Please find the original product recommendation in Campus Technology Magazine’s Educause Floor Shopper >> CT Exclusive; Our Product Picks:
http://www.campus-technology.com/article.asp?id=19328&p=4
Want a Study Partner? IM Me
At Campus Technology, we use instant messaging on a daily basis to communicate with colleagues in the office or at home, discuss grammatical questions with fellow editors, and update co-workers on meeting times, the status of an article or project, or the day’s lunch plans. Making connections via IM is nothing new to the Millennial generation, either. So we were excited to hear that Pronto, an IM and voice chat solution from Horizon Wimba, is bringing the sense of IM as a collaboration tool into the university environment. Pronto connects to a school’s existing course management system (CMS), allowing students to add contacts to their buddy list automatically, based on who is enrolled in their courses.
They can then discuss coursework with study partners via instant message or audio chat, and IM questions to professors or TAs. Sure, there are caveats to IM in the classroom; the risk, for example, of a professor losing the attention of students who are busy chatting away with their buddies. But since IM has already become a way of life for today’s students, why not harness that tool for academic benefit? Booth 1235.