Using rich media solutions, like video, in the classroom helps enable the development of media literacy, higher order thinking skills, and a deeper connection to the curriculum being explored. Recently, Blackboard expanded its partnership with Kaltura, the world’s first Open Source Online Video Platform, to all institutions using Moodlerooms’s Moodle-based platform, joule. Also new, Blackboard and Kaltura are now offering the Blackboard Building Block™ more broadly to Blackboard Learn™ customers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, expanding the availability of Kaltura’s video tools and capabilities in Blackboard’s flagship learning management system.
Like Blackboard, Kaltura strives to make the learning experience seamless for faculty and students. Video wasn’t always easily accessible to Blackboard users, as you can learn from the video below. In the past, instructors would go to one system to upload and manage content and then grab an embed code to add video to the appropriate web page or course. At the very least, this was an inconvenient workflow; in a worst case scenario, this could be time consuming and problematic for the instructor.
The Kaltura Video Building Block removes these manual steps from the process of assigning videos to various courses, assignments and pages. Users can stay within the Blackboard Learn platform through the entire process – essentially all content can be pushed into Blackboard programmatically and any Blackboard specific data can be synched back to the Kaltura system automatically. The result? A seamless experience for faculty and students.
In the past ten years, technology has changed so much in our everyday lives, and education is no exception. Yet for centuries, a core concept of education has remained the same: group learning stimulates greater learning.
In other words, we boost our knowledge by connecting with others.
Saving time while building courses? Actually, it is possible! The Content Editor, which is based on the industry standard TinyMCE WYSIWYG editor, was recently launched and vastly improves the user experience for entering text and adding content to all areas of your Blackboard course.
Kevin Lowey, System Administrator at the University of Saskatchewan and Liuz Teixiera, Course Manager at UCLA Extension, both participated in the Content Editor Early Release Program which gave nearly 200 clients early access to the new editor.
They shared with me how one seemingly small improvement in education software means one big leap toward educator efficiency.
Disaster recovery isn’t a subject that many of us would like to think about. The likelihood of a catastrophic event—be it a tornado, hurricane, earthquake or even deliberate sabotage—is so low that many institutions simply forgo the effort to plan for one. It’s a mindset I can understand and appreciate. But as a leader of Blackboard Managed Hosting, it’s my job to plan for these kinds of things—and ensure that my clients have the business continuity they need should disaster strike.
Whether your institution is self-hosted or managed by a vendor, there are five worthwhile exercises that I think every institution should do to have peace of mind:
This holiday season, educators who give their students more course content within their Blackboard Learn course will also help give new books and critical resources to children in low income families.
It’s special. It’s simple. Educators, here’s how:
Make your course dynamic by adding content from our digital content partners McGraw-Hill, Pearson, WileyPLUS, and/or Cengage Learning to your Blackboard Learn course. Get easy-to-use tools that make teaching more effective and learning more exciting.
Blackboard will make a donation of $1,000 to First Book in the name of all institutions that pair a course by December 28, 2012, as well as the individual names of the persons who pair the course. Our donation will be generously matched by our digital content partners.
