Date: May 31, 2000
Author: Ronald Wolak

Subject: DISS 780 Multimedia Discussion Topic 6 – Reply 2 to Chaelynne Wolak

Discussion Topic 6 – Reply 2 to Chaelynne Wolak

In response to the need for multimedia courseware for distance education, Convene.com and Cogito Learning Media, Inc. have partnered. Convene.com is the world's largest provider of online services to colleges, universities, and corporations (Convene, 2000). In fact, the most successful online distance education programs in the country use Convene to host their online programs. Convene.com provides distance education services that include virtual campus creation, network administration, marketing consultation, help desk, and a comprehensive online instructor training program. Chaelynne and I used an earlier version of the current Web-enabled Convene.com application during the completion of our MBAs.

Cogito develops interactive multimedia content solutions in mathematics, biological sciences, statistics, health sciences, chemistry, and economics. Cogito’s multimedia content includes animation, video, and exercises for review and self-testing. A recent article by Woodman and Taylor discussed the complex process involved in integrating media with electronically delivered courses (Woodman & Taylor, 1999, September 8-10). Convene.com and Cogito have addressed this issue by converting the Cogito ac@deme application to be Web-enabled before integrating it into Convene.com's e‑learning environment.

Bandwidth and network latency concerns such as those pointed out in Evolving Use of a System for Education at a Distance are also being addressed by Convene.com (White et al., 2000, January). The company's WebSync technology was developed to overcome Internet bandwidth limitations. WebSync automatically duplicates the entire Web classroom on the students’ and instructor’s local hard drive. This architecture eliminates the need for sustained Internet connection and allows students and instructors to work effectively offline.

References

Convene. (2000). Convene program overview [Online]. Available: http://www.convene.com/ [2000, May 29].

White, S., Gupta, A., Grudin, J., Chesley, H., Kimberly, G., & Sanocki, E. (2000, January). Evolving use of a system for education at a distance. 33rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, IEEE, Maui, Hawaii.

Woodman, M., & Taylor, J. (1999, September 8-10). Balancing the multimedia mix in a large scale distance education course. 25th Euromicro Conference, IEEE, Milan, Italy.