In an eSchoolNews article that ran this month we see evidence of an expected trend: stagnant or declining school district technology budgets. What’s important to note, though, is the desire for increased use of technology in schools and classrooms – technology that will help teachers teach and student learn.

As new hardware such as interactive whiteboards and netbooks become more widely available, the opportunity for distance learning grows as well.

Consider the benefits of Haiku LMS

• Affordability. Haiku LMS is much less expensive than other learning management systems like Blackboard/Angel learning.
• Value. Haiku LMS provides storage space and bandwidth that even a hosted service like Moodle does not.
• Usability. Our users say it best: Haiku LMS is so easy to use and so flexible.

Districts can look to Haiku LMS to provide cost savings in another key area as well: hosting. Because Haiku LMS is a secure, hosted service that pools resources between many schools the cost is much less than if a district had to provide or rent a dedicated server and fund server support.

The eSchoolNews post notes that “distance learning implementation is growing at about 30 percent each year. Forty percent of educators said they have a distance learning system and would like to implement it more extensively, and 31 percent said they would like to implement a distance learning system . . . Currently, 44 states offer significant online learning opportunities for students, and Michigan and Alabama require students to take at least one online course to receive a high school diploma, she said."

Trends we’re noticing

At Haiku we have seen an increased interest in pure distance learning installations, and that interest continues to gain momentum as budgets tighten. Haiku Learning Systems is in a great position toprovide a cutting-edge, hosted LMS. Like Google, TeacherTube, Zoho, Flickr and many others, we provide a Software as Service that we designed with the same philosophy for easy exchange of information. To make it even easier for teachers, Haiku LMS includes Embed the Web™, which enables teachers to include interactive content from other Web services like TeacherTube, Digg, and Google Maps. There’s a vast amount of quality content and services out there, and at Haiku we believe that integrating with the best that the Web has to offer will yield amazing results.