Wimba

Massey University is the nearest thing New Zealand has to a national university. It has nearly 41,000 students enrolled on three campuses, with 21,000 nationally and worldwide extramural students. Recently, Massey embarked on an aggressive and innovative plan to deliver online professional development via Wimba to lecturers at 14 geographically dispersed institutions across New Zealand. Additionally, the University’s extramural students, on whom the school depends for a substantial proportion of its operating revenue, were missing out on some aspects of their language learning experience—remote students felt that they weren’t getting enough practice for oral and listening exercises. But thanks to funding and by using resources more cleverly we felt using Wimba Voice was a good opportunity to connect everybody, humanise the experience, and gauge where people were with the programme.” The University also organised blocks of face-to-face study for these students that often involved the lecturer and/or the students traveling significant distances to meet; which meant time out of the office along with expenses for travel and accommodation. This was expensive both in terms of time and money—but is no longer the case with Wimba.

http://www.wimba.com/customers/customer-spotlights/massey_university_new_zealand_case_study

We are using Wimba for professional development and departmental meetings here at Salt Lake Community College.  I became the trainer in December after our other trainer took a position with BYU, and started off by introducing Wimba Live Classroom and Wimba Voice Tools during a powerpoint presentation at a faculty professional day.  (And if anyone wants a copy of that powerpoint please let me know.  There’s no sense in all of us re-inventing the wheel, so far as I’m concerned.) From there, I have been training faculty and staff who are delighted to use Wimba for meetings.  Currently the Small Business Development Centers (SBDC) which have offices on campuses around the state are using it for training; we have departments who are using it for meetings, and we had a sustainability meeting in Wimba that cut the need for travel from St. George, Utah to Salt Lake City for attendance. 

We have been delighted with the acceptance so far and I am in the process of putting together a report for the President of the college to let her know how we can implement Wimba in other money-saving ways.

I’d love to hear what other people are doing on their campuses.

Donna Mirabile
Assistant Application Administrator
Distance Education
Salt Lake Community College
4600 South Redwood Road
Salt Lake City, UT 84130
801-957-2641

Last year, I held a series of virtual luncheons for the faculty at Athens State University. Faculty were invited to login to Wimba Classroom from their home, office, or using a laptop at a local restaurant. Discussions mainly focused on DL technologies and some administrative issues.

I have also used Wimba Classroom to archive a demo of a particular feature in Blackboard and then shared the guest link to the archive with the instructional support staff at another college. They loved it and shared it with their own faculty.

Currently, I’m promoting a Google Group for instructional designers/technologists and DL administrators in the State of Alabama and hope to use Wimba Classroom to hold some “live” discussions in the future.