New York, NY and Austin, TX – (March 14, 2006) – Horizon Wimba announced today that the University of Texas System TeleCampus has selected its Live Classroom to integrate voice communications into selected online courses. The UT TeleCampus (UTTC) delivers quality interactive online education from the 15 member institutions that comprise the UT System and is serving more than 4,400 enrollments this semester.
UTTC chose Horizon Wimba’s Live Classroom after an extensive comparative analysis and evaluation of available virtual classroom and VoIP technologies which also included field testing with graduate students in a Master’s of Educational Technology classroom. Also, Live Classroom’s seamless integration with Blackboard satisfied an important requirement in the selection process, as online courses offered via the UT TeleCampus utilize the Blackboard course management system.
“Faculty are beginning to use synchronous events to provide social immediacy to online classrooms, but all such events must be non-mandatory and archived according to UTTC policy,” said Course Development and Technology Manager, Michael Anderson. “Because UTTC serves busy working professionals across multiple time zones, there must be flexibility for students to study where and when they can during the week without required synchronous activities. With Live Classroom, the instructors can add voice features without the added expense of telephone conferencing,” added UTTC Director Dr. Darcy Hardy.
Among the features UTTC required were compatibility with PC’s and Macs, chat and chat archives, application sharing, whiteboard and slides with annotation capability for all including math symbols, multiple presenters and hosting. Testing and evaluation also covered quizzing, login procedure, and ease-of-use in terms of navigating the user interface.
Feedback from the professor who conducted the live field test indicated he found the application sharing impressive and the course easier to facilitate. Students indicated they liked the yes/no question options with which they could respond without interrupting discussion, as well as seeing content and accessing archived interactions.
Dr. Sam Pan, instructor at UT Brownsville who led the live field test said, “Horizon Wimba’s Live Classroom allows me to provide just-in-time information and clarification. With the tool, I was able to facilitate the course a lot more easily than another course that semester with no synchronous interaction scheduled.”
All in all, the classroom feedback was very positive and web conferencing with Live Classroom will be integrated into additional classes within UTTC as faculty select to utilize the tool.
About UTTC
The UT TeleCampus (UTTC), operating at the University of Texas System administration level, works with all 15 System member institutions to build and deliver high-quality collaborative online courses, degree programs and support services. UTTC facilitates the delivery of more than 15 fully online academic programs offering dozens of degree and certificate options. UTTC also offers a growing catalog of online professional development courses, and an award-winning K-12 test readiness program. To learn more please access the UTTC website at: www.uttc.org