In April, I had the opportunity to work with a number of K-12 school leaders and Blackboard staff at the Blackboard K-12 Executive Symposium in New York City. This event was co-hosted by our partner, NBC Learn, at the NBC studios at “30 Rock”. We spent 2 days exploring the critical issues K-12 leaders face, how Blackboard can help them meet these challenges, and how some of their peers are already using Blackboard solutions to address these issues. See photos below.

I just returned from a series of meetings and workshops with top K-12 school administrators. Education Research Development Institute (ERDI) is an organization of superintendents across the country that meet twice a year to work with vendors on partnerships and innovation to support student learning. Blackboard has been a member of ERDI since 2007. I also attended the American Association of School Administrators (AASA) conference, a gathering of top level K-12 administrators.

The Keeping Pace with K-12 Online Learning report is now out, with an overview of the latest policies, practices and trends affecting online learning programs across all 50 states. I was honored to serve on the sponsor committee on behalf of Blackboard, providing guidance and leadership on this year’s publication.

Here is some top line information from this year’s report.

Last week, I attended the iNACOL Virtual School Symposium (VSS) conference. This yearly event brings the online learning community together for new learnings and connections. This year’s event covered the following themes:

1.  The number of online learning programs are quickly expanding and serving a growing number of students. iNACOL estimates that over 1.5 million K-12 stude
nts are currently learning online.

2.  The resources available for online learning continue to expand and improve in the delivery of quality learning experiences.

3. Virtual Schools continue to thrive but there is a strong expansion in districts that are planning and/or implementing online learning for a broader range of students. Blended learning expands beyond virtual schools to virtual learning in all schools. Of the 1.5 million online students, iNACOL estimates approximately 1 million are in general district programs, not full time virtual programs.

I want to take this first blog entry to introduce myself and tell you about what I will be sharing in this blog space. My name is John Canuel and I am the VP for K-12 Global Strategies. My work at Blackboard involves working with K-12 clients and leadership organizations to support how Blackboard can best support the needs of K-12 organizations, districts and schools to provide the best teaching and learning environments for our students. I will also be focusing on practice leadership, and ongoing communication with our K-12 partners.