How to improve face-to-face teaching with a Sclipo Online Campus

Sclipo Online Campuses, just like online campuses of Universities, are mostly used to support face-to-face teaching. In fact, we built Sclipo with face-to-face in mind. We saw the success of University online campuses (every University has one), and aimed to provide a solution for teachers in face-to-face continuing education, yet more simple and with specific features adapted to their needs.

If you are a face-to-face teacher, and wonder how a Sclipo Online Campus can enhance your teaching activities, here are 5 ways to do so.

1. Share content: Add the presentation, document, video or any other type of content of your face2face class to the Library of your Sclipo Campus. Now your students can easily find and review content after the class, and they can also post questions about and comment it. This is more efficient than printing or sending content by email, and the comments allow you to follow up with students and improve your content. And, don’t forget: content is King – a Library full of good content is your best promotion. (more info about the Library app → )
2. Manage your face-to-face courses: For each face-to-face course you can set up a Course in your Online Campus. Only your face-to-face students have access to it. After the class, you and students can log into the course and share updates, add content, post questions, conduct knowledge checks, check assignments and more. You can also send private messages to and administer your face-to-face students. (more info about the Courses app →)
3. Connect with your face-to-face students: Your Sclipo Online Campus comes with its own Social Network. It provides great tools to foster and build a long term relationship with your face-to-face students, such as Online Groups, Friendships, Events and more. (more info about the Social Network apps →)
4. Offer live tutoring sessions through your web conferencing system: Every Sclipo Campus integrates a virtual classroom web conferencing system with live video, audio, whiteboard, desktop-sharing and more. Use it to complement face-to-face classes. For example, you can offer additional tutoring and special Q&A sessions from the comfort of your home. (more info about the Virtual Classroom app →)
5. Promote and sell your face-to-face courses: Are you looking for more face-to-face students? You can post your Courses in the Classifieds of your Sclipo Campus just like you can post them in a generic, stand-alone classifieds. The advantage of your Sclipo Campus Classifieds is that prospective students can find much more than just course descriptions. They can explore your whole Campus, its services, content, teachers and students. This is much richer information than that of a stand-alone classifieds and helps to convince people to become a student. And they can also buy your courses directly from your Campus. (more info about the Promotion and eCommerce apps →)

This said, a Sclipo Campus is extremely flexible, and adapts to any kind of teaching method: face-to-face, online and blended. So, once you have boosted your face-to-face teaching with your Sclipo Online Campus, you can easily expand your offering with online-only educational services.

I hope these recommendations were helpful. We are looking forward to your comments and feedback, here and at our Online Campus on Sclipo.

Learn how to enhance face-to-face teaching with a Sclipo Online Campus.

Sclipo provides the most SEO-friendly Online Campus

Teachers who use a Sclipo Online Campus will attract more new students than those with a traditional LMS (Learning Management System). Firstly, the Sclipo platform has a better page rank and more traffic than most LMS installations. Second, and more importantly, search engines can find the content of a Sclipo Campus easier than that of an LMS. Easier, or in fact, they can find it at all.

LMS are closed systems for current students
LMS were created to help Universities and large institutions teach their current students. Only after a person becomes a student, s/he gets access to the online campus. To attract new students is not the objective. This is the job of the marketing department, who may use other online tools such as a promotional web site, SEO, SEM and classifieds. People who are not students can not go beyond the log in page of the online campus. Neither can Google. This may be ok for a large institution, but what about an independent teacher or a continuing education firm without a large marketing budget?

A Sclipo Campus is open to any visitor (and search engine), helping to attract new students
Anybody can find and explore a Sclipo Campus – people and search engines – which makes it SEO-friendly (Search-Engine-Optimized). This means, all content (courses, documents, videos, members, etc.) on a Sclipo Campus is indexed by search engines. So, Google et. al. can store hundreds of links pointing to the Sclipo Online Campus, one for each content item. The more content, the more links and the easier the Campus will be found by people looking for education. Hence, the probability that prospective new students will find your courses increases with every content you add to your Sclipo Online Campus. (Access to view content can, of course, be restricted.) In addition to being SEO-friendly, a Sclipo Online Campus provides features to help you promote your school, such as a Campus classifieds. In a traditional LMS, content inside the Online Campus is not stored by search engines. Potential students will have a harder time to find your school.

Example of the SEO-friendliness of a Sclipo Online Campus
Say you are a school offering language courses for adults. You may have a website in which you present your school. If you get a traditional LMS, such as Moodle, you may add a link from your web to your online campus. Visitors can only view its front page. Entering requires a login. Only students can access your Campus. Search engines do not know what is behind the front page. People searching for say “TOEFL” or “Italian course” will probably not find you on a search engine.

If however you use Sclipo, visitors can explore your Online Campus beyond its home page: they can browse the courses you offer, the videos and documents of your library as well as your live sessions. They can see which events and groups you have organized. They can even see teachers and students. All this generates trust about your school. Visitors can participate in courses and view content you have set as “free” and “open”, but not those set as “restricted”. Search engines know what is offered in your Campus, so prospective students can find it easily. For example, if you added 20 tutorials related to the TOEFL test, search engines will have 20 high value links pointing to your school. This means, people searching for “TOEFL” can find you easier. Announcing your TOEFL courses only on your Campus front page just generates one link. And this one will not be ranked as high as the ones to TOELF tutorials. Search engines rank educational content better than promotional text. And every time you add a new content, its description and link is stored. So, every new content becomes automatically advertising for your school. The more content, the more visitors you will get from search engines; the more visitors, the more new students. To further boost the potential to convert visitors to students, you can leave some content open. Now people can view a free sample to better appreciate the quality of your school. And, visitors and students can link to that video or document, embed it, post it on Facebook, tweet about it, etc.. Now, both your visitors and students become your promoters. This is called viral marketing – which will be the topic of a future post.

