by Travis Sowders
The last month or two have been very busy for us. First, we launched
a significant new product: Blackboard
Connect for Teachers, a mass notification tool for K-12 instructors. This
new feature – available now to most Blackboard Connect clients – allows
teachers to send phone messages to every child’s parent, in one of 22
languages. Next we announced
the acquisition of Saf-T-Net, provider of the AlertNow
service, which broadens our mass notification offerings and expands our K-12
client base.
by Andrea Meier
As snow blanketed the East Coast and many parts of the nation last week, the Blackboard Connect platform delivered over 25 million voice messages to parents and students providing important messages about school closings due to inclement weather. On Tuesday, February 9, Blackboard Connect sent over 6 million messages (call/email/text) – that’s more than 70 messages every second, continuously for 24 hours. It’s amazing to consider how many campuses, how many messages and how many students, faculty and administrators were touched during this time, helping to keep Blackboard Connect clients informed and better prepared to respond to Mother Nature’s challenges!
Here is an example of a Connect message sent from Henrico County Public Schools in Southern Virginia.
Hello this is an important message from Henrico County Public schools. Due to the inclement weather, Henrico County Public Schools will be closed today. If your elementary school student has already left, we will be transporting them back home or keeping them at the school until we reach a parent. Again, Henrico County Public Schools will be closed today. If elementary students are already gone to school, we will be bringing them back home or keeping them at school until we reach a parent. Thanks and have a good day.
Education continuity extends beyond inclement weather. Just a few months ago, districts and institutions were preparing for the H1N1 outbreak; in a few months it could be something else. It’s the technology solutions we use that help us prepare for these situations that matters most and the T.H.E. Journal wrote a great story highlighting the importance of preparedness. For more examples about how Blackboard was used across the Mid-Atlantic during the Blizzard of 2010, check out these articles from The Washington Post, Fairfax Times and GW Hatchet.
For more information on education/business continuity, join us for a webinar with Lamar University talking about lessons learned during a recent natural disaster. Click here to register.
by Travis Sowders
Winter weather is gripping the nation, with snow and ice
storms slamming communities from Texas to Maine. Dangerous road conditions and
freezing temperatures have long presented educators and local government officials
with difficult choices about school and road closures.
While those challenges remain unchanged, communicating about
them certainly changed. Students might once have sat around the radio or
television on a snowy morning. But today mass notification tools like Blackboard
Connect allow the community to learn the latest official information as
soon as it’s available.
