Blackboard Blogs

Blackboard Your Way

Blackboard has one of the most diverse user bases of any application in use at institutions of learning worldwide.  From teachers and college students to elementary school principals and parents, to system administrators and academic leaders, to distance learners who log in from all over the world, the breadth of the millions of users that log into Blackboard software each day is astounding.

 

Each of these groups can be broken out further into user constituencies that want to use Blackboard software in the exact way they see fit.  At the many conferences, meetings, webinars and workshops we attend, Blackboarders are constantly listening to your challenges, and your feedback has not fallen on deaf ears.

The Product Management team and I talk to all of these different types of users, and one interesting perspective is that the diversity of most of the needs all comes back to the Blackboard system administrators.  No matter what kind of school, the Blackboard administrators are called upon to deliver technology solutions that match up with all of these needs to their varied users.

 

New Blackboard Suggestion Box

Recommending an enhancement or improvement to a Blackboard product or service has just become easier.  One now only needs to drop a simple entry virtually into the Blackboard Suggestion Box, which was highlighted in an article in the December issue of the Blackboard K-12 Bulletin:

"The Suggestion Box is a single place for all client product suggestions, whether the idea originated as an individual client request, as a part of a users group discussion, during a meeting with your client manager or through any other channel. Upon receipt, a Blackboard product manager will review your suggestion to better understand the challenges you or your organization are facing and you’ll be notified via e-mail that your suggestion has been received."

Ensuring a 21st Century Learning Environment

Jessie Woolley-Wilson, President, K-12, Blackboard

In today’s Information Age, education is no longer just a pathway to opportunity and success – it’s a pre-requisite.  A communications and technology revolution has created a global economy of high-tech, high-wage jobs that can be located anywhere there's an Internet connection.  As a result, countries who out-educate us today will out-compete us tomorrow.
 
Our current education climate places an increased emphasis on the need for data and the ability to interpret that data to make informed instructional decisions that positively affect student achievement.  Some of the largest challenges facing educators today, such as closing the achievement gap, ensuring student mastery of standards, and preparing students for success in the global economy, require data to identify areas of strength and areas of concern, allowing classroom time to be maximized on the instruction each student needs most.
 
In light of these challenges, we recently collaborated with ProjectTomorrow on two reports.  One report, titled "Leadership in the 21st Century: The New Visionary Administrator," focuses on our educational leaders.  A second report, "Online Learning Policy and Practice Survey: A Survey of the States," takes a look at online learning and how each of the 50 states are funding, developing policy and supporting online learning from a state-led perspective.