You keep your phone in your purse or pocket. You keep your favorite t-shirt you’ve had for years in the middle drawer (or sometimes on the floor). And when it comes to the information that matters most, you don’t want your stuff all over the place.

Wait, staying organized—that’s a lot of work. But don’t worry. Now you don’t have to do it alone. A new feature in Blackboard Learn, My Blackboard, makes it so much easier.

Think of it as your own intelligent, organized educational assistant.

Grades, notifications, course conversations, classmate profiles, and more, are all bundled into one convenient, organized interface that is accessible from anywhere within Blackboard. No jumping in and out of courses, multiple tabs, or convoluted drop-downs.

You’ll have to get your clicks elsewhere.

Blackboard Learn. Simply. Better. See why.

Social Learning has been taking place forever – in college dorms, high school hallways, university quads, and so on.  But how can institutions foster Social Learning online, where today’s students spend so much of their time, in order to increase student engagement and ultimately retention and graduation rates?  I’m really looking forward to hearing some different perspectives on this question at BbWorld this year!  Social Learning is one of the BbWorld 2012 themes, so there are a variety of sessions dedicated to this topic.  But how will you decide which to attend?  To help you out (and since Social Learning is of particular interest to me), I thought I’d pull together a list of the five Social Learning sessions at BbWorld you shouldn’t miss.

• Harnessing the Power of Social Media – Eric Sheninger is the Principal of New Milford High School in Bergen County, New Jersey and is passionate about establishing and fostering learning environments that are student-centered, collaborative, flexible, and prepare all learners to succeed in the 21st Century.  Eric has emerged as an innovative leader in the use of social media and web 2.0 technology and will speak about how to harness the power of social media to engage students, improve communications with stakeholders, and help educators grow professionally.
• Transform Online Student Engagement: See the Future with “KnowU – Where Social Meets Learning” - Harrison College will discuss the new online social learning platform they developed – KnowU – that integrates with their Blackboard ANGEL LMS and blends traditional online learning tools with a virtual college support system and a social media hub.  They will share their vision and motivating factors driving the project, findings from their first pilot groups, and a demo of KnowU.

For those of you who are curious about what the new Institutional Hierarchy feature in Blackboard Learn 9.1 is all about, I wanted to share a short presentation from BbWorld that provides a quick overview. This presentation discusses how Institutional Hierarchy allows you to delegate administrative privileges in a way that parallels your real-world institution. You can view the presentation below. And to learn more about this feature and the many others that are part of the full Blackboard Learn platform with Community Engagement and Content Management, join us for a webinar on Wednesday at 2:00pm Eastern.