We're pleased to announce Nfomedia Graphs which uses dynamic images (no plug-in required) to provide fast, real-time overviews for Personal Homepages and Prosite Courses. Currently, graphs are available for Web Traffic and User Activity. You can expect more graphs in the future including a series dedicated to Gradebook.

We're pleased to announce that Web Badges are now available to Course Sites, Personal Homepages, and User Profiles. Web Badges are for promoting your Nfomedia pages elsewhere on the Web (e.g. Facebook, Blogs, University pages). The embed code for your Web Badge can be found on the Site Overview page of your Course/Homepage or at the bottom of your Profile page. Here are some examples:

We've added mobile blogging to Personal Homepages which allows you to easily publish photos and/or text directly to your blog from your mobile phone. Simply go to Blog Settings at your personal blog to obtain your Mobile Upload E-mail then save this to your Address Book on your mobile phone. Now you can easily send camera phone pictures directly to your blog. You can also change your mobile e-mail address at anytime by clicking the reset button.

Nfomedia has a new look! The HOME, BLOG, NFOMAIL, MY SITES and NFOMEDIA menus have been moved to the top of the course home page -- making access to them quick and easy.

Also, professors and course administrators can now add a custom BACKGOUND to their course websites and personal homepages.  Simply click on Site Settings and chose Background.  Features include (1) background color, (2) background image, (3) image alignment, and (4) repeat image.

Professors and students who have created Personal Home Pages can now enable their own personal chat room where they are talk in real time with any registered Nfomedia user. To activate the Chat Room on your Personal Home Page, simply click on ?Site Settings? and select ?Feature Settings & Link Course Sites.?

Nfomedia was asked for an interview a few weeks ago by e-learning expert and author Susan Smith Nash (E-Learning Queen). You can read the interview with Nfomedia founder John Erdner here.

The Drop Box menu option is now available for use with course websites -- providing an efficient way for professors to accept written assignments/papers in any readable document format (e.g. doc, rtf, pdf, etc). Submitted papers are date and time stamped and can only be seen by a student and his/her professor. When papers are submitted a second or third time, all earlier submissions remain visible and intact. Submitted papers can only be deleted by the course administrator.  As with Journal entries, Drop Box assignments are initially labeled ?new.?  Stay tuned.  Additional Drop Box features are currently under development.

Nfomedia has added a CONTENT search to all course websites. Now users can quickly search an entire site for specific words or phrases. We have also enhanced the search capabilities from the Nfomedia HOME page. By clicking on 'advanced search' users can search content, people, or sites.

To assist professors in the development of their sites, Nfomedia has added an Admin/Student toggle. Admin users can now switch fluidly between the Admin and the Student view without logging out and back in ? making course development and in-class demonstrations much simpler.

Automatic enrollment has been added to course sites allowing for another method of connecting students to your course. At the beginning of the semester simply go to the Course Users section, click Auto-Enroll Users, and enter the e-mail addresses of students who will be participating in the course. Now, when each student registers from anywhere on the Nfomedia network they will be automatically added to your course. Additionally, each student is given a place holder in the gradebook for easier course management while late students continue to register.

We're pleased to announce Nfomedia has upgraded it's servers exclusively to Apple Xserve and equipment has been moved to a data center in Dallas TX with bandwidth speeds of 100 Mbps (more than 50x faster than before).

We?re pleased to announce Nfomedia has added personal web pages for both course administrators and students. To begin, click on the link Personal Homepage.

When course administrators create their personal web page, it appears at the top of the My Sites list and can serve as a portal to each professor?s courses by simply changing the URL ? for example: http://www.nfomedia.com/janesmith/.  This personal website can include a personal blog, links to all of a professor?s courses, and a range of both personal and professional activities.  

Students can also create personal web pages with links to their courses housed on Nfomedia.  Their sites can also include a personal blog and an array of personal and professional experiences.

Import content from an existing course into another course.  If you are teaching two sections of the same course, you may want to create two Nfomedia course web sites.  Once course content has been developed and entered for one of the two courses, there is no need to enter it a second time.  Simply go to 'Site Settings' and select 'Import Content.'  Nfomedia will provide you with a list of your current courses.  Select the course whose content you want to import and Nfomedia will duplicate the content (including exam question banks) for you.  This process imports content only -- NOT data (e.g. users, grades, exams, blogs, messages, announcements).  

The Exams menu option is now available for use with course websites -- providing a quick and simple way for professors to post exams throughout the semester. Grades can be automatically recorded with a link to Gradebook. Exams are created from banks of question and questions stems can be written in plain text or include flash, videos, or java applets.

Here's a tip on how to add YouTube videos to your Nfomedia profile.

1. Log in to your YouTube account ( http://www.youtube.com/ ) and go to the video you would like to share. Copy the HTML text in the 'embed' section of the 'video information' pane.
2. Next, edit your Nfomedia profile and 'paste' the HTML code given by the YouTube website into the Advanced HTML box on your Nfomedia profile page.
3. Click SAVE and your video will appear.