E-learning is already pretty green. But Educadium has taken it step further.

We're happy to announce that Educadium and the International Air and Hospitality Academy have partnered to create an online learning center for IAHA’s Renewable Energy Institute. Educadium’s EasyCampus Virtual School Builder platform will enable state-of-the-art renewable energy technical training.

Ed Bedecarrax, IAHA’s Director of Education, is working hard to provide his students and teachers with increased online access: “EasyCampus brings the International Air and Hospitality Academy into the 21st century. Through Web-based applications, we can better serve the educational needs of our students. At the same time, EasyCampus gives our faculty the tools to explore more efficient and innovative ways of teaching.”

The International Air and Hospitality Academy is based in Vancouver, Washington. The Academy’s new institute comes as a response to the growing demand for wind power and wind-power workers. The U.S. Department of Energy has stated a goal of having 20% of the nation’s energy come from wind by 2030. Graduates of the program will be qualified for entry-level positions as wind turbine technicians.

For the full announcement, visit our In the News area.

Today, Educadium released the next version of its popular EasyCampus Virtual School Builder platform.

Called EasyCampus Express, this update lets educators, trainers, and organizations of all sizes create an online school or training program in just a few minutes and without a credit card. Free course templates and online customer support are included. It has a clean, professional interface, and a layout that will help people create online courses more quickly.

The best part? It's free.

Some of the benefits available at no charge:

• Five-minute set up; no credit card required
• Five course templates tailored to specific learning needs, including self-paced content
• Access to EasyCampus learning activities, quizzes, gradebook, and certificates
• Clean interface and layout, with a variety of helpful features
• E-commerce for tuition courses
• Educadium's global infrastructure and security

Express is a great no-risk way for individuals and small organizations to learn about online school building. For a short video tour of EasyCampus Express, visit our Learning Center.

Previously, we had a trial period for testing EasyCampus. But creating a virtual school should be a deliberate decision, and we didn't want to rush people.

We're also confident that as their e-learning initiatives grow, many EasyCampus owners will want to upgrade to subscription packages, which start at $29/month for 250 users.

The paid packages allow for more branding, unlimited courses, access to powerful course wizards, and (of course) more users and storage.

Still, with 25 users, 1GB of storage, and five free course templates, EasyCampus Express has plenty of power to create a small online school with global reach.

Sign up today with just your email. Then look around and let us know what you think. There are no obligations except the normal terms of service.

More information about the EasyCampus Express announcement is available here.

January is a busy time at Educadium. The infrastructure team has finished some important hosting upgrades to help manage our growing group of global users. Performance, speed, and accessibility have never been better.

In addition, we have completed a number of improvements to our EasyCampus Virtual School Builder service, which will be rolled out shortly.

Just a few of the powerful features you can expect: New great themes; revamped campus-creation and course wizards; and innovative course templates to match your online teaching needs. Got SCORM self-paced material or a hybrid class? We've got a template for you.

There's even an updated campus administrator's manual to help with the ins and outs of managing an online learning community.

In short, EasyCampus makes starting an online school in 2010 easier than ever.

For the budget-minded (and who isn't?), we've created a "micro-school" solution for organizations with fewer than 25 learners. This will be perfect for teachers, students, and small collaborative groups.

Do you have any other suggestions for creating the perfect virtual school or online training program? Send along your ideas to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

At first glance, some people say that EasyCampus looks like a cross between other popular and impressive learning management systems like Moodle or Blackboard. We don't mind the comparisons.  

But EasyCampus has a number of distinctive benefits. Moreover, it stands on its own when it comes to convenience and affordability, the kind of value that organizations need in a difficult economy. 

Starting at about $30 a month, any school or trainer can have a secure, global online educational presence. Just as importantly, Educadium offers unlimited online support--truly old school in this age of outsourcing and help-ticket rationing. That's key for educators who might be unfamiliar with e-learning tools and need a bit of guidance.

We've also tried to take away the hidden costs that often come with using a powerful piece of hosted software. It shouldn't take days of training or a Ph.D to create an online course. Based on Educadium's research, many novice online teachers need more pedagogical help than their organizations provide.

So, we created the EasyCampus Course Wizard to let anyone customize a world-class, facilitated course in minutes. These instructor-led courses are commonly used in virtual high schools and universities but can be useful for corporate trainers, too. They leverage discussion forums (post-and-reply bulletin boards) and assignment drop-boxes for grading.

Our wizard creates a custom course with up to 52 course lessons (or modules) with pre-populated learning objects and menus. There are two basic templates: 1). Standard, which is appropriate for most instructors; and 2). Custom, which is designed for advanced users who wish to build a course from scratch by starting with only a minimal number of learning objects.

On the landing page of every EasyCampus, there are several links that lead to the Course Wizard (provided that you have the proper permissions as a course creator). Before you begin, we recommend that you:

• Decide on a title for your new course 
• Come up with a course description and welcome message
• Determine how many lessons your course will have
• Create titles for the lessons

Then, it's a snap. Just fill in the blanks--from Course ID to lesson titles. Everything can be changed later once you've created your course, through normal EasyCampus editing tools.

The Wizard even lets you select a favorite color, which can be different from your EasyCampus theme. Once you've reviewed and created the course, you'll be taken directly to your new class, where you can review your handiwork and make edits. Now it's time to upload course content like a syllabus and other digital materials.

Every lesson (or whatever you name the module) comes with discussion forums, a lesson folder for resources, and an assignment drop box for students to upload materials for grading.

The Course Wizard is just one of the many tools available to EasyCampus owners and at no extra charge. It's quick, simple, and saves a lot of time for instructors, who can then focus on content--not layout. Give it a try, and tell us what you think!