When it comes to “social” Gina Bianchini is at the top of the ladder. I am relationship oriented person in how I work, learn, teach, and connect with the thousands of people that are enriching my life. But am I the only one? Apparently not. Connecting with people is a way of life for many of us. It must be a very important aspect of our lives or social networks such as Ning, Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, and now Pinterest, Mentormob, and the upcoming Mightybell would be as popular as they are. So what is next? How is Mightybell going to cater to our social needs?
Social learning is part of my social needs. I learn through conversations and what better place than on WizIQ. I would like to invite you to join me in learning with and from Gina Bianchini on Conversation WizIQ on May 11, 2011 at 7 PM London time or click on the event announcer to find out the exact time in your area.
Watch, listen, and learn from this outstanding woman.
WizIQ Wednesday Webinar #3
Hi all…just a reminder that we have a couple of interesting webcasts this week. Today (Wednesday) at 12:30PM EDT, we have our third WizIQ Wednesday Webinar, where we’ll be talking about LMS and CMS integrations of virtual classrooms (in particular, Instructure Canvas, the plugin for which recently went live). You can join this interactive webcast without signup by following the class link here.
Conversation: Angela E J Koh – Poet, Editor, and Blogger
If that’s not enough for you, our own Nellie Deutsch is hosting a WizIQ Conversation with Angela Koh on Thursday. Angela Eun Ji Koh is an American poet and blogger. Her works have appeared in TriQuarterly, Susquehanna Review, Gulf Stream with forthcoming pieces in La Petite Zine and The Journal. Her poems have also been featured in collaborative pieces with filmmakers Ellipse Productions and photographer Michelle Seung.
Angela began blogging at AngelaEJKoh.com in 2008 and gained widespread attention with over 150,000 views in its first three years. She recorded her personal experiences and eventually the development of her creative process. Reader Morita says, “Her words are well chosen, polished, and elegant, yet she’s modest and never comes off as a literary elitist… In a modern world full of self-deceit, quick fixes, and lazy compromise, this is strange to me. It deserves my respect.”
Reminder – Find everything on iTunes
The easiest way to find these webcasts after the fact is to just subscribe to our podcasts on iTunes. We’ll be rolling them on to other video channels as well in the coming weeks.
“I’m a teacher and have a class that repeats every week on Wednesday for the next 8 weeks. Can’t I schedule all the classes at once?”It wasn’t long before our teachers and organizations asked for the ability to create repeating classes. Some wanted to create a series of classes within a course, where the class occurs at the same day and time each week, and for the same set of students throughout the course.Others wanted the ability to set up multiple classes within a course on a set schedule, but that didn’t necessarily involve the same students each time. For example, a teacher might always want to meet at 3pm local time, but meet with different cohorts in different time zones separately, so that students in Hong Kong didn’t need to find a time that worked for students in California, even if they were learning the same content. It’s one thing for an instructor to accommodate students around the world; it’s another entirely for entire classes to accommodate each other.
We introduced Recurring Classes on WizIQ to address these needs. Now instead of having to create a new class every time you teach it, teachers and administrators can schedule a single class and set it to repeat at regular intervals, even if the attendees won’t be the same each time.
Recurring classes are a hit among language teachers in particular. Some of our most popular teachers are Nadia Atya and George Machlan, and both use this feature to manage and organize their Arabic and ESL classes. The Recurring classes feature helps them:
Schedule all of the recurring classes at once.
Easily invite students to any of the classes within the recurring series from a single screen.
Creating recurring classes is easier on students, too. They get to see the whole recurring schedule at once, which makes it easy for them to plan and attend classes accordingly. A predictable schedule also helps students establish habits and rhythms conducive to learning.
Here are some more ways that our teachers and organizations are using recurring classes:
Training organizations use recurring classes to schedule all of their online meetings in advance, so trainees see the schedule all at once and join the specific classes they plan to attend.
Private online tutoring businesses use recurring classes to schedule a single class that occurs multiple times. Students select the single class from the list that best suits their schedule or know that they have regular sessions set up with their tutor.
Organizations where different teachers handle different timezones or blocks (the equivalent of sections in a brick and mortar school), can create a separate set of recurring classes for each teacher. No one has to worry about missing a class, and the organization’s administrators are saved from having to create every individual class for every teacher.
In large corporations with offices spread out globally, human resource departments are always training employees or scheduling induction programs for new recruits. They use recurring classes to schedule their ongoing programs all at once. Employees can pick the time slot that best suits their schedule.
What’s coming next?
We have new features for recurring classes on the way! Teachers using WizIQ through Moodle will soon be able to offer recurring classes on WizIQ directly through Moodle (in fact, by the time you read this post, this feature might already be up).
Ready to start your own recurring class series? Create one now! Then let us know how you’re using the recurring class feature, and what we can do to continue making scheduling classes easier. Recurring classes, by the way, are only available to our premium users and (as noted above, to Moodle users shortly). If this is a feature that you would like to use, but aren’t a premium member, feel free to contact sales@wiziq.com to upgrade.
Today, we’re announcing a host of great new features in our Virtual Classroom. These will be rolling out automatically in waves to users over the next few weeks; some of you have been using them already during our limited beta period, but for many of you, this will be your first time seeing some really significant enhancements:
Active noise cancellation: Participants no longer need to wear headphones to avoid echo and achieve high-quality voice communications. The virtual classroom now allows entire groups of students in a single location to interact with a remote instructor using a single microphone.
6-way video: Previously, classes were limited to four video streams. Up to six participants in a class can now broadcast from their webcams simultaneously; the instructor can switch among students and shift to full-screen video or a new 6-way conference view.
Improved screen sharing: Users can now use the latest Flash technologies to share single applications, single windows, or their desktops, preventing viewers from seeing unwanted applications or notifications and allowing participants to focus on the task at hand.
Breakout rooms: Instructors can place attendees into virtual breakout rooms, assigning student moderators for each. Participants can send messages to the instructor, whether or not he or she is in a particular breakout room and instructors can bring students back into the main room at any time.
New tools for managing participants: Audio, video, and writing controls can now be assigned en masse to participants and attendees can be searched and filtered.
Improved PowerPoint conversion engines: Importing PowerPoint decks is now faster and concurrent uploads of multiple presentations is more efficient.
Users can wait for the phased rollout or can request a free upgrade to the new virtual classroom by contacting support@wiziq.com. New accounts will have access to the updates immediately. Once your account is upgraded, you can choose to use either the previous version of the VC (at least for now as we make this available to users and get your feedback for the first month or so) or the updated virtual classroom when you’re scheduling classes (see the screenshot below)
This release marks the culmination of months of development and user feedback, incorporating powerful new features and a whole lot of feedback from our users. For our users, thank you for using WizIQ and for all of the comments and suggestions! For those of you who haven’t tried WizIQ yet, give it a spin by clicking here.