Online Campus built with Moodle. Clicking on a course listed on the front page leads to a login page. Non-students cannot enter it to find out more about your services. Search engines can not link to campus content, prospective students will not be able to find it.

The Sclipo Campus of Vocatic. Any visitor - student or not - can openly explore its language courses and content, as well as see its teachers. Search engines store links to each course and content, making the Campus easy to find for prospective students.

Sclipo – the only 100% free Online Campus for University and K-12 teachers

Sclipo provides – to the best of our knowledge – the world’s only 100% free Online Campus for University and K-12 teachers. With our 100% free Academic Plan, teachers get an Online Campus with:

• E-Learning apps: Course manager, tests, learning path, library, discussion forum, and more…
• Virtual classroom web conferencing: live audio and video, multiple webcams, chat, whiteboard, desk-top sharing, multi-language interface, and more…
• Social network: events, grous, wall, friendships, profile, and more…

See all Sclipo Online Campus feature here.

What about open source LMS (Learning Management Systems)?
The cost of an open source solution with the same Sclipo Campus features is not zero. Only the license to use an open source LMS is free. Firstly, to run an open source LMS requires payment for hosting. In addition, most teachers and schools need to pay IT personnel or consultants to install, configure and maintain the open source LMS. Open source LMS provider Moodle actually makes money by charging royalties to Moodle consultants for any service they sell related to Moodle. Finally, open source LMS do not include a Virtual Classroom web conferencing system by default like Sclipo’s Online Campus. Web conferencing needs to be integrated via a paid plugin / API. To integrate an open source web conferencing system requires additional hosting as well as IT personnel or consultants.

In our experience, the costs of an open source LMS* include:

• IT personnel: up from $30 per hour
• Hosting of open source LMS: up from $5 per month (shared hosting) to plus $100 (dedicated server)
• Hosting of open source web conferencing: up from $60 per month (dedicated server)
• Web conferencing plugin: up from $10 per month per room

(* approximate cost examples)

Our calculations show that even our paid Online Campus plans are about 10 times less expensive than the total cost of an open source LMS. And, of course, paid Campus plans also include a bunch of promotion and e-Commerce features to help attract new students and to facilitate selling of services and content.

Sclipo Online Campus with Course Manager, Library, Virtual Classroom and Social Network

Online Campus for Tutoring Agencies: Teach more students & better

The Sclipo Online Campus is a great solution for tutoring agencies! It allows them to attract more students and to boost their learning experience. And, best of all, we offer a special program to agencies through which they can make money by using the Sclipo Online Campus, instead of paying for it. Intrigued? Keep on reading!

How to attract more students?
With the Sclipo Online Campus solution, the agency can attract more students and strongly differentiate itself.

• Students find the agency faster on the web! The Campus is SEO friendly, meaning, it is Search-Engine-Optimized! All tutors and each content item (courses, documents, videos, etc.) on the Campus is indexed by search engines. So, instead of storing only links to the agency’s promotional web pages, Google and other search engines now have hundreds of links pointing to the agency and its Campus. The more links, the easier the agency will be found.
• Content sells better than promotion! Every agency has the best tutors. Yet, as a student, how can I check who is really better for me? With an Online Campus, potential students can actually see what the agency offers. (They will also be impressed that it has such a cool Campus!) They can browse it without being registered, and preview content and courses. This increases the agency’s credibility and thus, sign up rates. Of course, access to content can be restricted.
• Turn students into promoters! With an Online Campus, students can easily send links to the tutor and her/his content to other students. They can also tweet it, and share it on Facebook and many other social networks. And, they can post content from tutors on their blogs. All this is free and highly valuable advertising for the agency.
• Offer new services! An Online Campus allows to offer new online services. For example, the agency can offer self-paced online courses as well as live tutoring sessions with the web conferencing system built right into the Campus.
• Offer services globally! Online services can be offered world-wide! The English tutor, for example, can not only teach in the agency’s neighborhood, but also students anywhere in the world!
• Attract the best tutors from anywhere! An agency is as good as its tutors. With an Online Campus, the agency can recruit the best teachers from anywhere. It is no longer restricted to find great teacher in its city.

How to boost the learning experience of my students?
The Online Campus is a great tool for tutors to teach better. In addition, students love the web. So, a tutor with an Online Campus will be more appreciated than the tutor equipped with just a pen & paper notepad.

