Posts published on February 24, 2015

Top 10 EdTech Sites every College Student should Know About

February 24, 2015 8:34 am

By Jane Hurst

When it comes to higher education technology, companies involved in this industry can get lost in the shuffle once they have launched their product and they are not in the startup phase or looking for seed funding. Administrators and IT staff of colleges are pretty much on their own while they are working at improving the learning technologies and approaches to help students in college. It is important to keep an eye on what is coming up in the technology world, because there are always new things being released that are going to benefit students. Here are the top 10 EdTech tools to look for in the coming months.

  1. Excelsior College’s OWL – This multi-media, online writing lab received a WOW award. The program helps students with their writing, including documentation, grammar, and teaching how to avoid plagiarism. One study shows that students who used OWL upped their final grades by an average of 6.6 points.
  2. Skillsoft – Also on the CIO Magazine list, this company offers a cloud-based learning management system known as Skillport. This is used by a variety of clients, in both business and education. It uses e-learning solutions, on-demand courses, and online video. Clients include the University of North Carolina-Wilmington and the University of Florida.
  3. Capella University’s FlexPath – This is a program that has received federal approval for business, information technology, and psychology program. Capella University also received a WOW higher-education technology award in recognition of this program, which is basically a competency-based, direct-assessment degree program.
  4. WhichVoIP – Although VoIP has been around for quite a while, there are new applications being created all the time that can benefit students. Long distance calling costs can easily mount up so it is worth evaluating some of the low cost services that are now available. Additionally, any campus that is not already using VoIP should have it near the top of their list of IT priorities.
  5. Civitas Learning – This company has been named to the CIO Review list, for creating applications that are used by colleges and universities to identify at-risk students and help keep them from failing in their studies. They also offer predictive analytics that show the success rates of students, so higher education institutions can adjust their programs to give students the greatest chance of success.
  6. Colorado Technical University’s Intellipath – Another WOW award winner, Intellipath is an adaptive learning platform that can be used by both students and faculty. This technology is currently being used for the university’s business master’s degree program.
  7. Respondus – This company is on the CIO Magazine list, and develops assessments that help educators to keep students from cheating on online exams. It offers a LockDown Browser application, which keeps students from being able to access other windows or apps while they are taking their tests. Currently, 800 universities and school districts are using this technology.
  8. Ellucian – This CIO Review list-featured company offers software and services for higher education institutions that will help improve student recruitment and retention, enterprise resource planning, self-service student planning, records management in admissions and academic offices, advising, and more. There are currently 2,400 education sector clients using this technology, including Duke University, Yale Univeristy, Purdue University, and American University.
  9. Hitachi ID Systems – This technology helps higher education institutions to better manage network security, controlling access and ID’s for administrators, staff, faculty, students, alumni, and others.
  10. Biometric Signature ID – This made it to the CIO Review top 20 list. Biometric Signature ID offers identity verification students for college students that the colleges can also use with online courses to ensure that all registered students are taking quizzes and exams. This technology analyzes how users move the mouse or their finger to draw certain characters, and uses these movements as identifiers.

Byline:

Jane Hurst has been working in education for over 5 years as a teacher. She loves sharing her knowledge with students, is fascinated about edtech and loves reading, a lot.