[T.e.l.l. May Summary (2!)] The BCcampus Sandbox

This post contributed by Kyle Hunter, BCIT
Many of us in the ETUG community explore new technologies in an ad hoc way, on an as-needed basis – typically, experimentation and exploration happens organically and “unofficially”. As a result, efforts may be duplicated and sometimes we may not get to share what we find. And although BCcampus has been instrumental in developing partnerships to pilot new technologies, up until a couple of months ago there was no documented process to formalize the evaluation.
The T.E.L.L session on May 27th was a presentation by Frank Fucile, Client Services Manager at BCcampus, about a new framework for testing new educational technologies. The framework describes how new software can be tested in BCcampus’ sandbox.
Frank outlined how BCcampus receives many requests for new educational technologies and needs a way to prioritize the growing list.
Working with Director, Lawrence Parisotto, and colleagues, Brad Payne and Clint Lalonde, Frank developed a method to facilitate technology exploration.

Of the several projects on the go, one of particular interest is BigBlueButton, a platform that – through a web browser – connects participants to a presentation or meeting in real-time. BigBlueButton has garnered attention recently because of its successful hosting of iMOOT – an international Moodle conference conducted entirely online.
Frank’s recorded presentation starts about 18 minutes into the presentation: http://tinyurl.com/tell-session-BCC-SandBox.
Thanks for the excellent presentation and the great work on the Sandbox, Frank!