Indiana University/Purdue University (IPFW) offers more than 200 academic programs from its campus in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Traditional face-to-face classes make up a majority of the courses, but online classes are growing fast due to demand from more than 12,000 students.

In an effort to stimulate learning in online classes, the university’s Center for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching (CELT) began providing streaming media technology to faculty. Although there was strong demand from the staff, the technology proved hard to use and only supported one file format. “Students were having problems accessing the media from different devices and the professors were asking for more in-depth capabilities,” said Samantha Birk, associate director for Instructional Technologies at CELT.

With faculty demand growing quickly, the university began an official search for a new, user-friendly solution that would support a wide variety of file formats, integrate well with the Blackboard Learn™ platform, and be easy to implement.

After carefully reviewing several options, the university selected Kaltura – a market-leading open source online video platform that allows faculty to easily create, edit and upload videos with a click of a button. Once the videos are uploaded to the cloud-based platform, students can view the videos from any device in any location. “Kaltura’s flexible and easy-to-use platform integrates well with Blackboard, allowing faculty to embed videos with specific lesson plans,” said Birk. “This solution provides a more rounded learning experience for our students.”

Dr. Jacob Millspaw is a fan of the solution, “The technology is a great way to get across complex concepts that would otherwise be impossible with text…The videos keep the online class more like a conversation, which helps with experimentation and learning.”

Check out the full case study to learn about how Dr. Millspaw takes advantage of the Kaltura solution in the classroom how Kaltura helped IPFW with its expanding media needs.

In November I wrote about how Kaltura’s partnership with Blackboard helps address the challenge of campus media head on.  This December, Kaltura released an updated version of their Building Block to make it even more helpful and user-friendly.  Some of the new product features include:

• Additional clipping functionality, allowing users to create clips from existing content
• Improved galleries, enabling users to click thumbnails
• New workflows, allowing administrators to assign content to Blackboard courses directly from within the Kaltura Management workflow

Guest Post by Christopher Tiné, Producer, NBC Learn and EducationNation.com

“Just about every challenge in American education has been met somewhere, by somebody.” – Bill Clinton.

A few months ago, I had the opportunity to hear Bill Clinton speak about education at NBC News’ Education Nation summit.  He spoke with Brian Williams about competitiveness and cooperation, but right at the end as he was wrapping up he made a comment that has stuck with me.  He said, “Just about every challenge in American education has been met somewhere, by somebody…why are we so lousy at copying the competition and adapting it to our own circumstances?”

Bill Clinton challenged the audience to look around and see where things were working, and adapt solutions to fit their own educational challenges.  NBC Learn and Blackboard have tried to do just that with the Solutions in Action series.  So often the focus of the education conversation is on what’s wrong with the system.  Solutions in Action is our effort to spend a few minutes shining a spotlight on what’s right in education – thinkers with new ideas, effective solutions, and scalable strategies.

Clients often ask what the impetus was behind the Blackboard and McGraw-Hill partnership.  Our answer?  To help improve and enhance the teaching and learning experience. Prior to the partnership and during conversations with faculty and system administrators alike, several challenges came to the forefront – challenges that could be simply addressed by finding a way to make publisher online homework and assessment platforms seamlessly integrated so that instructors and students could access all of their course resources in one place.

As a result, Blackboard and McGraw-Hill built and launched the McGraw-Hill integration.  Now, with the release of the second generation of the Building Block, faculty have access to the rich content and tools provided by McGraw-Hill’s Connect, Create, and SimNet platforms, all within their familiar Blackboard Learn™ instance.  Single sign-on provides seamless access to all course resources, all Connect grades are automatically imported into the Blackboard gradebook, and the solution is fully FERPA-compliant. And with an improved design and new features, it’s now easier than ever to discover and imbed McGraw-Hill content into courses.

“These kids that are digital natives – we just need to meet them where they’re at, and the reality is technology is where they’re at.”

Marc Ecko, fashion designer, entrepreneur, and founder of Sweat Equity Education (SEE), an education innovation organization, is working at the intersection of education, workforce development, and entrepreneurship. At SEE, Marc uses the technology that excites kids today and combines it with real-world projects that teach real-world skills.  SEE is focused on re-engaging and re-invigorating at-risk students and young adults to help set them on a path for success – in school, in the workplace, or in launching their own businesses.

I had the pleasure of meeting Marc in his New York City office: