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Guest Blog Post from Eric Kunnen. Eric is the Director of Distance Learning and Instructional Technologies at Grand Rapids Community College (GRCC) in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Many of you, like me, proudly work at a Community College and together we serve over 13M students [American Association of Community Colleges] across the country. That number is impressive and it’s growing, fast. When we dig into the numbers we see a community of students, educators and administrators who face a unique set of challenges. 45% of our students are between the ages of 22-39. They are working, raising children, and serving in the military, while furthering their education. At Grand Rapids Community College, we see innovative technologies as an important resource in creating a connected and personalized learning environment for a population of students that is highly mobile.

Being part of the Blackboard Idea Exchange (BIE), I had the opportunity to be part of the development of the latest release of Blackboard Learn. As I saw the new features, I realized that many of them hit on two of the five benchmarks of effective educational practices for Community Colleges: Active & collaborative learning and student-faculty interaction. As a follower of the Community College Survey of Student Engagement, I couldn’t help but share how the enhanced Blackboard Learn helps engage Community College students – especially through a new feature called My Blackboard.

Companies tend to say “new” a lot, even when there is not a lot new or different in their product. To me, it is a bit like the boy crying wolf. Blackboard’s new innovation plan is quite new, however. Instead of building new features that would help administrators, teachers, and students 2x/year, we are now doing it every month. That way we can get you what you need faster.

There are several new features in Learn SP10 that are particularly exciting for me as I think about how our K-12 clients are using Learn.

What do Extra Credits mean in 2012? Well for today’s college student, they might mean going above and beyond an original assignment in order to get an added boost to a midterm or final grade. For elementary school students, it might mean a gold star at the top of a worksheet.

But for us at Blackboard, Extra Credits have another meaning…

WATCH:

We’ve asked some bold questions to some of the most interesting folks around the education community. They’ve been kind enough to share their insights in two minutes or less and starting tomorrow, we’ll share these insights, aka Extra Credits, with you.

Please share them with your peers. You never know when they or you may be our next Extra Credit. If you have a question of your own, send us an email: social@blackboard.com. You never know who may give you the answer.

A presidential campaign is, by nature, ripe with material for current events. Intensified by the explosion of social media channels over the last few years, the campaign trail is now a prime source for instant course content. Instructors can replay videos from last night’s debate, stream live-footage from a rally or display results from today’s election on a moment’s notice. Now, history can literally be taught, learned and relived in the making.

Amidst the excitement in America over today’s Elections, NBC Learn launched a new collection of free resources for students and teachers “Decision 2012” . This special collection of online content is designed to help students research and analyze the 2012 election based on the candidates, the major issues, the calendar of events, and the process behind the campaigns. Using stories from current and past presidential elections in teaching and learning modules, this collection supports student learning and engagement around the presidential election. The free “Decision 2012” offering includes premier content from partner organizations and institutions such as NIEonline.com, Carnegie Learning, Lynn University, the Newseum, and Scholastic Inc. Read more here.

To access the free content in “Decision 2012” and learn more, visit www.nbclearn.com/Decision2012.

What may have been the worst kept secret at Blackboard is finally out. Today, we launched Blackboard Learn™ 9.1 Service Pack 10, which continues the evolution of our learning environment. Between our teaser video, Sneak Peak Webinars and my now famous “between SP9 and SP11” line at BbWorld12, we have communicated key themes and a vision for how the LMS is evolving.

Many of you have seen my Report Card at BbWorld and know that I’ve made a push to focus on the fundamentals since my first day as a member of Blackboard’s leadership team. This year at BbWorld, I introduced Innovation as the fifth fundamental to go along with client support, transparency, openness and quality. And what we are doing at Blackboard in terms of user experience is nothing short of innovative. We’ve designed new features that have made Blackboard more user-friendly, more focused on your needs and more modern -like the online experiences you’re used to outside of education.

The user interface and experience ultimately fosters more student engagement and helps educators become more efficient.  Consider what Mark Radcliffe of blendedschools.net wrote in his guest blog post:

“My Blackboard is my favorite SP10 feature. The first time I logged into SP10 as a teacher and saw that little red “1” in the top right hand corner of the screen, my interest was piqued. I found that without even making a click, Bb had told me that one of my students had submitted something. Within two clicks, I was grading that assessment. This same speed improvement affects students and is all achieved through a very contemporary look.”

Those of you who have followed me on this blog and on Twitter know my passion for design and improving the user experience. It’s for this reason that I elevated Stephanie Weeks to the position of Vice President for User Experience this summer, reporting directly to me. A self-described design-perfectionist who finds inspiration where others don’t, Stephanie was critical to building this release.

I’ve asked her to give you a behind the scenes look at how and why we designed SP10 the way we did, and what the early feedback has been.

From Stephanie Weeks, Vice President of User Experience:

 

My obsession with the user experience in Blackboard Learn is nearly a decade old. In my time at Blackboard I’ve witnessed the transformation made by turning the concept of “user research” from an interesting idea to a fundamental element of the product strategy. I’m frequently asked how it is that we understand what users want or need in the software experience, and my answer is simple: we watch them. What you’ll see in Service Pack 10 is a reaction to years of understanding how millions of educators and learners get through their day. We spend time with our users – not just asking them what they want, but observing how they do things, what tools they use, what processes they create, what habits they form – so that we can envision a simple solution for them.

When designing solutions, one would be a fool not to consider the most popular experiences being used today – Facebook, Twitter, Google, Apple, Microsoft, and the like. Jakob Nielsen insists upon it.