Blackboard Blogs

Tips for a BbWorld First-timer

Newbie.  Freshman.   First-timer.  Whatever the name for it, there is always a first time for everyone and everything.  Are you a first-time BbWorld attendee?  Are you wondering how best to take advantage of all the resources and opportunitites at BbWorld?  How can you make the most of it?

Here are some tips for first-time BbWorld attendees:

Why Blackboard ASP Became Blackboard Managed Hosting

Since my first day working for Blackboard, I have been greeted by the same puzzled expression when I tell someone which department I work in: “ASP?”

It didn’t matter whether I was talking to Blackboard users, co-workers or our partners, there always seemed to be a lack of understanding of what our hosting organization was all about.  Are we really an ASP?  If not, then what are we?  Does it really do us justice to just say we are hosts to Blackboard applications?  While we do set up and maintain the servers on which applications runs, this is such a small fraction of what we do for Blackboard users.

I’ve found one of the main reasons our clients stay with us year after year is that we provide a fully managed hosting solution.  This means we have people available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, monitoring servers, performing upgrades and troubleshooting any problems.

In addition to those more task-related duties, we have teams of engineers working on the “next big thing.”  A few of the types of experts we have working behind the scenes to improve our solutions and optimize performance include:

How Could I Possibly Become a Better On-campus Trainer?

By Connie Weber, Senior Manager, Blackboard Training

I asked myself that question before I recently participated in a professional development program focused on building my training skill-sets.  I didn’t expect that I’d really learn anything new since I had been teaching for 20 years and training for five years.  But during that program – wow! – I was amazed at how much self-awareness I gained of my strengths and weaknesses as a trainer, and the new and useful techniques I learned for using technology as a tool in good teaching.

OK, admit it: How many times have you gone to a technology training class and learned all about clicking and pointing, but you never figured out how to use those tools in real life?

A quality technology training experience encompasses many factors, including:

Tim Hill Invites You to Dinner at BbWorld '08

Blackboard Professional Education President Tim Hill invites you to attend our annual users conference, BbWorld '08, in Las Vegas, July 15-17:

Tim and the ProEd team also invite you to join them for a Customer Appreciation Dinner during the event:

• Tuesday, July 15, for our government clients
• Wednesday, July 16, for our corporate and “for-profit education” clients

For more specific information about the conference, I recommend viewing the list of very useful client-led sessions reviewed and chosen by the BbWorld Program Committee, comprised of 325 Blackboard clients.

Remaining Cool in a Crisis: Tips for Blackboard Trainers

By Kevin Reeve, Blackboard Certified Trainer, Utah State University

I have always been told the key to being a professional and successful trainer is the ability to adapt and take control of the situation at hand.

Perhaps the Internet goes down, computers are not set up properly, a particular demonstration doesn’t go as planned or a certain participant dominates the conversation, trying to take the agenda off task.  All of these events can test the true skills of any trainer.  I have had my fair share of these problems.

Thanks to the training I received in the Certified Trainer Program, and hands-on experience, I have learned to always have a back-up plan and to stay cool in a crisis.  I’ll share here some of the tips I follow to make the best of any training or presentation.

Blackboard Client Support: Someone on the Phone for You

This month Blackboard hired a new vice president of Client Support.  His name is Tony Mandaro, and prior to Blackboard he worked for a software company managing operations for 12 years.  Tony's experience is just what Blackboard needs.  He served in the United States Navy, received his BS and a Masters in Education from the University of Connecticut, and taught high school in Virginia for seven years!

While interviewing for his new position, Tony asked me some of the typical questions you would expect any interviewee to ask: What is the staff like?  How do you measure success?  What are the key operational challenges I will encounter, walking in the door?  What do Blackboard users perceive as their biggest challenges?  Where do I get a good cup of coffee around here?

Besides the coffee question, most of the answers were not short.  Tony and I had a long discussion about the challenges we've encountered while the company and the size of our client base have grown, the benefits of our solutions and how we can exceed our clients' expectations of us.  One of Tony's questions in particular did catch me off guard.  Tony asked, "What is the one most important thing Blackboard can do to help clients view Client Support in a positive way?

360º View

When I was growing up, a 360º was the benchmark for cool: Cycle as fast as you can . . . pull on the back brake . . . push out the back wheel . . . and if you were going fast enough, you completed a circle.  Only a few could do it, whilst the rest watched.

As we got a bit older, the 360º was the benchmark for the reckless: Drive as fast as you can . . . pull up the handbrake . . . turn the steering wheel in the opposite direction . . . spin the back wheels . . . complete the circle.  Even fewer could do that.

Shedding the spirit of youth and entering into the 1990s, the 360º became a key workplace feedback technique for evaluating how you were doing, what people thought of your performance, and where you needed to go next.  With the Internet, 360º takes on its fourth dimension.

Three quotes jump to my mind this week about the impact of the Internet in making the previously invisible visible:

Blackboard's User-Centered Design

This entry was written by Blackboard User Experience Architect Rob Fay (right in photo), a member of Blackboard's Product Development group.

Of all the courses I took in undergraduate and graduate school, only one of my classes used Blackboard software for limited course management functions.  The instructor for that course chose to post her syllabus online; she posted the weekly assignments and readings to the space, and she encouraged the use of the discussion board.  That instructor didn’t enable many features the system had to offer, but her effort was a start.  And as a student, I didn’t know the full breadth of what Blackboard software had to offer anyway.

