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Congratulations to Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C) for winning a $50,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), which it will run on CourseSites, a free, cloud-based online learning platform that provides the latest and greatest Blackboard technology. Cuyahoga Community College, a Blackboard Learn^TM client, will use the grant money to create an open course on developmental math.

“We’re very excited to utilize Blackboard’s CourseSites for our MOOC. We have a longstanding relationship with Blackboard and appreciated the opportunity to work on an emerging new educational delivery format (MOOC) application to support one of the College’s core learning needs: developmental education. The use of a MOOC to enhance success with students in developmental education is an excellent opportunity to support innovation with core learning initiatives,” said Christina Royal, associate vice president of eLearning and innovation at Tri-C.

Tri-C is joining a growing list of institutions that are using CourseSites to run MOOCs for reasons including familiarity with the Blackboard system, the breadth of features and functionality, and the ability to create courses based on their own vision instead of adapting to a vendor’s model.

Extra Credits asks bold questions to education leaders, one on one in two minutes or less.  Watch the video and join the discussion in the comments below!

Guest Blog Post from Joe DiPietro, Instructional Designer at George Mason University. Joe shares his the story of an unforgettable teachable moment that he had experienced in a peer-to-peer setting.

A growing program at my university was seeking options to best support scaling and growth. The greatest concerns for key stakeholders and policymakers was that any selected option must provide equivalent educational experiences and academic rigor while concomitantly maintaining the same overall quality of instruction as the face-to-face courses generating the initial buzz.

Ever wish you could get a pulse on how new technology will actually affect you before you adopt it? Well, here’s your chance! Chris Bray, Blackboard Administrator for University of Arkansas-Fayetteville, was a part of the beta program to test and provide feedback on the latest release of our flagship LMS, Blackboard Learn. Through the beta, Chris had hands-on experience with testing the upgrade process on his local test server and playing with new features, such as the content editor (formerly known as the VTBE), before the official release of Blackboard Learn Service Pack 10 a week ago today.

Maybe you’re interested in upgrading to the newest release of Blackboard Learn and looking for some answers as to what your institution should expect. Or, maybe you’re a fan of Chris’ blog or you follow him on twitter @zenandjuice. Either way, we hope this Tweet Chat will give you the opportunity to ask a few questions of a peer.  Or get you one step closer to understanding Blackboard’s clients have influenced the future of technology.