BbWorld in Las Vegas was a whirlwind of activity for Blackboard Clients, Partners and Employees alike. It was extremely difficult to pick a favorite moment out of a week spent at OSCELOT Open Source Day 6.0, DevCon 2011 and BbWorld 2011. There were certainly a few that stuck out. Dr. Chuck’s Blackboard tattoo and Matthew Small in a wedding dress with a Blackboard tattoo of his own certainly made for interesting conversations in the halls of the Venetian. From a Blackboard Partnerships perspective, the announcement of new and/or continued partnerships with all the major publishers, the Blackboard Developmental Education announcement and a new Premier Partner in Kaltura were surely highlights. That said, I am a self-proclaimed computer geek and the Blackboard Sponsor for TechBUG, so I wanted to take a few moments to recap our first meet-up in Sin City.

The Arkansas Blackboard Users Group (ARbug) recently held their annual user’s conference, and I was lucky enough to take part in the festivities. The conference took place in beautiful Hot Springs, Arkansas on the campus of National Park Community College. The theme of the conference was, “Educate. Communicate. Collaborate,” and the group of ~100 clients, Blackboarders and Blackboard Partners did everything they could to make that theme a reality. The conference began on Wednesday, March 9 — in the brand new Frederick Dierks Center for Nursing and Health Sciences, a beautiful building with a state-of-the-art Amphitheater – with two workshops designed to build collaboration amongst two groups of the educational community – Online Course Builders and System Administrators.