Products & Services

The Byrds famously sang “Turn! Turn! Turn! To everything there is a season…”

At Blackboard, we don’t sing as much (or as well) as they did, but we do have a song. It starts “Learn! Learn! Learn! To every question there is an answer…”

For questions relating to using Blackboard Learn, those answers are in a new self-help portal for students and faculty, Behind the Blackboard. (No relation to VH1’s Behind the Music. That spreads scandal. This saves time.)

Behind the Blackboard contains a bounty of information for both faculty and students. It’s divided into two main sections, Self Service (info from Blackboard itself) and Community Resources (info from Blackboard users).

Self Service highlights:

Chris Bray’s experience as a Blackboard Administrator at the  University of Arkansas makes him not only an expert on the technology side of modern-day learning, but it has also given him a deep understanding of the way students and faculty use innovations to enhance the learning experience.  Many of you know Chris from his frequent answers to community questions on the Blackboard Administrator (ASU) listserv .  Chris joined us for a Tweet Chat on his experience testing the latest release of Blackboard Learn.  If you didn’t’ make it here is a recap of the topics discussed in under 140 characters.

Upgrades for Educators

Q) The latest release of #BbLearn upgrades the educator experience – what will they like most?
A) Being able to paste from Word, haha. The new Content Editor is similar to what they see in WordPress & other web apps.

(You can see our new content editor in action here!)

The User-Focused Experience

The end user is the first priority when we develop innovations.  So, when the conversation moved to the user-focused learning environment, we were excited to hear this question from one of our participants:

Q) What are some of the functional changes that end users will notice in Blackboard Learn’s latest release?
A) I think students will benefit from the new My Blackboard – to see what’s really happening in all their courses at a glance.
A) …a functional calendar with export features, east to see course updates, discussions, grades
A) Faculty & students say My Blackboard eliminates the need to hop back and forth between courses so much – our goal.

You keep your phone in your purse or pocket. You keep your favorite t-shirt you’ve had for years in the middle drawer (or sometimes on the floor). And when it comes to the information that matters most, you don’t want your stuff all over the place.

Wait, staying organized—that’s a lot of work. But don’t worry. Now you don’t have to do it alone. A new feature in Blackboard Learn, My Blackboard, makes it so much easier.

Think of it as your own intelligent, organized educational assistant.

Grades, notifications, course conversations, classmate profiles, and more, are all bundled into one convenient, organized interface that is accessible from anywhere within Blackboard. No jumping in and out of courses, multiple tabs, or convoluted drop-downs.

You’ll have to get your clicks elsewhere.

Blackboard Learn. Simply. Better. See why.

Hey dreamers—you can’t read the Blackboard unless you show up for class.

This year, Blackboard kicked off what has rapidly become a successful series of regional one-day conferences designed to give our clients in-person access to Blackboard leaders and developers and insights into your peers’ technology endeavors. In other words, class is coming to you.

What: Blackboard Teaching and Learning Day

When: Wednesday December 5, 8:30 am (breakfast) to 4:15 pm

Where: Covel Commons Conference Center (UCLA), 330 De Neve Drive, Los Angeles

Why: To exchange ideas and best practices from Blackboard reps, your peers, and special guest speakers.

Guest Blog Post from Joe DiPietro, Instructional Designer at George Mason University. Joe shares his the story of an unforgettable teachable moment that he had experienced in a peer-to-peer setting.

A growing program at my university was seeking options to best support scaling and growth. The greatest concerns for key stakeholders and policymakers was that any selected option must provide equivalent educational experiences and academic rigor while concomitantly maintaining the same overall quality of instruction as the face-to-face courses generating the initial buzz.