by Neha Mehta
Male Students Enjoying the Mobile Devices
Female Students with Mobile Devices
We visited the teachers at Nangwanda Secondary School in Newala last week so we could begin to understand how they teach their students and what issues they face in that process. Some of the issues they face here are startling: large class sizes ranging from 45-75 students each; limited number of teachers, only 13 teachers available to teach a school of over 600 students; minimal access to textbooks; and lack of reliable electricity. In fact, we ourselves lost power last night when preparing for the week’s sessions but were lucky enough to find a generator to charge our laptops, ad hoc servers, and mobile phones. It would have been interesting conducting a mobile technology workshop without any mobile devices!
Today, we began our 9-day project of two workshops per day consisting of 65 to 75 students each. The students ranged from grades 8 through 9. The wonder and excitement plastered their faces as we handed each group their phone were alone worth the 19-hour flight here from the US. Within the first 20 minutes and with a good measure of trial and error, they had a reasonable grasp of the mechanical functions of the phone that many of us take for granted such as: how to turn the phone on; unlock it by swiping their finger across the screen; use the camera to take pictures; and type words in the text box using the on-screen keyboard. It was remarkable to watch how quickly students began to learn how to use the phones, especially since most of them have never seen a touch-screen smartphone before in their lives.
After the workshop, when asked if she had fun today one of the students replied softly, “We have had a lot of fun because today we learned things we did not know before.”
by Klaire Marino
A few weeks back I blogged about our software beta programs for Blackboard Learn Release 9.1, Service Pack 8. Since then we wrapped up this program and made SP8 generally available to Blackboard clients. From that blog post, I received a number of inquiries about the Beta program from clients. Instead of just giving my perspective on the program I thought having one of our clients provide their experience would be helpful to any client thinking about joining future programs. I asked David Barrett from the University of York to provide his perspective on the SP8 Beta program and he kindly agreed. Thank you David!
Time well Spent for University of York.
Guest Blog post by David Barrett, Virtual Learning Environment Application Manager, University of York
David Barrett, University of York
I first learned about the SP8 beta evaluation program from a colleague who attended a Blackboard Roadshow event in the UK. It was a very smooth experience, after signing up for the BIE I was all set and was promptly given joining instructions for the webinar series that accompanied the program.
There were five webinars in all, delivered by Blackboard staff involved in product management and development. The webinars were hosted in Collaborate which provided an easy way to ask questions to the presenter and to other beta program participants.
On the whole, I found the experience to be a very positive one. During each webinar there was an opportunity to review any installation problems, or issues tester institutions had uncovered. The open nature of the webinar facilitated some interesting discussions and it was beneficial to hear other people’s thoughts on new features. Having one webinar per week (either side of the Christmas break) was useful in focusing my attention on the beta program and testing features in advance of the webinar. (more…)
by Neha Mehta
What impact can education have on a country, a city, a village, a family, a child? And what impact can an educated child have on their family, their village, their city, their country, and the world? These are some of the questions Blackboard seeks to ask, understand, and answer through Project Activate.
Partnering with Seeds of Empowerment, a non-profit organization developed through Stanford University, Blackboard is spending 2 weeks in rural Tanzania to understand the educational imperatives in a region very different from that shaped our beginnings. We will work with 140 students in grades 8-9 in Newala, a rural town in the Mtwara region of southern Tanzania, to introduce them to different mediums of learning technology. Our goal is simple and may sound familiar: To significantly improve students’ education experience through the use of easily accessible mobile devices and applications.
Students in Tanzania
Students Participating in Project Activate 2012
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by Julie Kelleher
Last week, Joshua Kim of Inside Higher Ed, posted some thought provoking questions in his blog evaluating Service Pack 8, the latest release of Blackboard Learn. After commenting that the new UI of SP8 looks “clean and modern”, he raised the following question:
“How big a deal would an upgrade be?”
Realizing that some of our clients may be asking the same question, I felt compelled to respond. The short answer is that the new look and feel offered with SP8 would not negatively impact an upgrade decision for 2 reasons:
- Flexibility and Choice
- Early Client Validation
Flexibility and Choice
Change management has been a core focus for us in recent years, and SP8 is no exception. In addition to having the choice to introduce new features and a modernized UI when they’re ready, through our Service Pack model, our clients also have the flexibility to choose which features and UI theme to deploy with SP8. (more…)
by Annie Lewis
I started at Blackboard one week prior to the launch of Blackboard Learn, 9.1. My first week was filled with a buzz that I couldn’t quite understand. All of my colleagues assured me that 9.1 contained some great new features, especially for K-12. As I learned more about the lesson plans and standards alignment and interactive tools that were a part of 9.1, I realized that the product changes really could make a difference to teachers and students.
This week, as details emerged about Learn 9.1, SP8, it took me no time at all to realize how exciting this release is for K-12 educators. From the moment you open a course, small but powerful differences catch your eye. (more…)
