Blackboard Blogs

BACK IN BLACKboard (A Window into Blackboard Client Support)

Hello, All.  My name is Matt Painter and I’m the newest addition to the Blackboard Client Success Blog team.

I started at Blackboard in June of 2005, as a technical support manager (TSM) and worked my way up the ranks to become the director of North American Support.  Last August I decided to leave Blackboard to pursue a career in reporting and analytics.  Luckily I had kept in contact with many of the good people at Blackboard and was aware of the company-wide Client Success initiative being planned.  After discussing the position with Craig and Jan, I agreed to come back to Blackboard as the business intelligence analyst for the Client Success team.

In order for Blackboard as a company to become more proactive and foster greater client success, we’ll need to use the information we gather to find and react to problems before they are brought to our attention by users.  It is my job to work with each of our departments across the company to determine the key factors that enable our clients to be successful, and then create reports that notify Blackboard employees if a client is not succeeding in the areas affected by those factors.  This process might be easier for me to explain with an example.

Using Video to Teach "The 3 R’s”

On Earth Day everyone who entered the lobby here at Blackboard’s DC office building was given a gift by the property's management company: we could choose an apple, orange or banana.

This small gesture in recognition of the 38th Earth Day, coupled with an increase in recycling opportunities around our offices, actually seemed to lead to a raised sense of environmental consciousness.

Of course we could all spend a bit more time thinking about ways to be more strategic in the reduction of our global footprint.  For example, even though I commute to and from work by bicycle, and consider myself a decent recycler, this Personal Footprint Calculator from the Global Footprint Network is a sobering reminder of just how much more I could and should be doing.

On a positive note, I think the concept of “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” appears to come naturally to our contemporary generation of learners (like a new “Reading, ‘Riting & ‘Rithmetic”).  Perhaps this stems from a natural sense of environmental awareness or maybe it’s something else . . .

Anyone remember what the animated TV series "Schoolhouse Rock!" did for math, grammar and civics lessons?  Famous artists are now creating their own public service announcements about the environment spun to catchy, keyboard- and percussion-infused tunes, like this video for Jack Johnson’s song “The 3 R’s”:

I have a feeling if you teach in a classroom you may have integrated Earth Day ideas into your lesson plans this past week.  If so, did you use video?

At BlackboardTV we’re always looking to publicize and share great examples of how you’ve used video to complement important themes in your teaching, so please send them along to me at BbTV@blackboard.com.

How to Build a BbWorld (Blackboard Clients Review and Choose the Conference Sessions!)

Those of you who have bookmarked the BbWorld '08 website may have noticed that we've announced the client-led program!  I'm really excited to see so many clients speaking on such great topics. 

There are three general conference "themes" this year: Assess, Engage, and Manage.  Schedules, Blackboard-led sessions and partner-led sessions will be available soon.

One of the questions I often am asked is "How do you select sessions for BbWorld?"  Well, the answer is that I don't, really.  Our clients do. 

This year we had 55 clients volunteer to be a part of our client program committee.  These 55 clients, plus about 10 Blackboard folks, reviewed the 325 sessions submitted for BbWorld '08 and the Blackboard Developers Conference.  All told, there were over 3500 individual session reviews – each session was looked at by an average of 10 people.  Let me explain the process.