One of the greatest benefits of working with Blackboard’s Marketing Team is the opportunity to play a major part in the development and execution of the upcoming BbWorld.  I am very proud to say we have made some awesome progress on the list of requests many good clients have willingly shared with me over the past couple of years. Things like having a dedicated hotel for Commerce Suite clients, with meeting space, nice lounge and ample room to gather and catch up on industry gossip, training opportunities, great peer sessions, listening sessions with Bb Executives and a half day discussion on Universal Edition should give everyone a good measure of education. 

We put out a poll for Bb clients on the topic they were most interested in discussing during our Bb World ’06 Birds of a Feather sessions.  The most popular session, hands down, was “Blogs, Podcasting, RSS and Wiki” according to the votes.  It prompted me to ask: What’s the big deal with blogs, etc…? How are they important to e-learning?

There are lots of fun and interesting people working at Blackboard but few with a fan base all their own.  Today we’re highlighting Volker Kleinschmidt.

Jan Poston Day:  What do you do at Blackboard?
Volker Kleinschmidt:  I’m a Client Support Engineer.  Aside from troubleshooting product issues and resolving performance problems, I am responsible for handling case escalation to Product Development, prioritizing issues, communicating between Product Development and clients, and training fellow support technicians.

Casey Green launched the Campus Computing Project in 1990; today it is the largest continuing study of the role of IT and e/learning in American higher education.  In addition to his Campus Computing Project activities, Casey is also a co-creator and the on-air host of the award-winning Ready2Net Program which will broadcast live from the 2006 Blackboard World Conference on Wednesday morning, March 1^st with a program titled “The Future of eLearning.”

Last year Blackboard announced Project Caliper, a major research and development initiative to create a product to help academic institutions plan and manage educational outcomes. (And it’s what I spent a good chunk of 2005 working on!) Because the field of outcomes assessment is going to be a continuing focus for Blackboard, we want to provide opportunities for you to learn about it at the upcoming Bb World ’06 conference.