Virtual Courses Are Now Second Nature

With EDUCAUSE in full swing, Cisco is thrilled to announce the launch of a new Digital Education Platform – right from the show floor in Anaheim, California!

EDUCAUSE is the premiere technology event for higher ed, and we know that higher ed faculty, staff, and administrators are eager to adopt new technology that is simple, secure, and integrated to benefit today’s educators and learners. That’s why this new Digital Education Platform provides a simple and secure way to collaborate. This platform integrates both Cisco WebEx and Cisco Spark into existing Learning Management Systems (LMSs), which allows educators to schedule highly secure online classes right from within their own LMS. Instructors are now more likely to adopt these technologies and provide video in every class room to join together learners on campus or online. Students tools like Spark encourage conversations to continue outside of the classroom from within the LMS.

In fact, Georgia State University, Mercer University, and Utah State University have implemented this platform in the following ways:
• Accessing and sharing course material from the cloud
• Facilitating lessons virtually and remotely
• Downloading, viewing, and streaming recordings
• Managing attendance records
• Supporting recruitment and retention goals

During today’s breakout session at EDUCAUSE, administrators from these schools joined me to discuss how they are implementing virtual learning applications. Kevin Reeve, director of teaching and learning technology at Utah State, explained how adopting integrated technologies helped students complete their studies, “The reason we [use] Cisco’s WebEx in addition to TelePresence [is] the integration of all these pieces. For example WebEx can connect to TelePresence. We’ve had students who have moved away from a physical campus, and Cisco’s technology allows students to continue to learn no matter what their circumstances.”

At Mercer State, their help desk had numerous support cases opened with other technologies. With Cisco, the university found a solution that it could model and fund.

There’s never been a better time to reimagine education. Be sure to look out for updates from EDUCAUSE on social media – we’re on Twitter at @CiscoHigherEdu and @CiscoEdu, and on Facebook at Cisco. U.S. Education. Also keep an eye on the blog this week for my takeaways from the show floor. Finally, if you’ll be at EDUCAUSE, make sure to visit us at booth 1101 to see our higher education solutions and the Digital Education Platform in action!