K-12

The next four months are going to fly by. How do I know?  Because the planning for the second annual Blackboard Collaborate™ Connections Summit is in full-swing, and as we continue to dot a myriad of i’s and cross countless t’s, our entire team cannot wait to see so many of you in New Orleans in mid-July. The reasons to attend are numerous.  We’ll unveil the latest enhancements to our Blackboard Collaborate™ platform.  Our fearless leader Maurice Heiblum will share the considerable progress our division has made now that we’ve had a full year under our belt as a combined company.  You’ll have full access to all of BbWorld 2012—yes, even its famous parties and keynotes.  You can roll-up your sleeves and get your hands dirty with the current version of Blackboard Collaborate.  And perhaps most importantly, you can attend nearly 50 sessions by Blackboard Collaborate customers from around the globe. And it’s always the customer-led sessions that are the showstoppers. This year’s Connections Summit agenda covers a variety of topics ranging from best practices and effective instructional design, to decreasing costs and adoption and implementation.  And perhaps most importantly, several tracks will specifically focus on upgrading from Elluminate or Wimba to Blackboard Collaborate. For many of our customers, 2012 is the year in which they’ll upgrade from one of our legacy products to our shiny new toy, and we want them to have the smoothest transition possible.  Therefore, in New Orleans, customers can attend an upgrade panel presentation featuring customers at Northern Illinois University, the University of Arkansas in Little Rock, and the Florida Hospital College of Health Sciences, all of whom have already been enjoying the new platform for months.  There will even be a presentation by the team at the University of Missouri system about its upgrade experience as well. Further, we’ll again have a walk-in feedback room in which our Product Management and Support teams can answer all your upgrade and technical questions, and I’ll likely hold a meeting for anyone who wants to learn more about our cohort upgrade programs. As we say, collaboration is music to our ears, so we feel that New Orleans is the best place for you to learn from the Collaborate team and your peers about the future of the Blackboard Collaborate™ platform.  Block off your calendars now, and I’ll see you in The Big Easy in July!

Did you know that SP8 was shaped by nearly 600 institutions through their participation in Blackboard Community Programs?  The amount of client participation with this release was so impressive, we put together our first ever report on how clients directly impacted the development process of SP8. Full of statistics, client insight and information about the various programs, it provides a clear view of how clients impact Bb Learn every step of the way.  Read it today – SP8: Client Impact on Functionality & Design.  Not sure how this report can help you? No problem.  Based on initial feedback from clients in the Blackboard Idea Exchange, we have complied the top four ways you can leverage this report at your campus or organization: 1.)    Increase confidence in upgrading to SP8 – even if you were not one of the 600 clients involved in providing direct feedback on the product, I am completely confident there is an institution just like yours that was. Through our programs individuals with similar perspectives and challenges have worked with our designers and developers ultimately impacting the way new features were built. 2.)    Generate excitement, awareness and confidence among faculty.  Peter DiFalco from CSU Chico participated in SP8 community programs and is featured in the report.  He will be distributing it to faculty so they “will be more confident to try new features knowing that the staff who support them advocated on their behalf for higher quality, efficiency, and reliability.” 3.)    Inform your users about the various Blackboard community programs that are available. They too can impact a future release.  We solicit participation from system administrators, educators, instructional designers and students – it is a great way to encourage adoption. 4.)    Show it to high level Academic and IT leadership at your institution to demonstrate how Blackboard is openly working with hundreds of organizations like yours on the development and refinement of Blackboard Learn. If you weren’t one of the 600 clients that shaped SP8 learn more about the ways you can impact a future release at blackboard.com/empower.  Start by signing up for the Blackboard Idea Exchange today.  We have programs that range in commitment level and touch every phase of the software development life cycle – there is a program for everyone!

Guest post by Brian Morgan, Assistant Professor, Integrated Science and Technology Department, Marshall University, and a member of the Ask Dr. C program, a free question and answer service for Blackboard Users. There have been hundreds of articles published in the last few years on creating a “green” learning environment.  If you are trying to do everything you can to help in this effort, you should consider using Blackboard to assist in reducing the paper in your classroom and office.  I’ll cover a number of techniques, which involve using Blackboard Learn to go green, below. Encouraging Faculty to Do More Online Even with technology as prominent as it is today, some faculty still feel trepidation when offering any part of their courses online.  Many still do not understand that online environments, such as Blackboard, are secure and that no one is truly going to steal their intellectual property.  At Marshall University, the Information Technology department has created the MUOnline Design Center, staffed with instructional technologists and designers, to assist faculty in converting their materials to a digital format. These individuals also work with faculty to encourage new techniques in online teaching and the development of materials for the digital age.

On Monday February 20th Blackboard EMEA, along with BME Holding, our master distributor in the Middle East, hosted the first Teaching & Learning Forum in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The conference was held in the capital city of Riyadh at the Intercontinental Hotel Riyadh. The goal of the Blackboard Teaching and Learning forums is to demonstrate a series of presentations and discussions about how technology is enriching the teaching and learning experience for faculty and students in the Kingdom and around the world.

On behalf of Blackboard EMEA, I am excited to share with you the success of our first Teaching & Learning Forum in the region of Tatarstan, in Southern Russia. The conference was held on February 15th in the city of Kazan at the IT Park Hotel. The Forum gathered Presidents, Deans, Principals and Directors to participate in a series of presentations and discussions about enriching the teaching and learning experience of faculty and students in Russia and around the world via the latest collaborative technologies.

Over 70 attendees consisting of more than 25 Russian universities discussed and learned about the challenges facing Universities today, how to engage with a new generation of learners, current trends in eLearning and how technology plays a vital role in enhancing education. A panel of Blackboard

representatives hosted the event including Sales Mangers Harry Tubben, Michael Vassilev and Solutions Engineers Pablo Langa and Yuri Shilov who showed live demonstrations of the Blackboard suite of solutions available to Russian universities. The program and was enriched by lively discussions and by special guest David Lewis from Glamorgan University who shared the experience of a Blackboard University in the United Kingdom, presenting a practical case of the challenges, change of behavior and most importantly the success they have had since they began using Blackboard Learn throughout their university. Mr. Lewis’ impressions were gratefully shared with us after the Forum: “The questions I was asked echoed the concerns of my colleagues in the UK when we are at out stages of introduction of this technology, and I hope that I left them with some ideas as to how they can progress, and they would be joining an international community of technologists and scholars in taking forward their development.  The days proceedings were brilliantly designed and constructed to address their fears, explain the potential and provide them with opportunities to experience the range of new features and functions open to them, whatever their needs.” This blog was created by Senior Channel Marketing Manager, Roksana Nabavian.  Roksana has been working with the International markets at Blackboard for 5 years and holds a BA in International Affairs and MA in International Education and Training from American University. She is based out of Valencia, Spain. Contact her at: roksana.nabavian@blackboard.com For more information about Blackboard events in Russia and other locations in EMEA, visit us at: www.blackboard.com/emea.