• Share more content easier! The days of handing out photocopies are coming to an end. With an Online Campus, the tutor can easily share links to documents, videos, books…!
• Be available 24×7! Students most certainly have questions when the tutor is not there. If their tutors have an Online Campus, they can easily message them without clogging their emails. And, they can post questions on the Campus forum or wall. And yes, the agency can charge extra for this service.
• Offer live sessions! Maybe students want to connect spontaneously for questions. Or, they are sick. Or, the tutor does not have time to travel to the student for that emergency class right before the exam. So, just offer live tutoring sessions using the web conferencing system built into the Campus. And yes, the agency can charge extra for this too.
• Offer online tests! With an Online Campus, the tutor can create tests to further help students.
• Allow students to make new friends! The Sclipo Online Campus has its own Social Network. So, your students can connect and share among themselves. And, the tutor can set up online groups, where students can join, make new friends and learn from each other.

Ready for an Online Campus?

How to make money with the Sclipo Online Campus solution?
The agency can just open an Online Campus and pay a subscription fee. Yet, why pay if the agency can actually earn money!

Here is how our tutoring agency partnership program works:
• One Campus per tutor! The agency provides each teacher with her/his Online Campus. Each Campus can be branded with the agencies logo, and customized to its look & feel without programming knowledge.
• Integrate the Online Campus into the agency’s web! The agency can embed one or more Campuses into its web. This is as easy as embedding a YouTube video. This way, students and visitors can log into the Campus right on their webs and browse it without Sclipo logo. At the same time, the agency’s Campuses will be on Sclipo, helping to attract more students. As shown in this demo, the agency can easily create a tutor directory on its web and link to each tutor and her/his Campus.
• The tutor pays! The teacher pays for her/his Campus, just like s/he pays for other tools. The agency deducts payment from her/his commissions. Sclipo provides special pricing. For tutors who stop working for an agency, her/his Campus is deactivated. This gives the tutor an additional incentive to stay!
• Receive a commission for each Campus! The agency receives a commission from Sclipo for each active Campus.

Why will my tutors pay for their Campus?

• Tutors make more money! Without an Online Campus, tutors will not be able to offer all the extra services described here. The additional revenue easily surpasses the monthly fee.
• Tutors will be more demanded! Students prefer tutors with Campus.
• More credibility! Having a Campus with the agency makes the tutor more credible. Students know that agencies select their tutors.
• The Online Campus is a tool! The Online Campus forms part of the tool set of the tutor similar to other tools such as office material or books. Generally, tutors pay for their tools.

What do you think? For feedback and questions about the Sclipo Campus solution and partnership program for tutoring agencies, please contact us.

Here a demo that shows how an agency can easily set up its directory of tutors and an Online Campus for each.

How to monetize open content?

We are getting this question from many teachers.

This is the scenario: A teacher creates a paid Course in her Web Academy. She then assigns content to that course: videos, documents, etc. The question now is: should that content be restricted to students who paid for the course or should it be accessible for free to any visitor to the Library of her Web Academy?

The spontaneous (and traditional) answer is, no! Content of a paid course should not be open to any visitor of my web academy! But, wait a minute! There certainly are advantages of leaving content open.

See Universities. They create the bulk of educational content and have traditionally shielded access to students only. Yet, in recent years a growing number of Universities started opening up its content. For example, you can access all content from MIT for free through Open Courseware. Why? Because a core value of an educator is in selecting content and defining tasks that help to learn it. So, you can access any MIT content for free, but an MIT professor will not help you decide which of the 3440 content items related to Algebra is relevant for you.

Back to Sclipo… Hence, even though content is accessible for free through a teacher’s Web Academy, only students of a course get:
* a recommendation & selection of content relevant to a specific learning objective
* personal attention from the teacher to answer questions, conduct tasks related to the content, etc.
* interaction with other students through discussions, groups, etc.

Another way of thinking about open content is that is great advertising. The more content potential students can check out in a Library, the more will sign up for its courses. MIT is still in business, isn’t it?

Happy 4th launch-day!

On October 20th, 2006, exactly 4 years ago, the very first version of Sclipo (then called Visuarios) was launched. The home page, as stored by archive.org, looked like this (well, almost, just imagine the thumbs :):

4 years ago, there was no company … just the idea to freshen up learning-through-text with learning-through-video. In addition, anybody should be able to share her/his knowledge audio-visually, not just professionals with large video production budgets. The idea evolved into today’s vision: to make teaching & learning through web apps possible for anybody, including those who cannot afford an LMS like Blackboard and Moodle. (Yes, Moodle is not free! Someone has to pay for hosting, installation, configuration, maintenance, etc., correct?)

So, we went from pioneering user-generated educational videos to become the first and leading platform (and inventor) of Web Academies – the space of people and organizations to instruct courses, live sessions & content, and to manage students & activities.

I believe we achieved our goal of making web learning possible for the rest-of-us. Anybody can open her/his own Web Academy in just a few clicks – no installation, hosting or maintenance needed. One can even customize its look & feel in seconds with no IT knowledge. And all this for as little as $9,95 a month! Academics and K-12 teachers don’t have to pay at all (not even the IT department of their Universities / Schools!). Yet, what I am most proud of is that Sclipo enables social learning like no other LMS: Any student can learn from any Academy anywhere, and learn with any student anywhere. Some (well, many) teachers don’t like this. But hey, no revolution comes easy.

Thanks to all who make Sclipo possible! I won’t mention names. The list of people, including and above all our cherished users from over 100 countries, is way too long.

Happy launch-day!

¡Ha muerto el EVA; larga vida al EDA!

“Virtual”, definido por la Real Academia, significa: Que tiene existencia aparente y no real.

