The American Association of School Administrators (AASA) has named four finalists for the 2012 National Superintendent of the Year Award – and they’re all Blackboard clients! The Blackboard K-12 team congratulates: •    Diane Frost of Asheboro City Schools (NC) •    Heath Morrison of Washoe County School District (NV) •    Lorraine Lange of Roanoke County Public Schools (VA) •    Susan Smith Bunting of Indian River School District (DE) These four superintendents have been honored for their outstanding leadership and their dedication to providing quality education for all students – with impressive stats to show for it. What a positive way to kick off the new year! To learn more about each of the finalists and their accomplishments, read the full article on AASA’s website. AASA will announce the winner of the 2012 National Superintendent of the Year Award on February 16 at the National Conference on Education in Houston, Texas.

St. Hilda’s School in Australia is embracing the mobile learning trend and saving immense printing and papers costs at the same time.  Their goal is to use 1,000,000 fewer pieces of paper this school year!  The school has just launched the very first Blackboard Mobile™ Central app in K-12.  In addition, St. Hilda’s 750 students are able to access all of their courses on their mobile devices.  Learn more about St. Hilda’s mobile story, and hear first-hand from two students about what they are now able to do on their iPad!

The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) hosts one of the largest ed tech conferences in the country. More than 10,000 teachers, librarians, administrators and other education leaders from around the globe are gathering at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, June 26-29 for ISTE 2011 to discover cutting-edge technologies, to exchange best practices with peers, and to determine the best ways to make learning more engaging and accessible for students and educators alike.

Spring is officially here! It’s time to look forward to warmer weather and a great line-up of K-12 webinars this month. Learn best practices from current Blackboard K-12 clients about building successful blended learning programs, online professional development and 1:1 initiatives. April 19 at 1:00pm ET Webinar: K-12 Schools Accomplish Their Professional Development Goals with Blackboard Learn and Collaborate Join Marilyn Underwood of the Marion County Public Schools (FL) and Christine Osborne and her team from the Cobb County School District (GA) to learn how they’ve used the Blackboard LearnTM and Blackboard CollaborateTM platforms, respectively, to increase the effectiveness of their professional development programs while simultaneously decreasing the costs it takes to do so.

Two weeks ago I had the privilege of traveling to the hospitable city of New Orleans to attend the Consortium for School Networking’s (CoSN) Annual Conference. I was in good company with nearly 1,000 superintendents, CTOs, directors, specialists and corporate members in attendance – all dedicated to making positive changes in education through innovative technologies. CoSN made many changes of its own to the conference this year, and attendees and exhibitors alike seemed to appreciate the fresh new approach. One such change was replacing the typical exhibit hall with what CoSN called the Innovation Central. Instead of rows and rows of 10×10 booths, the Innovation Central felt like a large cocktail party, with corporate members engaging in conversations with attendees at tall café tables (Innovation Pods) stationed throughout the room. I even observed one exhibitor with a large cooler packed full of ice and beer placed “discreetly” by his pod. Now that’s a way to start a conversation! This new set-up facilitated more familiar and natural encounters between vendors and educators, which both parties seemed to appreciate.  Perhaps we will see adoption of this idea at other conferences in the future.