On Monday February 20th Blackboard EMEA, along with BME Holding, our master distributor in the Middle East, hosted the first Teaching & Learning Forum in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The conference was held in the capital city of Riyadh at the Intercontinental Hotel Riyadh. The goal of the Blackboard Teaching and Learning forums is to demonstrate a series of presentations and discussions about how technology is enriching the teaching and learning experience for faculty and students in the Kingdom and around the world.

On behalf of Blackboard EMEA, I am excited to share with you the success of our first Teaching & Learning Forum in the region of Tatarstan, in Southern Russia. The conference was held on February 15th in the city of Kazan at the IT Park Hotel. The Forum gathered Presidents, Deans, Principals and Directors to participate in a series of presentations and discussions about enriching the teaching and learning experience of faculty and students in Russia and around the world via the latest collaborative technologies.

Over 70 attendees consisting of more than 25 Russian universities discussed and learned about the challenges facing Universities today, how to engage with a new generation of learners, current trends in eLearning and how technology plays a vital role in enhancing education. A panel of Blackboard

representatives hosted the event including Sales Mangers Harry Tubben, Michael Vassilev and Solutions Engineers Pablo Langa and Yuri Shilov who showed live demonstrations of the Blackboard suite of solutions available to Russian universities. The program and was enriched by lively discussions and by special guest David Lewis from Glamorgan University who shared the experience of a Blackboard University in the United Kingdom, presenting a practical case of the challenges, change of behavior and most importantly the success they have had since they began using Blackboard Learn throughout their university. Mr. Lewis’ impressions were gratefully shared with us after the Forum: “The questions I was asked echoed the concerns of my colleagues in the UK when we are at out stages of introduction of this technology, and I hope that I left them with some ideas as to how they can progress, and they would be joining an international community of technologists and scholars in taking forward their development.  The days proceedings were brilliantly designed and constructed to address their fears, explain the potential and provide them with opportunities to experience the range of new features and functions open to them, whatever their needs.” This blog was created by Senior Channel Marketing Manager, Roksana Nabavian.  Roksana has been working with the International markets at Blackboard for 5 years and holds a BA in International Affairs and MA in International Education and Training from American University. She is based out of Valencia, Spain. Contact her at: roksana.nabavian@blackboard.com For more information about Blackboard events in Russia and other locations in EMEA, visit us at: www.blackboard.com/emea.

Buongiorno, Cyber World!

Although I consider myself to be more than average when it comes to technology use, and Web surfing in particular, today marks a new day for me: today I post my very first blog entry!  Oh boy, here it goes . . .

As a polyglot I am tempted to type my first entry in a mélange of various languages to keep you searching for new words or phrases in this post.  On second thought it may be best to engage you step by step — one foreign word at a time.  To get us started down "Le Boulevard Globale," here’s my International Fun Fact of the week: Multilingual speakers out-number monolingual speakers in the world’s population.  If you take a look at this link, you may be as surprised as I was.

At Blackboard alone, one can roam the halls of our headquarters in Washington, DC on any given day and hear people speaking Chinese, French, Japanese, Farsi, Italian, Arabic and much more.  We are a global company, offering solutions that translate beyond the English-speaking world.  I’m reminded of a Blackboard travel experience in Ecuador I had not too long ago, with two very different personalities that I think accurately represent the spirit of some Blackboarders.  Let me paint you a picture:

An American from the state of Utah, who lived extensively in Mexico and is fluent in Spanish; a Peruvian-American salesman from Miami who speaks Spanish, a little Portuguese and English with a Midwestern accent (thanks to his wife); and me, an Italian-Iranian raised in Washington, DC, and fluent in both these guys’ languages.  We were traveling to meet prospective clients in Guayaquil and then to the renowned Inter-American Organization for Higher Education OUI event in Loja, Ecuador — a trip that should have been easy, effective, and fun, given our very diverse life experiences.  What was in store for us, however, could never have been imagined and we will never forget it.