Por esto consideramos Sclipo un EDA – Entorno Digital de Aprendizaje, y no un EVA. Nuestras aplicaciones apoyan la educación presencial, a distancia y mixta con herramientas digitales. Éstas no son menos reales que un aula físico o una pizarra. También, y sobre todo, ¿qué preferimos? ¿Aprender “real-” y “virtualmente”?

Hace tiempo, se hablaba de (algunas) webs como entornos virtuales. Pero actualmente, ¿quién llamaría Facebook un entorno virtual para conectar?; o Skype un entorno virtual de comunicación? Las herramientas web complementan nuestras actividades “presenciales” y “físicas”. Son herramientas igual que el lápiz o el papel. Solo que están hechas de “ceros” y “unos”, en vez de materiales tangibles. Siendo digitales, son increíblemente eficientes y permiten hacer nuevas cosas que antes eran imposibles.

Aumentar la eficiencia de y hacer posible nuevas formas de aprender con la ayuda de EDAs tendrá un impacto fundamental sobre nuestras vidas y la sociedad. Por ejemplo, un EDA permite a José, un profesor “real” de guitarra flamenca en Sevilla, enseñar a Sara, que vive Nueva York, de forma “real”. Sin EDAs, Sara estaría limitada a profes residentes en su ciudad. EDAs permiten, ¡por fin!, Global Sourcing de recursos educativos.

Entonces: lanzamos, desde Sclipo, el desafío de sustituir EVA por EDA :)

Does Sclipo help me find new students & make money?

No!… and yes!

Sclipo is not a market place, it is a web learning application. Our value proposition is to provide tools that are easy and affordable compared to a traditional Learning Management System (LMS) that requires teachers to pay for hosting, IT professionals, extensive training, etc..

Sclipo offers primarily instructional tools and also those that help promote teaching activities (see info on tools & tutorials below). As a consequence, we do not take commissions. We charge a flat fee. Think of Sclipo like it was a building that provides you a space and tools to teach. If you make lots of money, great! We won’t charge you more rent.

That said, there are Academies on Sclipo who get tens of thousands of visits (and a manifold return on their subscription payment with just one student). This is because their courses and content are very good (and Sclipo very affordable). To spread the word, successful teachers (and their students!) use the tools provided with the Web Academy: they use the Invitation tool, they embed content on blogs, post it to Facebook, share it on Twitter, etc. As a consequence, Google indexes these Web Academies and their content very well.

If you were to set up your LMS, you would still have to promote it just like your Sclipo Web Academy or your blog. Just because Blogger hosts millions of blogs does not assure you any readers, doesn’t it? Yet, Sclipo offers an important benefit: Web Academies and its content are indexed (unless marked as secret) by search engines. This means, anybody can find your Academy through for example Google. You can, of course, limit access to authorized people – your students and teachers. A LMS, in contrast, is a walled garden! No one without a login has access to its content – including Google.

Related info:
* Tutorial: Tools to promote a Course
* Tutorial: Tools to promote a Live Session
* How does Sclipo help me find new students & make money?

Happy teaching & promoting!

Social Learning – Revolution!

Imagine!

You study in Sevilla. You go to your profile in your school’s online campus. There is an invitation to join the course Intro to Biotechnology. The invitation is from Amy, a teacher at the Mandela High School in Cape Town, South Africa. Wow! Who is Amy, and how did she find me and know that I love biology? Who are the other students? You click on more info. Amazing! The course has 25 students and 4 teachers from 10 schools in 5 countries! You click on the student John. He is from Lincoln High School in Boston, where he won the Biology Project Award. You click on the second teacher Sandra, from Colegio Chapultepec in Mexico. You see that she has a PhD in Biology from MIT. Awesome! But, how did they find me – you ask yourself again? It turns out that Jane, your Biology teacher in Sevilla, also tutors at the Mandela High School, where she is connected to Amy. You click on Join Course.

This is social learning! Or, this is how we define a Social Learning Management System at Sclipo – a platform where educational entities, its teachers and students can learn, teach and socialize with others of their own and other entities. To make Social Learning possible, Sclipo offers a platform of instructional and social applications where students and teachers can connect and share with members of any entity.

Here is how Sclipo works. Schools, companies, independent teachers and people who love to teach can open their own Web Academy on Sclipo. The Web Academy is their Learning Management System (LMS) with state-of-the-art instructional and social applications, such as:
* Courses to teach and manage face2face and online courses
* Library to share content in any format: video, presentations, audio, images…
* Live Teaching to teach one or many students anywhere via webcam, screen-sharing, whiteboard, chat and other live collaboration tools
* Groups to organize online collaborations for research, test prep, etc.
* Events to organize offline edu events, such as conferences and workshops

Students and teachers can connect, share and organize activities beyond their own Web Academy. All Web Academies and its members can connect and share with other Academies. Students can learn at one or many Academies. Teachers can teach at one or many Academies. They can also form groups, organize face2face educational events, conduct discussions and build a network of students and teachers anywhere. A Web Academy also has privacy controls, if it wants to restrict access to courses, content and activities.

What do you think of this kind of Social Learning? Wouldn’t it substantially expand the possibilities of how we learn today, what and with whom?

