Blackboard Blogs

The Dingo ate my Building Block

G’Day, Mates.

As we gear up for BbSummit Australasia, Blackboard is again excited to host – in partnership with James Cook University – a regional Developer Day event. This event is offered at no cost on Monday, 13th September. It’s an opportunity to get answers to your technical questions, updates on recent openness improvements, and guidance on the design of customisations or development projects that you may have in mind.

Having studied abroad at the University of Wollongong, I experienced firsthand the unique characteristics of Australian technical, further, and higher education. In Australia alone, there are over 100 Blackboard developers who have customised their Blackboard LMS in dozens of different ways to meet these unique needs.

While at the conference, explore some examples of what other institutions are doing. Queensland University of Technology is speaking about a Building Block they've developed to auto-provision course content across institutions. University of Santo Tomas will present on enhancements they've made via Building Blocks to enhance the mobile experience and essay marking. There's also a panel session, "Enhancing Blackboard to Work the Way that Your Institution Requires," that will provide multiple client perspectives on how best to develop and implement customisations.

If you are considering a customisation or development project for your Blackboard environment, please consider attending DevDay or speak with me or a fellow Blackboard expert while at the conference. We want to give you the drum on what you need for your project to come good.

Happy coding.

Help Transform the Experience of Education

Over the past two years Blackboard has been working closely with partners like the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) and Deque Systems to achieve significant improvements in the accessibility of our products. We pledged to achieve the NFB’s certification for Non-Visual Access and in March of 2010 we were presented with their Gold Level Certification and became the only learning management system certified by the NFB.   

In July I had the opportunity to attend the NFB’s annual meeting with our VP of Corporate Strategy, Lara Oerter. Lara was speaking to the attendees about Blackboard and our partnership with NFB representatives like Anne Taylor and Clara Van Gerven. One of the themes of this year’s meeting was the power of education and equal access to information. The announcement of the certification of Blackboard Learn was met with much excitement.

Blackboard Institute: A Year in Review

At the Blackboard Institute, our mission is simple: help education leaders at all levels improve student progression. By partnering with a community of education visionaries, we can gain valuable insight and create a collaborative environment for identifying actionable solutions to tough education challenges.

The Institute provides a forum for leaders to come together and discuss scalable solutions that are working to increase graduation rates around the world.  And, together, we take on research projects that illuminate programs and policies at work right now to help more students progress through higher education.  You can find research into dual enrollment and effective online programs – and multiple publications that bear our trademark user-friendly approach – on our website. 

BbWorld Keynote Video & Other Resources

Missed BbWorld? Or made it but want to recall some of the key moments that took place in Orlando a few weeks ago? Check out the newly updated BbWorld.com which now includes lots of information and resources from the event.

Lots of you have been asking for this information, so we’ve pulled it all together in one place. New on the site this week is a gallery of our favorite photos from the week, contents from over 100 session presentations and listening notes, and even a video of the keynote delivered by Michael Chasen and Ray Henderson. In the keynote, Michael and Ray covered lots of updates and news from Blackboard including Ray’s Report Card for Blackboard Learn (you can read more in Ray’s latest blog post). The video, produced by Blackboard partner Echo360, features the full length keynote complete with presentation slides used by Michael and Ray. 

We’ll be adding more resources to this site over time so bookmark BbWorld.com and check back for additional materials from this year’s BbWorld, as well as some details on BbWorld 2011 in Las Vegas. If there’s something else you’re looking to see, please leave your comments below.

 

Release 9.1 Upgrade Cohort Program: Preparing Clients for their Transition

 When Blackboard Learn™, Release 9.1 launched this past spring, we also instituted a new initiative that we envisioned as a way to better prepare our clients for their transition to Release 9.1. The Release 9.1 Upgrade Cohort Program was specifically created and designed to give our clients more guidance and support during their upgrade process. The 12-week long program covered different upgrade planning topics each week. It also provided clients the opportunity to network with others who are moving along a similar path and learn from those who have already transitioned to Release 9.1. The program is facilitated by me in Product Marketing and some of our top Solution Engineers, Matt Davis and John Dennett.

Content: Structured & Simple

In a previous post we talked about personalization and user preferences and how they can help improve the user experience. Well, what about how teachers create and present content within their course? The presentation & structure of content has just as much impact on the experience of users with disabilities as the learning management tool does. Blackboard Learn provides teachers with a variety of ways to structure the content they create to best meet the needs of their students. There are different layout options and even different content types that give the teacher all of the flexibility they need. But the key is to keep it simple.

 

Reflections on My Second BbWorld

I attended my first BbWorld last year in Washington DC, about one month after I learned I would be working at Blackboard and about two months after the ANGEL/Blackboard merger and the ANGEL User Conference in Chicago.  Needless to say that first BbWorld was a bit of a whirlwind.  I was connecting with ANGEL clients, learning all I could about CE/Vista clients, meeting new colleagues from around the world, and dancing my way into the early morning.

Much of the discussion that was around me in Washington DC was about the cultures of the two (now one) companies.  People were curious if the ANGEL ethos could make its way into the larger Blackboard, and ANGEL clients were hanging their hope on Ray Henderson.  The two words I heard most were “cautiously optimistic.”  I also heard about some of the challenges that clients were facing with Release 9.0 and I heard about “parity” from the CE/Vista crowd.