An Elluminate
Success Story

Elluminate Professional Services Supports Mission of Alberta Regional Professional Development Consortia

Dedicated to promoting student learning and achievement, school improvement, and parental engagement in the educational process, the Alberta Regional Professional Development Consortia (ARPDC) provides professional development services at the local, regional, and provincial level. For Educational Technology Resource Janet Bell, that means providing anywhere, anytime, world-class professional development for many rural teachers who would otherwise not have easy, cost-effective access.

"It's about providing adult learning for the student's sake," says Bell. "We are passionate about the integration of technology, especially with all the 21st century Web 2.0 tools we can tap into, but we are purposeful in the way in which we choose to use it. Elluminate has been a wonderful way for us to transition from the face-to-face environment to one that's more sustainable and cost effective."

"A year ago, two regions did a pilot using WebEx to see how they could overcome distance challenges," continues Bell. "When that license came up for renewal, we had the opportunity to explore other options. We did our research, and Elluminate very quickly filtered to the top."

Elluminate Professional Services Plays Key Role
After key conversations with Elluminate Professional Services (EPS) to customize an implementation program to meet the ARPDC regions' diverse implementation requirements (for example, some regions needed to fast-track implementation), key ARPDC consultants participated in Elluminate's free online moderator training followed by an intensive face-to-face, three-day boot camp.

ARPDC team members attend Elluminate training session

This training quickly moved participants past the basics and culminated in the development of a comprehensive plan to integrate Elluminate into ARPDC professional development session and meeting processes. As that plan is rolled out across Alberta, EPS continues to provide ongoing weekly 30-minute easily digested modules to help stake holders learn more about using Elluminate Live!

"None of our ARPDC locations could accommodate the boot camp training, so Elluminate opened up their own offices in Calgary to us," explains Bell. "The training was an excellent value for the time invested. I can't speak highly enough about Elluminate's Ayana Murphy. She continues to bring expertise and authority as well as a sense of humor and adventure to the training. She's inspirational and responsive. EPS has been very supportive during our rollout."

Delivering Training, Creating Communities
Educational technology consultant Patrick Bohnet is the acting manager for a series of 20 Elluminate webinars for Career and Technology Studies (CTS) teachers to train them on a new curriculum. "So far, we've had a total of 94 registrations, 53 attendees, and 132 hits on the recorded sessions," he reports. "With Elluminate, we've been able to get the new materials out quickly province wide. We're hoping to have EPS hold another boot camp during the summer to train next year's moderators."

Walt Savill provides essential at-hand pedagogical and technical support for the CTS training project. "In the past, teachers would travel to a conference, or we would send trainers to the regions," Savill explains. "Using Elluminate, we can not only get the new materials out to teachers province wide, we have developed powerful communities of practice. Working with EPS, I've found that the team is knowledgeable. They know the product and are able to help."

Meeting Needs with Customized Approach
"Part of power of Elluminate is has been the side benefits," Bell continues. "For example, the Edmonton region brought in an international speaker on visual literacy, and extended the local presentation province-wide via videoconferencing. Normally, we would use another product to stream out the slides to the other regions, but during testing it was taking 8 to 10 seconds per slide to distribute. Elluminate Live! was a fraction of that. With 500 slides presented and discussed over the course of a day, we needed quick response time."

ARPDC uses Elluminate Live! for back-end chat
and slide streaming at blended event.

"Elluminate caters to different kinds of communication styles with multiple conversational inputs that can be packaged and presented to others," concludes Bell. "You can't do that with any other type of technology. Elluminate has enabled us to provide a customized approach to meet the needs of many."