Such Social Learning is however not possible in your school or organization, if it runs on a traditional LMS. These are walled gardens. Each LMS installation is its own island, with no connection to others. You can’t share content and activities; you can’t find and connect with people of similar interests; you can’t create courses, groups, events or any other activity beyond the walls of the LMS of your educational entity.

But hey, wait a minute! Social Learning is the buzzword of the moment. Every LMS provider makes a big fuzz about how “social” its software is. They claim their solution has groups, discussions and maybe even a wall. Yep, but its students, teachers, content and activities are still confined to that one system installation. You cannot connect and share with other entities.

Just adding “social tools” to a LMS does not make it a social learning solution. It makes learning more collaborative among the members within its walls. This is great, yet it is a far cry from what technology can do today to revolutionize learning.

The Social Learning buzz started with the breathtaking success of Social Networking sites Facebook and LinkedIn. These offered something revolutionary: software that boosted connecting and sharing among people. It did so by pro-actively recommending new contacts based upon current relationships and behavior. As a result, people’s networks could suddenly expand effortlessly. One did no longer have to search for people with things in common. Connecting now happened in a breeze, because the system could make relevant new contact recommendations. As a result, sharing of content and activities grew exponentially. This was not possible before in Group or Community sites. These enabled collaboration only among members of the same group or community – just like a traditional LMS.

This is why we must not call a LMS with just collaboration tools a “Social LMS”. To be “Social”, a LMS must enable sharing among teachers and students from different educational entities. It cannot be a walled garden.

At Sclipo, the world’s largest Social LMS used by teachers and students in over 100 countries from thousands of educational entities, we firmly believe that social learning has the potential to revolutionize education – and this revolution will be more significant than the one ignited by LinkedIn and Facebook! Sharing in education has a huge impact on how we learn and thus on our whole life: it is after all during our education when we find our friends and jobs.

Welcome to the Social Learning Revolution!

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Here is a link to the Catalan version of this post, La revolució del social learning, published at El Blog del Llibre Digital from Grupo Santilla.

Add content from Slideshare, YouTube and other sites to your Library

Don’t have enough content for your teaching activities? Don’t worry! With a few clicks you can now can add content from leading sites to the Library of your Sclipo Academy:
* Documents & presentations from: Slideshare and Scribd
* Videos from: YouTube and Vimeo
* Images from: Flickr
* Screencasts from: Screenr

How does this work? Very easy!
1. Select Add Content, from the My Academy menu
2. Copy & paste the URL of the content you wish to add from the external site where it is hosted
3. Describe the content
Done!

And now…
… see the content in your Library
… assign it to courses, events and groups
… edit its privacy settings, so only your students can see it
… promote it on Twitter, Facebook and other social media
… have your students rate & comment the content

Check out this tutorial (and example).

We hope you like this new feature. If there are other content sites you’d like us to include, just drop us a line.

Sclipo – Aplicación de Aprendizaje Web o eLearning para los demás (parte 2)

En la parte 1 de este post, expliqué que Sclipo es una Aplicación de Aprendizaje Web, una nueva categoría de software de eLearning para “los demás”: profesores autónomos, pequeñas empresas y escuelas en formación continua para quienes los Sistemas de Gestión del Aprendizaje tradicionales son demasiado costosos y complejos.

En esta parte 2, describo las aplicaciones que Sclipo ofrece a través de su Academia Web: el espacio de eLearning que profesores, escuelas, empresas y cualquiera que disfrute enseñando, puede abrir en Sclipo.

Con tu Academia Web puedes:
* Enseñar y gestionar tus Cursos online, face-2-face y mixtos
* Almacenar y compartir contenido en tu Biblioteca en cualquier formato: video, documento, audio e imágenes
* Enseñar en directo tus clases y webinarios a través de cámara web, presentaciones, compartir escritorio y más herramientas de interacción
* Organizar Eventos presenciales y colaborar en Grupos online con tus estudiantes y otros profesores
* Promover tu Academia y sus servicios a través de Facebook o Twitter
* Recolectar pagos por tu cursos y sesiones en directo (Sclipo no cobra comisiones)
* Invitar y administrar un número ilimitado de estudiantes
* Autorizar a múltples profesores a enseñar cursos y sesiones en directo desde tu Academia
* Personalizar el nombre de tu Academia, URL y diseño

Aquí más detalles:

Cursos
Esta aplicación te permite publicar, gestionar y enseñar tus cursos online, face-2-face y mixtos. Un curso puede ser impartido por uno o muchos profesores. Te permite compartir contenido, mantener discusiones, organizar sesiones en vivo y publicar mensajes en el muro del curso. Cada curso tiene un panel administrativo para invitar, aprobar y comunicarse con estudiantes y demás profesores. Los cursos pueden ser públicos o privados. También puedes cobrar por tus cursos y recolectar los pagos de manera fácil por tarjeta de crédito u otras formas de pago. Sclipo no cobra comisión.

Biblioteca
Esta aplicación te permite almacenar, compartir y gestionar los contenidos (videos, documentos, presentaciones, audio e imágenes) que utilizas para enseñar. Puedes almacenar tu propio contenido y usar contenido de miles de otras Academias en Sclipo. Usa el contenido en cursos y sesiones en vivo, y compártelo en tus grupos y eventos.

