eSchool Media Recognizes Avaya With Readers' Choice Award for Efforts to Expand Online Learning


BASKING RIDGE, NJ--(Marketwire - Apr 11, 2012) -

  • AvayaLive™ Engage enables an immersive media rich learning and collaboration environment that can be assessed anytime, anywhere and on any device.
  • Enables colleges to address the problem of increased enrollment and limited classroom space with college students able to attend virtual 3D classrooms.
  • Carroll University, MIT Sloan and Algonquin College are among first adopters of advanced 3D technology to support virtual instruction.

Avaya, a global leader in business collaboration and communications solutions, today announced that it has been awarded a 2012 Ed-Tech Readers' Choice Award in recognition of its advances in next-generation online learning technology. Specifically, eSchool Media cited the AvayaLive™ Engage service offering, formerly known as web.alive, which enables students to remotely attend, learn and collaborate in media rich virtual 3D classroom environments.

eSchool Media annually recognizes what its readers consider to be the best education-technology products on the market today. eSchool Media publishes eSchool News, eCampus News, and eClassroomNews, which collectively have more than one million readers. Some 1,400 readers participated in selecting the 2012 Readers' Choice Awards, citing advances in hardware, software, online media, and related services that support higher education. The fifty award winners were featured in a special report on the products most likely to drive innovation and transform higher education.

According to Avaya, the next-generation campus -- one that is more mobile and digitally connected than today's standard -- will expand online and distance-learning opportunities, enhance the productivity of faculty and staff, enable exceptional customer service to address the growing demands from students and faculty and provide for safer campuses. Institutions of higher education increasingly are turning to Avaya for its advanced communications and network capabilities in order to offer advanced, digitally based educational experiences to their students.

As a trusted partner to over 5,000 educational institutions globally, Avaya works with educational clients to seamlessly converge and consolidate voice, data and video networks to create a foundation for a more mobile and connected campus. The advanced features of such networks underpin these clients' academic and administrative activities to drive student achievement, streamline student services, maximize faculty and staff productivity and improve campus operational efficiencies. Solutions like AvayaLive Engage can increase the student's capacity to learn collaboratively, offers a learning environment that is more engaging and can enhance the institution's appeal by being viewed as an innovator.

Supporting Quotes
"The feature-rich web conferencing software is an online service, so there is no need to worry about software patches. Schools can register in minutes and start hosting meetings online on the same day. And AvayaLive Engage's 3D graphics provide a real sense of presence that engages students and faculty alike."
-- Dennis Pierce, editor, eSchoolMedia

"We are in the early stages of adopting AvayaLive Engage as a collaborative learning opportunity on campus. Virtual environments seem to come and go, but there are three factors that make AvayaLive Engage stand out: its ease of use for students and faculty; its rich and robust analytics; and excellent service support from Avaya."
-- Terri Johnson, director, Educational Technology and Innovation, Carroll University

"MIT Sloan School of Management recognizes the need to prepare business professionals to navigate today's and tomorrow's organizations to a safe and profitable future. Our collaboration using AvayaLive Engage for MIT Sloan's Executive Education program focuses on exploring how we can harness technology to create learning solutions that match the characteristics of the world we live in, that support the way we truly learn and allow employees and students to access learning when and where they prefer. With AvayaLive Engage, MIT Sloan Executive Education is investigating how its high-touch, interactive, physical learning experience can be complemented with innovative online components."
-- Peter Hirst, Executive Director, MIT Sloan School of Management

"With AvayaLive Engage, students are able to talk in real time with each other and interact with their environment in incredibly realistic ways, including transporting patients to hospitals and using telephones to alert one another of an ongoing situation. All the while, professors observe and grade students based on their ability to properly communicate their roles to other students. As a result, this solution has translated into improved communication skills for our students who are planning careers as first responders."
-- Glenn MacDougall, Director, Learning and Teaching Services, Algonquin College

Additional Resources:

Tags: Avaya, distance learning, education, remote classroom, online education, collaboration, one-to-one computing, unified communications, UC, K-12 schools, primary education, secondary education, remote learning

About eSchoolMedia:
With a combined, unduplicated audience of more than one million education decision makers, eSchool Media Inc. is the parent organization of three robust print, digital, eMail, and video networks providing breaking news and vital information to brand-specifying buyers at every level of the education field: eSchool News (K-12), eCampus News (Higher Ed), and eClassroom News (Teachers). The eSchool Media family of networks serves ed-tech decision makers throughout the world, primarily in Canada and the United States. Our audience includes executive educators (from principals and every U.S. superintendent) at the building- and district-level in elementary and secondary schools; administrators (from chancellors, presidents, and deans to provosts, vice-presidents, and department directors) in two- and four-year colleges, public and private universities, and state university systems; as well as instructors, teachers, and professors of all subjects at every grade level. eSchool Media strives to provide the best news, information, and resources to help K-20 decision makers discover, evaluate, and procure technology to transform education and achieve educational goals.

About Avaya:
Avaya is a global leader in business communications and collaboration, providing unified communications, contact centers, data solutions and related services to companies of all sizes around the world. For more information please visit www.avaya.com.

Certain statements contained in this press release are forward-looking statements. These statements may be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "anticipate," "believe," "continue," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "might," "plan," "potential," "predict," "should" or "will" or other similar terminology. We have based these forward-looking statements on our current expectations, assumptions, estimates and projections. While we believe these expectations, assumptions, estimates and projections are reasonable, such forward looking statements are only predictions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control. These and other important factors may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. For a list and description of such risks and uncertainties, please refer to Avaya's filings with the SEC that are available at www.sec.gov. Avaya disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

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Contact Information:

Media Inquiries:
Avaya
Deborah Kline
908-953-6179
klined@avaya.com