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Renee Citlau and her colleagues at Cypress High School in Anaheim, California, were puzzled why a student was performing much better in the online class Citlau taught than in his face-to-face classes, so she asked him why. The answer was heartbreaking.

“I feel more comfortable in my online class because no one can hear my voice and make fun of my accent.”

Renee Citlau, the 2013 Online Teacher of the Year, tells that story not to pull at heartstrings, but to demonstrate the potential of online classes to encourage student engagement and foster a sense of community.

“In the online classroom, it’s so important that community is developed, and we know that because we really have to work at making that online course engaging, or our students aren’t going to come back,” she said.

Renee, an online business teacher at Cypress High School, spearheaded the Anaheim Union High School District’s online program in 2007, and now helps her fellow teachers incorporate online tools into their classrooms. She uses Blackboard Collaborate to meet with students in her online classes through weekly virtual sessions.

We had the honor of sitting down with Renee in our Washington, D.C., offices and hearing from the best in the business what classroom teachers can learn from online teachers. Watch Renee explain the importance of developing community in online classes:

To learn more, check out EdTech: Focus on K-12’s interview with Renee on 5 Must-Have Elements for Every Online Class.

“I loved getting the chance to hear what others were doing in their schools.”

This is a representative reaction to the inaugural events of K-12 Lunch ‘n Learn, a Blackboard initiative designed to bring experts—and a good meal—to K-12 technology directors, superintendents, and communications directors nationwide.

…the award-winning IT and DevOps champion Gene Kim.

While a student of Purdue computer science professor and prominent Internet thought leader Dr. Gene Spafford, Gene Kim co-authored the open source tool Tripwire (talk about a project with good Genes). Five years later, Kim founded the information security software company of the same name and served as CTO for 13 years. This accomplishment contributed to Kim being named to the ComputerWorld list of “40 Innovative IT People Under the Age of 40.”

A popular speaker and author, Kim is something of a folk hero among the IT community. He recognizes that IT Operations is a critical but often overlooked asset in almost every organization. IT is not only responsible for running the infrastructure that vital business operations rely upon but also enables Development to release features into production quickly and without disrupting the customer. At Blackboard we rely heavily on IT Operations for both functions, especially with our model of small releases on a regular basis to be responsive to our users; IT Ops, along with Development, is key to that strategy.

Author of The Visible Ops Handbook, Kim’s latest title is the groundbreaking The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win. Mike Orzen, co-author of the Shingo Prize-winning book Lean IT: Enabling and Sustaining Your Lean Transformation, called The Phoenix Project “A must-read for anyone wanting to transform their IT to enable the business to win. Told through an absorbing story that is impossible to put down, the authors teach the essential lessons in an accessible way. Every business leader and IT professional should read this book!”

“When you’re doing things the right way,” Kim said, “there’s no wasted motion, you get hurt less, you’re healthier, and more efficient.” This was a reference to not one but two of his passions—IT operations…and yoga.

Register for DevCon by 5/31 for a reduced rate.

In 2012, we released the first Blackboard Collaborate Mobile app for iOS devices. The immediate response was rewarding: over 60,000 downloads worldwide. Now we’re expanding our reach even further.

Blackboard Collaborate is itself a collaboration. By working closely with our Product Advisory Council, I was able to gather feedback to help guide the future of our mobile initiatives. You asked for Android support and now you have it! We are pleased to announce Blackboard Collaborate web conferencing for Android, which includes the Kindle Fire HD.

We all see how technology is now an inseparable part of education. What we don’t always see are effective ways to implement it.

Blackboard partner SlideShark does.

Thanks to SlideShark 3.0, a new, free iOS app, faculty can deliver PowerPoint presentations via iPads and other iOS devices.

 

The usual suspects are included: slide previews, timer controls, a notes display section. So are new features: broadcasting, real-time annotation. Like Blackboard, SlideShark is harnessing technology to build a better education experience.

This means that when you’re presenting to both an in-person and online class, you can invite attendees via email to view the presentation from within the app and with a simple click. You can even invite people once the presentation is in progress.

Additionally, presenters can highlight, draw, and erase on the presentation throughout the session—and save this work for future use.

A York College instructor reports, “SlideShark enables our faculty to become comfortable using iPads in the classroom as instructional tools. With SlideShark, they aren’t afraid of this new technology. They can…use [an] iPad for presenting to the students.”

Think back to the familiar refrain from the classic picture book The Little Engine That Could: “I think I can, I think I can…” The tech has changed but the advice is timeless: if you put your mind to something (in this case, using the SlideShark 3.0 app to jazz up classroom presentations), you’ll like the results.

To learn more, tune in on Tuesday, May 7th at 2pm (ET). We think you can.