Enseñar en directo
Esta aplicación te permite impartir clases en directo, webinarios y reuniones con múltiples participantes en cualquier lugar. Una sesión en directo puede ser independiente o ser parte de un curso, evento o grupo. Puedes enseñar a través de cámara web (= video chat), compartir documentos, chat de texto y compartir tu escritorio. Puedes programar ilimitadas sesiones públicas o privadas. Tienes un panel administrativo para invitar, aprobar y comunicarte con los participantes. De igual manera que en los cursos, puedes cobrar por las sesiones en directo y recolectar los pagos de manera fácil por tarjeta de crédito u otras formas de pago. Sclipo no cobra comisión.

Eventos
Esta aplicación te ayuda a organizar eventos educativos presenciales como conferencias, talleres y lecturas. Puedes discutir en el muro del evento, transmitir sesiones de eventos en directo y compartir contenidos con los participantes. Al igual que en cursos y en la aplicación de Enseñar en Directo, puedes cobrar de manera fácil por tarjeta de crédito u otras formas. Sclipo no cobra comisión.

Grupos
Esta aplicación te ayuda a colaborar online con estudiantes y otros profesores para estudios, investigaciones u otras actividades colaborativas. Puedes discutir en el muro del grupo, realizar sesiones en vivo y compartir contenido con los miembros. Mmm… no puedes cobrar por la participación en Grupos. Nos pareció que esto no tenía sentido. Avísanos, si crees que nos hemos equivocado.

Panel de control
El panel de control tiene herramientas para personalizar tu Academia, administrar los Profesores y promover tu Academia.

* ¡La Personalización es fácil! En menos de 1 minuto puedes destacar tu Academia ¡sin necesidad de conocimientos de programación! Elige el nombre de tu Academia y su dirección URL escribiendo tus opciones en los campos de texto correspondientes. Diseña tu ambiente favorito cargando una imagen de fondo (por ejemplo tu logo o una foto interesante) y selecciona un color de fondo con un solo click.

* Puedes tener varios profesores en tu Academia Web. Éstos te pueden ayudar a enseñar cursos o sesiones en directo. O pueden enseñar cursos y sesiones en vivo por sí mismos y que tú seas el coordinador. Para aumentar el número de profesores, ves a Panel de Control / Administrar profesores e invítalos desde tu lista de contactos de Sclipo o escribiendo/importando sus direcciones de correo. Tus invitados recibirán un correo electrónico con un código personal de invitación. Una vez que un profesor acepte, puedes asignarle a cursos y sesiones web. Profesores invitados pueden editar cursos/sesiones en directo, promoverlos, invitar a estudiantes, definir actividades, etc. Pero sólo tú, el dueño de la Academia o “Decano”, puedes publicar cursos/sesiones en directo y cambiar precios y condiciones de pago.

* Teniendo una Academia en Sclipo te ayuda a ganar notoriedad. Google y otros buscadores pueden encontrar fácilmente tus contenidos y cursos (si lo deseas). Y, si su calidad es buena, el efecto viral hará lo demás. Adicionalmente Sclipo te da herramientas para dar a conocer tu Academia. Sólo haz click en la pestaña de Promover mi Academia en el Panel de Control y podrás invitar a tus estudiantes, hacer tweets de tu Academia o darla a conocer entre tus amigos en Facebook. También puedes poner un atractivo botón en tu página web o blog de acceso directo a tu Academia.

Bueno, espero que este post te haya ayudado a entender qué herramientas de eLearning ofrece Sclipo y cómo éstas benefician tus actividades de docencia.

Para más información, visita:
Sobre Sclipo, con más información de qué hace Sclipo, para quiénes y por qué.
The Sclipo University, nuestra Academia Web con tutoriales, cursos y sesiones en vivo gratis, para aprender todo sobre las aplicaciones de Sclipo.
Herramientas ofrece una visión general de todas las herramientas.
Parte 1 de este post, donde explico por qué Sclipo es eLearning para los demás y cómo la aplicación de aprendizaje web Sclipo es distinta a una herramienta tradicional de eLearning.
¿Aún no tienes tu Academia web? Visita nuestros planes de Academias Web y selecciona el plan que mejor se adapte a tus necesidades de docencia.
Y por ultimo, me gustaría agradecerle a Victor, ya que sin él las aplicaciones de Sclipo solo existirían en mi mente. ¡Gracias Victor!

Sclipo… uno de los Startups más importantes de Europa

Estamos muy contentos de que Sclipo haya sido seleccionado para el Startup Rally de Plugg de un grupo de 116 empresas. Esta nominación es especialmente valiosa debido a la calidad del jurado formado por expertos de la industria e inversores de capital riesgo.

“… Plugg, también ampliamente conocida como la conferencia donde los mejores startups europeos, empresarios, inversores, expertos, prensa especializada y bloggers se reúnen anualmente para analizar el estado actual y futuro de Internet y de la industria móvil en Europa, anuncia los veinte finalistas para el inicio de la emocionante competencia, el Plugg Start-Ups Rally. … “(cita de la nota de prensa Plugg).

Haber sido seleccionados como “… una de las iniciativas web y móviles más importantes en Europa…” es un verdadero honor y una excelente oportunidad para evangelizar a Sclipo (también conocido como eLearning para los demás). Me gustaría felicitar al equipo de Sclipo, a los otros 19 finalistas y, entre estos, en particular a las otras 2 empresas del ámbito de eLearning: English Attack y Datpresenter.

