watch a video of Yarly dancing at EDUCAUSE 2008 and read a great blog posting by a librarian who snapped a picture of her with our owl.  Hooray for the land of amusement parks and giant fuzzy animals!

We can safely say that Wall Street is a bit roller coaster-like right now.  After losing more than 1,300 points last week it rebounded for a record day yesterday (though it still didn’t get up to where it was last Tuesday afternoon).  And while we’re all hoping yesterday’s surge is indicative of good things to come, we one know thing for sure - we don’t know for sure what to expect.  Therefore, if you’re concerned about cutting a few costs, take a page from from the folks putting on the Illinois School Library Media Association fall conference.  They’ll be streaming several conference sessions via Wimba Classroom in the event that would-be attendees can’t scrounge up funding to get to the event.  Just another wise way of making its material more accessible and cost effective.

Earlier this year we gleefully announced that Dr. Cris Guenter of Califronia State University, Chico won the National Arts Educator of the Year award for her work with Wimba, and that Dr. Sam Slike and Pam Berman of Bloomsburg University won a distance learning award by the United State Distance Learning Association for their accessible classes with Wimba.  Now the list has grown.

Today we celebrate the achievements of the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) for its award-winning French Language Simulation Program. This innovative online course was recently awarded the European Award for Languages.

The course, titled “The Creation and Everyday running of a French SME [small-to-medium enterprise]—a French Language Simulation,” aims to promote language skills through a ‘learning by doing’ approach. Participants gain real-life skills in technology, communications and leadership, all while learning French. Wimba Voice(TM), our web-based application for vocal instruction, collaboration, coaching and assessment is central to the learning experience.

Congrats to the innovative folks at DIT!  Tres bien!

Here are pictures of Michèle Boisbourdin and her colleagues receiving the award!

Over the years I’ve heard serveral theories regarding the optimal length of a live online class.  Some believe it’s 5-minutes while others think half-a-day, so needless to say there is no one truth out there.  This brings me to an interesting blog posting by Paul Lowe, a photography lecturer at the London College of Communication.  He explores this notion of ideal length and concludes that 2-3 hours is optimal for his online classes for grad students, as he says it’s easier for them to schedule one long block of time per week than multiple shorter sessions.  Let the debate continue....

Our announcement of wind-powered Pronto has garnered attention throughout the world, and even royalty has noticed as well..well, kind of royalty.  The E-Learning Queen, one of the education industry’s leading bloggers, wrote this piece about using wind power to propel Wimba Pronto. 

Also, the Physics folks at the University of Western Ontario were lauded for their use of Wimba Classroom for holding live online tutorial sessions.

I’m pleased to let you know that we took our first step toward creating a new blog here at Wimba...a blog will allow me to grant guest authoring privileges to the education community.  Though I might be a bit selective at first as we get up to speed, I look forward to reading the musings of educators worldwide.  More to come soon....
Matt

It’s day #3 of our Wimba Pronto roadshow during which my colleague Kathleen Matthews and I are traveling to numerous Ivy Tech Community College campuses all throughout Indiana.  After meeting numerous IT folks, librarians, instructors and students in Bloomington and Terre Haute earlier this week, today found us at Ivy Tech’s Meridian campus in Indianapolis...and it also found us speaking to its local ABC news affiliate!  Our work at Ivy Tech prompted us to be the lead story on ABC 6’s afternoon and evening news, as the reporter told how Wimba Pronto is connecting students, faculty, and staff at an instant.  And of course, she also mentioned that Wimba Pronto is now eco-friendly, gone green as it’s now powered by wind power!  Watch the 2-minute ABC news clip here! From the road.... Matt

Wow!  Who would have guessed that the blogosphere - and even The Chronicle of Higher Education - would be buzzing over our 48-hour-old announcement that Wimba Pronto is now powered by wind?  Our wind-powered announcement has been picked up in blogs as varied as Arizonalog and Contexts Magazine, though they’re a bit more excited that professors can stay in touch with students at all hours.  I just want to thank everyone for all the wonderful feedback we’ve already received...we truly appreciate it!

Matt

We just gave Pronto a new twist ... twisting in the wind.  Earlier this morning we announced that Wimba Pronto™, our instant messaging platform designed exclusively for education, is now powered by wind energy.  In our latest approach to going green, we purchased renewable energy credits from eGreen certified Community Energy to subsidize the electricity consumption of the servers, routers, and other IT infrastructure that power Wimba Pronto. With Wimba Pronto already running at hundreds of academic institutions worldwide including Grand Rapids Community College, Ivy Tech Community College, University of Missouri–St. Louis, and all 11 public universities in the North Dakota University System, we’re excited that we’ve now given these schools yet another means of communicating in an informal, and now environmentally conscious, manner.

Beyond Pronto, hundreds of colleges and universities around the world reduce carbon emissions by using Wimba for their distance education programs, often reducing the need for students to travel to campus. In addition, students and faculty are able to save valuable travel time and gas money.  This has been seen at schools as varied as the University of Georgia (where by teaching 35 sessions online using Wimba it saved 2,328 gallons of gas and reduced carbon emissions by 5.7 tons in one semester), Midland Lutheran College in Nebraska (which launched an online program using Wimba Classroom to provide greater access to education for students who may not be able to afford today’s gas prices to travel to and from campus), and San Diego State University (where Psychology professor Mark Laumakis estimates that students in his Psych 101 course save in total $234 per class in gas costs by using Wimba for online learning).

And if you’re ever near the eastern border of Oregon and Washington like I was last week while on vacation, be sure to take a gander at the hundreds of windmills that line the mesa along the Columbia River...seeing so many windmills rising out of the rolling hills is quite a sight!  Enjoy new Wimba Pronto!

Like anyone, we enjoy seeing our name in the news.  Therefore I was particularly gratified when the second part of Florence Kizza’s piece about Wimba Pronto at Our Lady of the Lake University (San Antonio) came out today in the Greentree Gazette.  Kizza’s article nicely conveys the role that dedicated instructors and IT professionals play at their schools every day to ensure student success.  Our hats go off to the entire team at Our Lady of the Lake!

Also, yesterday we were featured in an episode of Rod’s Pulse Podcast.  The host, Rodney Murray, Ph.D., Thomas Jefferson University, has been conducting these podcasts for several years and we were happy that he took some time to interview us while we were at the BbWorld Conference last month in Las Vegas. 

This is inherently a difficult situation to address, so I’ll try to handle it as carefully as possible.  Last month, Our Lady of the Lake University (OLLU) in San Antonio, TX fell victim to a devastating fire which took out much of its technology infrastructure.  As a result, it’s been using our new Wimba Pronto ever since for much of its on-campus communication.  Obviously we don’t want to harp on this, but the good folks at OLLU have allowed us to tell their story, and earlier today The Chronicle of Higher Education wrote about it.  Additionally, the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) was featured today in an article by Campus Technology Magazine about how it’s utilizing Wimba to conduct virtual disaster preparedness meetings among its 14 universities.  Obviously these are tough things to think about and prepare for.  While we certainly hope our customers and colleagues don’t have the same misfortune as OLLU, we do hope they have OLLU’s same relentless spirit!