Company

This post was written by guest writer and BbWorld 2012 VIP Blogger, Lacie Crone.

Remember the days when student orientation began with “look to the left, now look to the right, our goal is that all three of you graduate.” No? That wasn’t the speech you heard? Me neither, until today. Conference keynote speaker, Dr. Freeman Hrabowski took the stage with a dynamic and engaging message of responsibility, creativity, innovation, and student success.

Before the keynote address began, I had the opportunity to chat with Dr. Hrabowski in the green room. It was evident to me from the moment I shook his hand that we were in for a powerful afternoon. There are plenty people who can get on a stage with a well-written speech and with enough effort generate excitement. After all, we have how many products being sold on TV? This however, is not the case with Freeman Hrabowski; he is genuinely invested in his message and excited to share it with the everyone, particularly the next generation. While discussing student engagement and success, he shared a text message he had received the previous week from a former student. The message included words of thanks for previous encouragement she had received from him during her education. Included in the message was a picture of her employee ID…as a physician. As an undergraduate student she hadn’t believed that she had what it took to take on a medical career but credits her success in part to the consistently encouraging message she had received from him. How many university presidents do you think receive a text like that?

Once on stage, the magnitude of belief in his message was clear. After sharing some stories, and pointing out why he used stories instead of just concepts, he left us with the challenge to be the leaders who educate the campus leaders to elevate our student’s experience and success. We need to stop making decisions based on anecdotal information and mine Blackboard for the data: what works, what doesn’t, how does student engagement with the LMS relate to student success, and how do our students want to learn. We have been talking about access, but now it is time to be talking about success. Lastly, we must believe that the student to the left, the student to the right, and the student in the middle all have the power to succeed.

Don’t miss the opportunity to read about Dr. Hrabowski. You can also have the opportunity to become infected with his enthusiasm by watching this CNN interview.

Guest blog post by Ken Sadowski, Director of Learning & Instructional Technology at the University of Chicago and Founder and Leader of SLATE, the Midwest Blackboard User Group.  He was the recipient of a 2011 Catalyst Award for Community Collaboration.  Please join this panel discussion, “Rock on, SLATE! An Up Close Look at How a Blackboard User Group has Impacted Teaching, Learning & the Support of Technology in the Midwest”, on Wednesday, July 11, 2012, 10:55 – 11:40am, room 392.

In February of 2002, I experienced two firsts in my life; the first time I visited Washington D.C., and the first Blackboard Users Conference I ever attended.  I looked to these events with great anticipation.  After all, I was a seasoned traveler and an academic IT professional so this was going to be a great experience all around.  I tried to take it all in, the city, the conference, so many things to do.  Both were very exciting and overwhelming all at the same time.

What I soon discovered was that there was just entirely too much to do by myself.  And after a couple days at the conference, I started to meet people that were feeling the same way.  A lot of them had been to D.C., but not a lot really knew what to do with this Blackboard thing.  This was new (at that time) and they were sent to the conference, just like I was; to learn everything I could and bring it back to campus and become the resident expert on using technology in teaching.  Leaving the conference, I felt I was taking home a lot of great information but I knew I would need more help year-round; but where would it come from.

So I decided to turn to my “new friends” and invited them (twelve at the first meeting) to come together and talk about what we just experienced at the conference.  We all still had questions but not all the answers.  But as we talked things through, it became apparent that between all of us, we would have all or least most of the answers.  This was a good thing.  We decided to meet again, and again, and, yes, again.  Ten years later we are still meeting and have no thoughts of quitting any time soon.  

The following post is from guest blogger, Craig Chanoff. Craig is the GM of Blackboard Student Services.

 

Today’s Challenge

To say that students today are demanding consumers is an understatement. Studies tell us that 60% of students say school does not meet their technology expectations and even more say higher education doesn’t provide a good value for the money. All institutions recognize that there is a new kind of student, teacher, and parent that we must service today in ways that are beyond current capabilities. When you have constituents that are used to the service levels they get from the Genius Bar at their nearby Apple store, expectations are clearly high. Facing a generation of students who grew up with information at their fingertips is a daunting task. These students have multiple devices and seemingly endless demands. They want to “plug in,” get instant information, and go about their day. When those needs can’t be met they go someplace else. Or they escalate their poor experience using mobile social networking applications to alert their friends and colleagues.

 

Case in Point: Embry-Riddle Worldwide

I’ve had the opportunity during my career at Blackboard to get to know our clients very well.  I learned that just three years ago, the team at Embry-Riddle Worldwide was in this very position.  Potential students with a passion for aviation wanted to know more about the programs available to them. They wanted information instantly. Having to wait on hold or in a line to talk to an enrollment or financial aid advisor simply wasn’t acceptable to them. For Embry-Riddle Worldwide, every Monday started with 40+ calls in their support office voicemail box and hundreds of waiting email inquiries. Student demand for information was at an all time high, but the institution’s ability to meet that demand was at an all time low.  And the reality is that Embry-Riddle Worldwide was not alone in today’s education environment.

Guest Blog Post by Dan Lim, Ph.D., Vice President for Educational Technology and Distance Learning, Florida Hospital College of Health Sciences (linkedin.com/in/danlim01). Dan will be presenting “De-angelizing Synchronous Distance Teaching: Collaborate To Enhance Online Education Quality” at Blackboard Collaborate Connections Summit 2012 on Thursday, July 12, 2012 from 2:50-3:45PM.

Once upon a time, it was popular to angelize.  Now it’s time to de-angelize.  At Florida Hospital College of Health Sciences (FHCHS), our plan to de-angelize is still on track though the ANGEL learning system has recently been put on indefinite life support.  Although ANGEL has served us well, its unscalable chat tool has been the Achilles’ heel since the beginning when we used it in the synchronous distance delivery of our three distance degree programs.

The transition to Blackboard Collaborate this year is a timely and critical change.  If your institution is experiencing various challenges in the quality of distance delivery, there are ten reasons why you need to attend our session, seven of which are on how Collaborate is a great solution to distance education challenges and three reasons why the transition has been smooth and quite painless.