Si eres (o conoces) un start-up que quiere participar en Plugg el 11 de marzo de 2010 en Bruselas, haz uso de este código de descuento especial para registrarte -plugg-startupspecial- por sólo 150 euros.

Gracias a Robin Wauters y Véronique Pochet por hacer Plugg una realidad. ¡Vosotros sois los verdaderos ganadores!

Sclipo… one of Europe’s most exiting startups

We are excited that Sclipo has been selected for the Plugg Startup Rally from a pool of 116 firms. This nomination is especially valuable given the quality of the jury formed by industry pundits and venture capital investors.

“…Plugg, also widely known as the conference where the top European startups, entrepreneurs, investors, pundits, trade press & bloggers annually meet up to discuss the current and future state of the Internet and mobile industry in Europe, is announcing the twenty nominees for the event’s exhilarating pitching competition, the Plugg Start-Ups Rally. …” (Quoted from the Plugg Press Release).

Having been selected as “…one of Europe’s most exciting web & mobile startups…” is a real honor and an outstanding opportunity to evangelize Sclipo (aka eLearning for the Rest-of-Us). I’d like to congratulate the Sclipo Team, the other 19 selected start-ups and, among these, particularly the other 2 firms in the eLearning space: English Attack and Datpresenter.

If you are (or know of) a startup that would like to experience Plugg on March 11, 2010 in Brussels, use this special discount code to register — plugg-startupspecial — for only 150 euros.

Thanks Robin Wauters and Véronique Pochet for bringing Plugg to life! You guys are the real winners!

Sclipo – Aplicación de Aprendizaje Web o eLearning para los demás (parte 1)

¿Qué es Sclipo? Esto es una pregunta muy frecuente. Y debo admitir, es difícil incluso para nosotros describir nuestro producto. Esto se debe a que no existe un nombre de categoría establecido para lo que hacemos. Los establecidos – como Sistema de Gestión del Aprendizaje (Learning Management System, LMS) o Sistema de Gestión de Cursos (Course Management System, CMS) – no acaban de encajar. ¿Y por qué? Porque Sclipo ofrece una nueva solución a un nuevo grupo de usuarios quienes, hasta ahora, han sido excluidos de usar LMS por coste y complejidad. Hmm… ¿Confundido?

La comparación con un producto conocido ayudará a entender. Consideremos como ejemplo los ordenadores. De acuerdo con el Museo de Historia de los Ordenadores, el primer ordenador fue construido en 1939. Revisa la evolución de los ordenadores y podrás ver como por cada nuevo tipo de ordenador se establece un nuevo nombre de categoría: Ordenador central, mini-ordenadores, ordenador personal, etc. Algunas categorías desplazaron a otras. Algunas añadieron al mercado de los ordenadores, ofreciendo una nueva solución a un nuevo grupo de usuarios.

Entonces ¿qué es Sclipo?
Sclipo es una Aplicación de Aprendizaje Web (Web Learning Application, WLA). Nos gusta (y por ende, hemos inventado) el término WLA, porque Sclipo provee herramientas de aprendizaje en tecnología de aplicación web: sin descargas, ni instalaciones en tu servidor web, sin configuración y sin mantenimiento: Sólo regístrate y tendrás tu propia WLA operativa en cuestión de minutos.

Las principales diferencias funcionales con respecto a un LMS son:
* Fácil de usar: Si sabes usar Facebook, sabes usar Sclipo.
* Económico: Tu Aplicación de Aprendizaje Web cuesta a partir de $10 mensuales. Intenta batir este precio con un LMS, incluso con los de código abierto (y no olvides de calcular los costos de hosting, configuración, mantenimiento, etc.).
* Red de aprendizaje: Puedes usar tu WLA de Sclipo en completa privacidad e aislamiento (como un LMS tradicional) o puedes compartir y conectar con alumnos y profesores de miles de otras WLAs en Sclipo (esto es sencillamente *imposible* en un sistema tradicional de LMS).

¿Cuál es este nuevo grupo de usuarios?
Nuestra aplicación de aprendizaje web es “para los demás”: profesores independientes, pequeñas empresas y centros de formación continua. Para ellos, un sistema tradicional de LMS es demasiado costoso y complejo. LMS están hechos para grandes organizaciones y escuelas, cuyos procesos educativos y requisitos son muy distintos. Por ejemplo, la educación continua pocas veces requiere control de plagio, algo esencial para las Universidades. Aparte de ser sencilla, económica y ofrecer formar parte de una red de aprendizaje única, Sclipo ofrece la mezcla exacta de las herramientas que responden a las necesidades particulares de la educación continua.

¿Y, qué aplicaciones de aprendizaje ofrece Sclipo? Como este post se está alargando, responderé en el próximo. A los curiosos, los invito a visitar Sobre Sclipo y la Universidad Sclipo. También pueden ver Herramientas Sclipo
para una visión general de todas nuestras aplicaciones.

Sclipo – Web Learning Application or eLearning for the Rest-Of-Us (part 1)

What is Sclipo? This is a very frequently asked question. And, I must admit, it is hard for ourselves to describe it. This is because there is no established category name for what we do. Established ones – like Learning Management System (LMS) or Course Management System (CMS) – do not quite fit. Why? Because Sclipo offers a new solution to a new group of users who till now have been excluded from using LMS due to price and complexity. Hmm… now you are even more confused, aren’t you?

