Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

ReadSpeaker Announces Text-to-Speech Integration and Certified Partnership with Moodle, the World’s Largest Learning Platform

ReadSpeaker, the most trusted, independent digital voice and text-to-speech provider for educational institutions and innovative brands worldwide today announced that it is now a Certified Integration Partner with the world’s largest learning platform,  Moodle. With this partnership, students can listen to content on the Moodle LMS anywhere, any time and on any device and they can select from hundreds of different voices in over 50 languages.  Tweet this news.

As of September 1, ReadSpeaker’s accessibility and engagement tools are fully integrated into Moodle LMS, expanding learning opportunities for more than 200 million learners. ReadSpeaker is the first text-to-speech provider to become a Certified Integration Partner with Moodle. 

“Text to speech is a great equalizer and force multiplier for online learning, opening new and exciting pathways for engagement and mastery for millions of students, not just those needing accommodations,” said Roy Lindemann, Chief Marketing Officer for ReadSpeaker. “This partnership is extremely significant to the institutions and students we both serve, including those needing accommodations and those who simply want added capabilities to engage with learning materials.” …Read More

Moodlerooms CEO: Blackboard acquisition will expand open-source movement

Blackboard's share of the college LMS market has dropped in recent years.

Lou Pugliese, CEO of Moodlerooms, said Blackboard’s purchase of his company and another firm that hosts and supports the popular open-source learning management system (LMS) Moodle should be welcome news to educators who support the open-source movement over proprietary options because, finally, an open platform has the financial backing of a large company.

Blackboard, by far the largest LMS provider to U.S. colleges and universities, announced March 26 that the company had purchased two providers of the open-source Moodle LMS platform, Moodlerooms and Australia-based NetSpot.…Read More

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Teaching with Moodle: Tips for enhanced course design

Moodle sessions are popular at ed-tech conferences.
Moodle sessions are popular at ed-tech conferences.

Live ISTE Blog – My first ISTE session was Teaching Moodle:Tips for Enhanced Course Design. My goal in attending the session was to get some ideas on how to create better quizzes, better use of blocks, and just creating a strong online experience for Moodle users. Michelle was very informative and knowledgeable about the Moodle Platform, and was well versed in good course design.

Her main concept is creating courses that have a clear, consistent design, and are organized in a way in which your information is easy to find and understand. In thinking about my own course design, I still have many things to learn. The importance of presenting information that is clear to the user is critical. The individual topic descriptions need to be shorter, and I need to start using labels a bit more. I never made the connection that the topic descriptions go into the “jump to” navigation. By thinking of this, my students can easily access a topic that they need to in a much easier manner. When I need to go into more detail, I need to start using the label.…Read More

Vendors link e-textbook content with LMS software

CaféScribe eBooks are available online and on more than 850 college campuses.
CaféScribe eBooks are available online and used on more than 850 college campuses.

As digital textbooks become more common on higher-ed campuses, providers are making it easy for professors to share textbook notes and resources with students through their class learning management system (LMS) software. The latest provider to do so is Follett Higher Education Group, which announced May 19 that a new standards-based system would integrate its eBook material with popular sites such as Moodle, Sakai, and Blackboard.

Educators who use textbooks supplied by Follett’s CaféScribe, which also brings students together through social networking to form online study groups, can take detailed notes in the web-based format, pointing out the most important lessons to students and fellow faculty.…Read More

Microsoft creates Office plug-in for Moodle

Microsoft is releasing a free add-on that could make life easier for teachers, professors, and others who use the online educational system Moodle, CNET reports. The plug-in, which works with Office 2003 and Office 2007, allows users to save Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents directly to the open-source online service. It also allows users to edit directly in Office a document saved on Moodle, which is widely used in colleges and K-12 schools. Saving documents to Moodle from Office used to require up to eight steps, but the new add-on cuts that in half. Opening an Office document from Moodle is now a single step, said Jon Perera, general manager of Microsoft’s Educational Products Group.

The add-on helps those using the current version of Office for Windows PCs, but doesn’t help the many educational users on a Mac. Perera said Microsoft is evaluating how to support Moodle in Office 2010, which also includes browser-based Office Web Apps that run on both Macs and PCs…

Click here for the full story…Read More

How to grow campus technology amid shrinking resources

Baker led CSU Northridge's conversion to Gmail, which saved $160,000 annually.
Baker led CSU Northridge's conversion to Gmail, which saved $160,000 annually.

Being an IT official at a California university today requires a close look at any measures that can save the campus cash. But Hilary Baker, vice president for IT at California State University Northridge, has found ways to maintain—and even improve—technology services despite massive statewide budget cuts.

Baker, who came to the Northridge campus in 2006, said budget planning has taken on new significance during the country’s economic slump as university technology officials brace for a 5-percent budget cut this year and another 5-percent reduction next year.…Read More