It seems every year we hear more from Faculty that students just aren’t reading their course content. Blame it on last night’s big party or this weekend’s football game all you want – your students today just aren’t the same. They want instant access to their course content, grades and assignments – and they want it all in one place. With the start of the new school-year around the corner, we have just the fix for your biggest problem. Introducing: Blackboard Digital Content.

Win a $100 AMEX Gift Card by becoming one of the first Blackboard Sys Admin Superstars!

Did you know? 75% of students use course content from at least one of these four leading publishers: Cengage, Wiley, Pearson and McGraw-Hill. And the way students are consuming this course content is dramatically changing. In just the last 4 years, we’ve seen a six-fold increase in digital content sales in education globally and most experts suspect that we are still at the shallow end of the growth curve. Faculty and students increasingly want their course content, assignments and grades built right in to their Blackboard course in order to be more efficient, save time and focus on what is important to them – teaching and learning.

And YOU have the ability to make this digital content readily available to those who need it most this fall! With the publisher building blocks, faculty will have an opportunity to integrate digital content from Higher Ed’s leading publishers in to their fall courses. When you download these building blocks, we know you will be dubbed as a Sys Admin Superstar on campus and Blackboard would like to make sure you are recognized as a superstar and MORE!

To become a Blackboard Sys Admin Superstar and win $100, all you need to do is download and install at least 3 of this fall’s hottest Blackboard building blocks from our partner publishers: Cengage, Wiley, Pearson and/or McGraw-Hill. Then, fill out your name and email address here. The first 25 superstars will be awarded a $100 AMEX gift card because here at Blackboard – we know everyone in education is busy this time of year.   And that’s not all! We will also celebrate your superstardom on the Twitter-sphere so that you are recognized by all of your peers! So make sure to follow our Blackboard blog, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. Official contest rules can be found here.

Want more details on how to become a Blackboard Sys Admin Superstar? Follow these steps:

Guest blog post written by Siobhan Stynes
Siobhan Stynes is a professor of Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics and Integrated Science at Seneca College in Toronto, Canada. Spending time in the hands-on laboratory as well as in an interactive classroom has enabled Siobhan to re-evaluate the focus and methodology of her teaching, bridging the two learning environments. Her goal is to provide interactive learning experiences for her students so they can work together and develop a deeper foundation in science. Siobhan is on facebook and twitter @siobhanstynes.

Since I started teaching at Seneca College of Applied Arts of Technology in Toronto, Canada back in 2008, I have always struggled in engaging students with their work outside of the classroom. In my integrated science classroom, they were great! They would pay attention, do theoretical problems & calculations and get in to it. But, once the end of class came, the books & laptops were packed up, not to be opened for the purposes of studying science until our next class. When our institution adopted a Wiley textbook with digital content, called WileyPLUS with online homework, assignments, quizzes, tutorials, animations, audio files, students became more engaged outside of the classroom. They were eager for more assignments and more practice on their laptops and iPads (any excuse to use those cool devices, right?).

Not only was this year the BIGGEST BbWorld to-date, but it was the best (or at least that’s what we heard from Fernando Valenzuela, President Cengage Learning / National Geographic Learning Latin America).

@FerVal100 Want to see how the World has changed? Just compare the tweet activity from #BbW12 to #BbW11 you will be amazed @Blackboard @michaelchasen

Last week was a whirlwind of fun activities, engaging sessions, and keynotes full of big announcements. So, we thought we’d refresh your memory with highlights – and if you weren’t there, hopefully this will make you feel like you were a part of BbWorld 2012!

Guest blog post by Ken Sadowski, Director of Learning & Instructional Technology at the University of Chicago and Founder and Leader of SLATE, the Midwest Blackboard User Group.  He was the recipient of a 2011 Catalyst Award for Community Collaboration.  Please join this panel discussion, “Rock on, SLATE! An Up Close Look at How a Blackboard User Group has Impacted Teaching, Learning & the Support of Technology in the Midwest”, on Wednesday, July 11, 2012, 10:55 – 11:40am, room 392.

In February of 2002, I experienced two firsts in my life; the first time I visited Washington D.C., and the first Blackboard Users Conference I ever attended.  I looked to these events with great anticipation.  After all, I was a seasoned traveler and an academic IT professional so this was going to be a great experience all around.  I tried to take it all in, the city, the conference, so many things to do.  Both were very exciting and overwhelming all at the same time.

What I soon discovered was that there was just entirely too much to do by myself.  And after a couple days at the conference, I started to meet people that were feeling the same way.  A lot of them had been to D.C., but not a lot really knew what to do with this Blackboard thing.  This was new (at that time) and they were sent to the conference, just like I was; to learn everything I could and bring it back to campus and become the resident expert on using technology in teaching.  Leaving the conference, I felt I was taking home a lot of great information but I knew I would need more help year-round; but where would it come from.

So I decided to turn to my “new friends” and invited them (twelve at the first meeting) to come together and talk about what we just experienced at the conference.  We all still had questions but not all the answers.  But as we talked things through, it became apparent that between all of us, we would have all or least most of the answers.  This was a good thing.  We decided to meet again, and again, and, yes, again.  Ten years later we are still meeting and have no thoughts of quitting any time soon.