Earlier this month when Chris Vento, former CIO of WebCT now SVP of Blackboard Product Development came to the Blackboard headquarters here in DC for the first time and he walked into the offices no one stopped him.  He said that felt really weird. But he said it got even weirder when someone took his picture and gave him a badge, he got a network login, he was given an office with his name on the chalkboard hanging next to his office door and was given a tour of the building.  He said it felt like he was in some strange science fiction movie.

Congratulations to the winners of the 2006 Education Blog Awards announced last week by eSchool News and Discovery Education.  The winners are:

Best Classroom Instruction Blog for Teachers:  Assorted Stuff
by Tim Stahmer, an Instructional Technology Specialist for Fairfax County, Virginia Public Schools. 

Best Classroom Instruction Blog for Students:  Applied Science Research
by Frank LaBanca, a Science Teacher at Newton High School in Sandy Hook, Connecticut.

Best Education Theory Blog:  Moving at the Speed of Creativity
by Wesley Fryer, Director of Instructional Support Services at Texas Tech University, College of Education.

Best K-12 Administration Blog:  EduWonk
by Andrew Rotherham the Co-founder and Co-director of Education Sector a nonprofit, independent research and analysis organization.

Best Instructional Blog for Teachers:  MacKenty.org
by Bill MacKenty, Computer Science Teacher at Edgartown Elementary School on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts

On Thursday afternoon when Bb World ’06 was over I stood in the San Diego Convention Center and thought about how quickly time had passed.  I thought about all the new things I’d learned, the wonderful people I’d met, and the fun times I’d enjoyed. 

Looking back on the conference it is hard to say what I enjoyed most because there was so much to choose from but these are some of my highlights:

   The Innovation Pavillion at Bb World’06 has over 70 booths and my personal favorite is the Blackboard Building Blocks booth.  At the Building Blocks booth we’ve got a couple of demo stations and a Networking Lounge to encourage folks to sit and stay a while, check email and connect with fellow clients.  Our ploys for attracting visitors worked and it has been non-stop demo action:

• Malcolm Murray (Durham University) stopped by to show off his Building Blocks Blog
• Mark O’Neill (Dartmouth) also spent some time in the booth talking with Paul Erickson (University of Nebraska – Lincoln) about the Podcast Building Block project from the Open Source Building Blocks developer community. 
• No Bb World would be complete without having the team at USF stop by to demo their latest Building Blocks (which they promise to share with the Blackboard community when their pilot is complete). 
• Wayne Twitchell (Grinnell College) stopped by to say Hi and ended up doing a bunch of demos.  He has done some very cool stuff with the Blackboard Community System.  He and Glen Parker (USF) are going to collaborate to see if they can create some Building Blocks to share.
• Matt Elton (VLE Genius) flew in from Manchester at the last minute to network at Bb World ’06.
• Clients from the Netherlands, UK, Australia, and all over the US stopped by to say hello, ask questions, and see demos of various free and open source Building Blocks.  Bob Alcorn talked non-stop for hours answering technical questions about APIs, Blackboard software, standards and everything in between.

If you’re here at Bb World ’06 please stop by the booth and say hello!

The Blackboard blog team is heading west – to San Diego, California. 

We’ve packed our bags (plenty of logo-wear for the week).  We’ve got our presentations loaded up on USB drives.  We’ve set our Out of the Office email message (and pray that we don’t inadvertently spam the various listservs we couldn’t figure out how to unsubscribe to).  We’ve got our cameras.  We’ve got our cell phones charged and ready to go.   We’ve got our schedules organized so we get to the right place at the right time.  We’ve checked the weather.com for the forecast (see below).

We’re all excited about Bb World ‘06 because it promises to be the best Blackboard users conference ever!  If you can’t join us, we hope you’ll enjoy our dispatches from the conference floor. 

If you’re at Bb World ‘06 please stop by and say hello.  I’ll be in the Building Blocks booth or hanging out in our wireless-enabled Developers Lounge right next door. 

See you in San Diego!