Nonetheless, I was excited that that instructor decided to use Blackboard software for her course management needs.  Why?

Well, after all, the class focused on human-computer interaction methodologies.  Why teach a course on system interface design and not leverage educational technologies?

Interestingly, we had a group assignment to apply traditional user-centered design methods and research to critique a chosen Web-based system.  One group decided to critique the Blackboard system we were using.

Fast forward a few years.

Now I work with the User Experience ("UX") team in Blackboard’s Product Development group.  It is my team's responsibility to critique Blackboard products and to make them easier and more enjoyable to use.  "User Experience" is a somewhat nebulous concept, but our team follows Peter Morville's "User Experience Honeycomb" model (Morville, 2004) by striving to make our products accessible, credible, desirable, findable, usable, useful, and valuable.

To achieve such high standards, we must get you – Blackboard users – involved in the design process.  So, how do we do it?  And how can you help?

Spring Flings and Facebook Fun

With the first days of spring under our belts, we in DC’s Blackboard office are looking forward to more warm days and sunny skies.

But I’ll be honest – my sights are set to a slightly warmer climate – Las Vegas in July.

Over 200 of you have already registered for BbWorld ’08.  And I’m working hard with the Client Program Committee to select the most interesting client sessions!  While you’re waiting for us to make the program announcement, how will you get your BbWorld fix?

130 of us have joined the BbWorld ’08 Facebook Group!

It’s a great place to connect with your “conference friends” all over the world – and to get special BbWorld updates. 

What kind of updates, you might ask?  Well...just the other day, I asked a question in the group’s discussion board:

If you were to ask Steve Wozniak, technology industry visionary and co-founder of Apple Computer a question – what would you ask?

Why, I wonder why KJ would ask this question?  Does she know Steve Wozniak?  Is she having lunch with him next week and need conversation topics?  Or could it be because Steve Wozniak is the opening keynote speaker at BbWorld ’08?  Why yes, that’s it!! 

So seriously – what would you ask Steve?  Check out the Facebook group and leave me your comments in the discussion board.  We’ll pass your thoughts along to Mr. Wozniak as he plans his BbWorld keynote. 

So in the meantime, check out BbWorld ’08 and the Blackboard Developers Conference at www.bbworld08.com to find all the information you need to register for both events.  And come on, Facebook with us!  You can always play a little Scrabulous while you’re at it!

"Information R/evolution" by Mike Wesch

A short post today, to share one of the several thought-provoking and creatively produced videos by Mike Wesch, assistant professor of cultural anthropology, Kansas State University, who with others is compiling an ethnography of YouTube (details can be found here).

Also, I recommend the Digital Ethnography blog kept by KSU faculty members and students.

On the Digitial Ethnography Channel on YouTube, Prof. Wesch describes his video (embedded below), titled "Information R/evolution":

This video explores the changes in the way we find, store, create, critique, and share information. This video was created as a conversation starter, and works especially well when brainstorming with people about the near future and the skills needed in order to harness, evaluate, and create information effectively.

Please let me know what other clips you'd like to see added to the video archives assembled by BlackboardTV.  I can be reached at BbTV@blackboard.com.

BbTV: How Do You Visualize e-Learning?

BlackboardTV (or "BbTV") is a new, multimedia initiative to help e-Learning innovators -- designers, instructors, students -- visualize online teaching and learning.

Look for BbTV crew members filming during BbWorld Commerce '08 in Phoenix (March 9-12), and at DevCon '08 and BbWorld '08 in Las Vegas (July 14-15 and July 15-18, respectively).  We've archived a wealth of video resources at the BlackboardTV Channel on YouTube, and each Saturday we'll post a video here on EducateInnovate, such as:

• Works about the global Blackboard community of users created by BbTV producers
• Instructional videos produced by Blackboard users, with tips for teaching and learning online
• Thought-provoking or witty clips about education and technology
• Cool videos we stumble across and just plain like

For our first recommendation, it seems appropriate to post a brief (1:35) informational video created by McDaniel College and posted originally to YouTube, demonstrating how to add a YouTube clip to your Blackboard environment:

McDaniel College, a private, four-year liberal arts college with 1,600 students, is located in Westminster, MD, about 30 miles northwest of Baltimore.  Thanks, McDaniel, for sharing your knowledge and helping us in the Blackboard community visualize e-Learning!

We invite you to share with BbTV suggestions for videos that should be featured here on EducateInnovate.  No clip is too short; no video, too funny!  Send your videos to us, or links to clips you like, at BbTV@blackboard.com.

The Blog Habit

Hi, my name is Greg, and I'm a blog addict.

I admit it. I check the feeds of the blogs I subscribe to in Google Reader before I hop in the shower in the mornings. At lunchtime, you'll find me sitting at my desk, sandwich in hand, scrolling through the morning's posts and spamming my colleagues with forwarded tidbits that I've gleaned from my mid-day dose. And usually at some point in the late afternoon, as the meetings and decisions and deliverables wear me down, stepping away from it all to check the blogs again usually nets me some new idea that gives me a rush, reminds me why I love the field of educational technology, and energizes me enough to get me through the rest of the day.

So this time around, I've decided to share a list of some of the educational technology blogs that make up part of my daily fix. What follows, in no particular order, are twenty of the best education blogs as judged by . . . well, me. It's a totally subjective list and it's by no means exhaustive, but all of these authors post regularly and all of them have introduced me to great new ideas at one point or another. But if you should get hooked yourself, you can't say I didn't warn you. ;-)