New Features of V5 provide educators a way to incorporate media resources from the Internet
RICHMOND, Va., May 26, 2009 — SoftChalk, a leading developer of content authoring software, today announced a new version of its flagship eLearning software. The new features make SoftChalk V5 more than a lesson-authoring tool, but an integrated suite of products to create online learning content.
"The release of SoftChalk V5 offers a solution for institutions that want to maximize their investment in eLearning, create an environment of shared ideas and information, and lower their costs," said Sue Evans, CEO of SoftChalk. "The new features of V5 that really speak to these issues are the ability to embed widgets into a lesson and the digital repository search and eCourseBuilder tools."
Highlights of the new features included in SoftChalk V5:
- With the digital repository, users have the ability to perform keyword searches across multiple media repositories at a time, including media from open sources (YouTube, Flicker), fee-based premium services (Intelecom), or library repositories available through the organization itself.
- The embedding of widgets offers the option of including Web 2.0 features. Blogs, polls, surveys, widgets, wikis, and videos can now easily be inserted to create dynamic lessons.
- The eCourseBuilder tool combines multiple lessons into larger eCourse modules with automatic calculation and tracking of score information between and within lessons.
The new features work to decrease the total cost of education (TCE) by lessening time spent creating lessons. Educators without a technological background can create professional-looking content faster, which is both time-efficient and productive because skilled technologists can be repurposed to do things that require their skills rather than creating content for faculty.
Rick Hubbard, Media Specialist at Palm Beach Atlantic University, was one of the first users to test the V5 beta. He said, "I found that the improvements are significant. The nesting of lessons into a course makes it easy to keep all material on a subject together in a nice, organized way. It is also valuable to have the ability to create your own library of items to share with others or to save for other uses. PBAU has a site license with gold support so we are very excited for the release."
Other features and enhancements within the new release include an option that will allow lessons to directly publish to Blackboard, as well as a new photo album activity, quiz group function, table of contents, and accessibility options.
About SoftChalk, LLC
SoftChalk, LLC is the leading provider of eLearning software for educational institutions worldwide. Specializing in the development of tools that are intuitive and easy-to-use, SoftChalk products allow instructors to create engaging, interactive, and professional-looking content for eLearning and smart classrooms in K-12, higher education, and corporate training. For more information, please visit http://www.softchalk.com.
CONTACT:
Steve Saltzberg
877.638.2425 ext. 101
Email
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