Thinking about another, well known product, will help you understand. Let’s take the computer as an example. According to the Computer History Museum the first computer was build in 1939. Review the timeline of computers, and you will see that for each new type of computer, a new category name was established: Mainframe, Mini-Computers, Personal Computers, etc. Some categories displaced others. Some added to the computer market, offering a new solution to a new group of users.

So, what IS Sclipo?
Sclipo is a Web Learning Application (WLA). We like (and hence invented) the term WLA, because Sclipo provides learning tools as a web application: no download, no installation on your web server, no configuration, no maintenance, no hosting: Just register, and you have your own WLA up and running in minutes.

The main functional differences to a traditional LMS are:
* Ease of use: if you know Facebook, you know how to use Sclipo.
* Affordable: your Sclipo WLA costs as low as $10 per month. Try beating this with a traditional LMS, including an open source one (ah, and do not forget to calculate the cost of hosting, configuration, maintenance, system admin, etc.)
* Learning Network: you can use your Sclipo WLA in total privacy and isolation (like a traditional LMS) or you can share and connect with students and teachers of thousands of other Sclipo WLAs (this is simply *not* possible in a traditional LMS).

Who is that NEW group of users?
The Sclipo WLA is for “rest-of-us”: independent teachers, and small companies and schools in continuous education. For them, a traditional LMS is too expensive and complex. LMS are made for large organizations and schools, whose educational process and requirements are quite different. For example, continuous education hardly requires plagiarism control – something essential for Universities. Besides being easy, affordable and providing an unique learning network, Sclipo offers the right mix of tools that respond to the particular needs of continuous education.

So, what learning applications does Sclipo offer? As this post is getting a little too long, I will answer this question in an upcoming one. For those of you who are too curious to wait, check out About Sclipo and the Sclipo University. You can also see the Sclipo Features page for an overview of all our applications.

Sclipo organizes Facebook Connect Garage

We are proud to announce our third Facebook Garage, which will take place in Barcelona on April 16, 2009. This Garage offers three newbies:

1) Connect: This Garage focuses on Facebook Connect. We will explore topics related to the Connect User Experience and Development / Integration.
2) Sclipo Courses: In addition to Facebook’s Event app, we are using Sclipo’s Courses app to organize the event and to make it more learningful. Courses serves us to post and share educational docs and videos related to Connect. In addition, it allows attendants to stay connect after the event.
3) Live streaming: This will be – to our knowledge – the first garage that is streamed live over the web for those who cannot attend in person. As of today over 60 people, mainly from Latin America, have signed up. We will be using Sclipo’s web classroom for the streaming.

Want to take part?
* To attend in person, sign up here.
* To participate via live streaming, sign up here.

Thanks a bunch to Julia Lam from Facebook for her support. And, a very special thanks to Intel, who is sponsoring this Garage.

Sclipo Awarded Red Herring Top 100 Global Company

We are excited to announce that we have been awarded as one of the Red Herring Top 100 Global Companies of 2008. I’d like to thank the team for all its outstanding efforts to make Sclipo possible. Here an excerpt of the official press release from the Red Herring.

…Red Herring Top 100 Global Companies are chosen from winners and finalists of the previous North America, Europe and Asia Red Herring Top 100 Companies. Out of 1,800 successful and highly eligible companies, the Red Herring editorial team deployed a detailed process to drill-down the best companies first to 200 finalists, then to the top 100 winners of this global award. Evaluations were made on both quantitative and qualitative criteria, such as financial performance, innovation, management, global strategy, and ecosystem integration. The announcement of the winners was made at the Red Herring 100 Global taking place in San Diego from January 14-16, 2009. Present among the finalists were elite executives and venture capital leaders from around the world. “We were so pleased to announce Sclipo as a Red Herring Top 100 Global Company,” commented Red Herring publisher Alex Vieux. “Sclipo has proven to be a company excelling in their industry and its ripples have turned into waves. We look forward to the changes it will make to its industry in the future.” …

Watch and participate at the UOC UNESCO Conference on Digital Divide through the Sclipo Web Classroom

Sclipo is proud to be teaming up with UOC and UNESCO to bring the UNESCO Chair in E-Learning Fifth International Seminar (Nov 12-14, 2008) to anybody in the world via our Live Web Classrooms. This year’s conference topic is extremely interesting: Fighting the digital divide through education. Some of the most prestigious experts from universities such as UOC, Harvard, London, Southern California, and Salamanca participate.

It is part of Sclipo’s vision to help close the digital divide by making distance education more efficient and real. With Sclipo’s Live Web Classroom (now in public alpha), we enable teachers to connect and interact live with multiple students anywhere through webcam, whiteboard, document sharing, video presentation and chat. With this, Sclipo complements efforts such as the One Laptop Per Child project, whose laptop comes with a built-in webcam. Imagine! If teachers would just spend 1 hour per week teaching children in the developing world over the web. This could have an enormous impact.

UOC UNESCO Chair in E-Learning Fifth International Seminar – Fighting the digital divide through education
> Dates: November 12-14, 2008
> Venue: Barcelona, Avinguda Drassanes, 3-5
> Web-Venue: Sclipo – to participate at the seminar over the web, go here.
> For info and updates, go here.
> Read the UOC UNESCO blog about the event here.