by Neha Mehta
What impact can education have on a country, a city, a village, a family, a child? And what impact can an educated child have on their family, their village, their city, their country, and the world? These are some of the questions Blackboard seeks to ask, understand, and answer through Project Activate.
Partnering with Seeds of Empowerment, a non-profit organization developed through Stanford University, Blackboard is spending 2 weeks in rural Tanzania to understand the educational imperatives in a region very different from that shaped our beginnings. We will work with 140 students in grades 8-9 in Newala, a rural town in the Mtwara region of southern Tanzania, to introduce them to different mediums of learning technology. Our goal is simple and may sound familiar: To significantly improve students’ education experience through the use of easily accessible mobile devices and applications.
Students in Tanzania
Students Participating in Project Activate 2012
by Andrea Meier
In case you missed it, Ray Henderson blogged last week about, reflecting on 2011, looking ahead to 2012 and what we mean by “The Ocho.”
Originally posted on Ray H Blog on January 10, 2012:
Over the course of the year, I enjoy a large quantity of anecdotal feedback on how we’re doing – emails, client meetings, Tweets, etc. – but it’s our client satisfaction surveys that give me the best overall view of our progress. These are the numbers I look at to see how well we’re doing. In the spirit of 2011 review, I’ll share news of the direction in those surveys, alongside a couple of key milestones we reached this year in the digital content and open education areas. I’ll also preview some of the news you can expect from us in early 2012.
Improving the Experience
Since I arrived at Blackboard we’ve made the improvement of our product and service quality a tremendous focus. We needed to be much better in these areas, and we committed a great deal to the effort with more staff, resources and new programs. By far, this has been the biggest priority for us as a company during my time at Blackboard.
To read the full letter, please click here to jump to Ray’s Blog.
by Anne Jenkins
The Australian National Rural Women’s Coalition (NRWC) is using the latest Blackboard Collaborate™ technology to help women in rural parts of Australia build leadership skills, network and learn better business practices. The virtual classroom environment allows the women to connect from all across the continent to engage in active learning through virtual workshops.
To learn more about this e-learning and leadership program, supported by the Australian Government, check out this story from a local Australia paper.
by Garen Singer
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.
by Rebecca Hellman
A few weeks ago while channel surfing I stumbled across a 60 Minutes interview with Dr. Freeman Hrabowski, President of University of Maryland Baltimore County. A few months ago, this might not have caught my attention, but that was before – before I met Freeman Hrabrowski, before I visited UMBC and before Blackboard began the Solutions in Action series with NBC Learn.
Last spring, I traveled to UMBC to assist with an interview between Freeman Hrabowski and NBC News Chief Education Correspondent, Rehema Ellis. When I learned Hrabowski would kick-off the Solutions in Action series, I quickly did my research. Named one of Time Magazine’s Top Ten College Presidents and one of America’s Best Leaders by U.S. News & World Report, respected author, and huge advocate of the sciences (to put it lightly) – it was clear this man was passionate, but what’s made him successful in education where so many others have failed? If you ask Hrabowski he’ll say technology, but if you listen to Hrabowski you’ll say innovation. Two sides of the same coin, but without innovation there is no technology.
