Microsoft picks new UW center to develop distance learning technologies - Hannah Hickey, exducco

Last year, students enrolled in a professional master's degree program in Seattle sat 800 miles from their teacher. When the students asked questions, their teacher responded from the video screen. Discussion ricocheted between classrooms in Seattle and Redmond, Wash., and further south to San Diego and Berkeley, Calif. The course was one of many using experimental classroom videoconferencing software developed at Microsoft Research in collaboration with universities worldwide. Microsoft Research today announced that the University of Washington will lead future work on the project in the newly established Center for Collaborative Technologies at the University of Washington. Microsoft will provide $750,000 in funding during the next three years. "We will continue to develop technologies to support distance learning," said center director Richard Anderson, a UW professor in the department of computer science and engineering.

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