Sure you have been hearing about Sakai, the open source collaboration and learning environment, but you've probably also heard that campuses that have implemented Sakai have huge IT budget and lots of staff. So you haven't tried it yet, and you wonder why you should. Why go through the hassle and expense? After all, it's just an "open-source" version of the CMS you already use, right? Wrong.

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Vemics, a provider of real-time learning technology, has launched its first project with newly acquired company e-Learning Desktop at Lomonosov Moscow State University in Russia. The company, e-Learning Desktop, will be offering an online Russian language curriculum scheduled to begin in September. The new program will include basic Russian courses under the direction of Svetlana Terminasova, dean of faculty of foreign languages at the university. The curriculum will be included in the Global Business English program, a recent endeavor of Vemics and the University of Miami.

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You’re doing great things with technology on campus—we want to know about them. We seek exemplary colleges and universities, their visionary technology project leadership, and their innovative vendor partners who have deployed extraordinary campus technology solutions to campus challenges.

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The plagiarism prevention software called Turnitin from iParadigms LLC, is known for its ability to detect illicit copying; the company says its site now receives some 120,000 papers for review a day. Less well known are additional features that Turnitin has added to its product set that make paper grading and management far easier. Turnitin’s GradeMark feature, available as an add-on to the original product, can be used to collect student papers electronically, edit them online by inserting electronic comments into the document, then return them electronically to students, all without ever printing a page.

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In October of 2005, the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center published its one millionth digital object, "Harvest Time", by Lois Ireland, an illustrative painting that skillfully presents Wisconsin's rolling hills, cobalt skies, regional agriculture, and rustic barns. And while impressive, the UWDCC has continued apace, adding over a thousand audio files, nearly a thousand books, and dozens of videos over the past year, totaling over 320,000 new digital objects.

UWDCC was founded in 2000 in order to promote the "Wisconsin Idea" of distributed learning by providing professional leadership in the creation of digital resources from libraries and archives for faculty, staff, and students, citizens of the state and scholars at large.

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When sixth-grade teacher Rachel Yurk created a blog for her classroom this year, she began the online learning experiment with a simple, engaging question: "What's your favorite book and why?" By that night, Yurk's e-mail had exploded with about 200 messages - each one notifying her that another comment had been posted to the online discussion. Safely nested in Virtual Office, a secure system that New Berlin Public Schools is piloting and plans to take districtwide by next year, Yurk's classroom blog engages students in a common discussion tool without exposing them to uncensored activity in the real-world blogosphere.

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Sitting in front of a computer late at night several times a week as her children sleep, Patricia Haley tries to pick up where she left off about 10 years ago. The 29-year-old remembers how, at 19, she would get into arguments with her mother.... Now, through an online pilot program at the Beaufort County Adult Education center, Haley is taking another shot at earning her high school diploma, which she is two classes away from receiving.

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Print's dead; newspapers are toast; Dave Winer has some good suggestions to revamp journalism education and bloggers can't get enough of the San Francisco Chronicle's woes. It's a debate–as someone who could be considered professional trained journalist–that frankly tires me out. But I'll wade in since it fits with a few points I made to one of Columbia University's J-school alumni representatives a few weeks ago. Her question: What should we be doing?

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Luzerne County Community College is the largest college in Northeastern Pennsylvania and a leader in technology training. With 11 satellite campuses located throughout the region, LCCC offers a variety of educational programs and support services to meet the needs of the residents and business and industry in the region.

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People at Lansing's three high schools had a conversation with one another Friday without leaving any campus. The technology test drive may have been complicated to achieve, but it looked as simple as a pull-down screen with two projected squares, whose inhabitants could see and call on students as if they were in the same classroom. It's called distance learning, a concept that could alter the future of education in mid-Michigan. For now, it's a slow-growing effort to stretch student opportunities with gadgetry owned by few local schools. Lansing hopes to launch video conferencing in high schools next fall, linking area teens with Advanced Placement and other courses that otherwise might not be offered.

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Computer skills for adults are on offer at Saffron Walden County High as part of the school's move to technology college status. Since achieving specialist status, it has opened its e-learning centre as an independent facility with more than 120 courses in ICT (information computer technology). The courses are suitable for anyone from complete beginners to professionals needing to upgrade their skills. Skills for Life courses also help adults to obtain GCSE qualifications in mathematics and English to enter further education or gain employment. Learners can study at the centre, which is open Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays in term time, or, once they are registered, anywhere they have access to the internet.

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hRecently, representatives from more than 170 education institutions gathered to share their experiences implementing successful education technology strategies. At the BbWorldâ„¢ Europe conference held in Nice, Blackboard Inc. hosted its largest users conference outside of North America in the history of the company. Throughout Europe and the Middle East, e-learning has become a vital component of learning and teaching strategies for schools, further education institutions, and universities. Demonstrative of the increased commitment that education institutions are making to e-learning, participants shared how their institutions were extending and increasing their commitment to online platforms in order to continue to provide robust, stable, scalable systems which meet the rapidly expanding expectations of users.

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Lori Cooney works with daughter Ashlyn on math at the Cooney home, as Sean, right, helps brother Shannon with homework. The kids are home-schooled through the Colorado Virtual Academy and are learning more now than they did in public schools, their mom says. (Post / John Prieto)Lori Cooney insists her three kids be dressed and finished with breakfast by 9 a.m. Then they go to school - just off the family room in front of three computers. Sean, 13, tackles algebra first, while Shannon, 11, and Ashlyn, 8, hit the spelling problems. They study until 3 or 4 p.m., catching 20-minute "recesses" to go sledding or throw a football in their backyard. The Cooneys are part of the online education boom in Colorado, which jumped from 166 students in 2000 to 9,150 last year - not including students who take online courses to supplement traditional classroom work.

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It only seems practical to use modern technology to our benefit. In 2006, more than 1 million students from kindergarten through high school across the nation enrolled in virtual schooling, according to the North American Council for Online Learning, a nonprofit organization for administrators, teachers and others involved in online schooling. Enrollment – counted as the total number of seats in all online classes, not the number of students – has grown twentyfold in seven years, and the group expects the numbers to continue to jump 30 percent annually. Nearly half the states offer public school classes online, and last year Michigan became the first state to require students to take an online course to graduate from high school.

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