We are excited to share the news that registration for BbWorld 2012 is now open! As you recharge over this winter break, why not get a jump start on your summer plans and consider joining us in New Orleans for our annual user conference.
If you joined us last year in Las Vegas, it’s hard to forget the incredible opening keynote with Steven Johnson and the closing keynote from Sir Ken Robinson. Through the course of two and a half days, we kept you busy with dozens of sessions, networking opportunities and executive discussions, details on Blackboard’s technology roadmap, special receptions with your peers, Blackboard executives and staff, and a corporate keynote from founder and CEO Michael Chasen. We left you excited (and exhausted) and ready to head into the school year with best practices and new ways to deliver a more impactful learning experience at your institution.
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki visited President Obama at the White House on Monday to discuss regional security issues, as well as trade, energy, American investment in Iraq and education. Sadly, I was not invited, but I want to pose a question to PM Maliki about the last, and surely least, point of discussion: education.
First, a little background: As you may know, Saddam Hussein banned political and religious freedoms – and mobile phones. So my question, PM Maliki, is how you plan to use the relatively recent introduction of mobile technology to improve educational access, opportunity and outcomes. (more…)
At the end of the summer, I had the opportunity to join a research trip in Misiones, Argentina with a group from Stanford University and Seeds of Empowerment. We were field testing a mobile learning solution designed for the most remote parts of the developing world. The solution combines Blackboard Mobile Learn software with specialized hardware designed to be portable, durable, and able to operate off a car battery where needed.
Over the course of the 10-day trip, we worked with more than 250 kids in 10 different middle and high schools. It was great to see the power of mobile devices in education first hand. At Blackboard, we talk about the importance of making the education experience interactive and collaborative, but seeing it in action is incredibly powerful.
Blackboard Mobile has successfully entered the German higher education market with the launch of RUB Mobile, a Blackboard app developed specifically for Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB). With approximately 34,000 students total, RUB is not only one ofGermany’s largest universities, but also one of Germany’s strongest research universities that have made it to the final round of Germany’s Excellence Initiative in 2007 and 2011.
The RUB Mobile app will officially be launched during the RUB Mobile Day taking place on campus on 22 November 2011, an event organized by RUB intended to introduce the RUB Mobile app to students and staff. RUB came up with a number of promotional activities for the launch. The RUB app will be promoted by means of promotional teams awaiting students and staff at the main entrances of subway and bus stations leading to the campus, easily recognizable by their red RUB Mobile t-shirts with the QR-code for the official RUB Mobile website printed on them. Posters, table tents, postcards, press releases and radio interviews, tweets, Blackboard giveaways and a Facebook fanpage are a part of the promotional activities. In addition, Blackboard and the Ruhr-Universität Bochum are jointly organizing a contest among RUB students and staff in which contestants are challenged to unleash their creativity. It is an ideas competition in which contestants have to demonstrate how RUB Mobile supports teaching and learning, anytime anywhere. Contest submissions will be in the form of a video/animation, design/illustration, or photo. The judges, consisting of both Blackboard and RUB representatives, will award the top three submissions with great prizes.
The Northern Arizona University app just made its debut in the Apple App Store and Android Market. The app features a movable classroom via Blackboard Learn for students and faculty to access course information. It keeps users connected with the latest news from Inside NAU, Alumni Relations and NAU Athletics. It offers YouTube videos and campus photos, a university directory and a calendar of upcoming eve nts. It also features an interactive map of the Flagstaff campus and real-time tracking of Mountain Link and on-campus bus services. Admissions and Dining modules will be added in the next few weeks and regular updates will continue to enhance the app’s features.
Congrats to the team at NAU, and make sure to check out their fabulous, spirited commercial, highlighting just a few of the NAU Mobile app’s many features and benefits.
Blackboard Mobile has successfully entered the German higher education market with the launch of RUB Mobile, a Blackboard app developed specifically for Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB). With approximately 34,000 students total, RUB is not only one of Germany’s largest universities, but also one of Germany’s strongest research universities that have made it to the final round of Germany’s Excellence Initiative in 2007 and 2011.
app to students and staff. RUB came up with a number of promotional activities for the launch. The RUB app will be promoted by means of promotional teams awaiting students and staff at the main entrances of subway and bus stations leading to the campus, easily recognizable by their red RUB Mobile t-shirts with the QR-code for the official 
