FlexTraining Announces e-Learning
Software Tailored to Education Market
Tampa, FL - February 4, 2003
Online Development has announced
the upcoming release of a special version of its popular FlexTraining
Total e-Learning Solution geared to Colleges, Universities, and
Schools. The new software version, which will be called
"FlexTraining EDU", is targeted for general release in the second
quarter of 2003.
Pre-release versions of the FlexTraining EDU software will be tested
by a select number of Colleges and Schools in order to fine-tune
the new features which have been added to the product.
"We are now offering an economical alternative to expensive legacy
products such as BlackboardT, with improvements in features and
functionality at the same time", said Scott Cochran, General Manager
at Online Development. "In fact, schools and colleges looking
for value and ease-of-use will experience a quantum leap forward
with FlexTraining EDU".
The FlexTraining EDU product will include all features found in
the Standard version of FlexTraining, plus an array of new components
designed for educational institutions. A preliminary
list of the new features includes:
- Online Chat: A web-based online chat
system to facilitate real-time interaction between Online learners
and course Instructors. The flexible, secure chat feature
is native to FlexTraining, customer-configurable, and integrated
with the FlexTraining database to provide automate student login
and class grouping.
- Discussion Forums: A threaded Discussion
Forum, also web-based, for posting, reading, and managing news-style
messages and comments. The forums, broken out for individual
classes, provide direct interaction among online learners, and
between learners and an optional instructor.
- Teacher's Lounge facility: For online
instructors, this multi-feature facility promotes collaboration
among instructors, with the ability to share documents, best practices,
test questions, and assignment ideas. Includes its own separate
threaded Discussion Forum for communicating with other faculty.
- Class groupings and levels: New course
numbering structure allows for easy tracking and grouping by Department
and Level, as in "MATH 2 101" for a 2000-level course offered
by the Mathematics department.
- Catalog-based enrollment: New capabilities
in FlexTraining EDU allow schools and colleges to present catalog
lists in their own custom format, with links directly into the
registration process. Provides a streamlined interface for easy
integration with existing online catalog and class list screens.
- Virtual Class Handouts: Class-related
documents can be stored by an Administrator or Instructor, for
easy access and downloading by online learners
- Instructor Bios and Photos: For instructor-led
courses, the automatically-generated Syllabus will be personalized
with an Instructor Biography and photo, if provided.
- Grade Book: An expanded online Grade
Book for each learner shows Course Completions, Individual Test
Results, Assignment Completions, and progress against an individual
curriculum.
These enhancements are in addition to existing FlexTraining tools
that prove especially useful in a formal education setting, such as:
- Point-and-click course assembly
- Built-in template-driven Content Authoring Tool
- Blended Learning layouts to combine video, audio, Flash, text,
images
- Secure and separate Student, Instructor, Administrator and Developer's
Menus
- Student Import and Auto-registration facility
- Course Builder wizard with automatic syllabus generation
- Online notebooks, searchable document libraries, automated testing
and analysis, extensive standard and custom reports, and
automated course evaluations
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