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For those of you unable to attend BbWorld, we wanted to pass along some details around an exciting initiative launched today.

Our keynote speaker, Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea and the founder of the Central Asia Institute (CAI), shared his story about the work he is doing to promote community-based education and literacy programs, especially for girls, in remote mountain regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

To support CAI’s mission and Greg’s commitment, Blackboard will donate $10,000 to CAI.

We also wanted to create an easy way for members of the community to get involved if they were so inclined. So we have created a text campaign that can be used by anyone who wants to donate.

Do donate:

• Text to 50555 and enter “CAI” for each $10 donation.
• Confirm each $10 donation to CAI with the word YES.
• Each $10 donation will be added to your mobile phone bill.

A full 100 percent of the proceeds will go to the Institute and Blackboard will match up those funds up to another $10,000.

Your donation will make a difference:

• $2 or $3 = one teacher’s salary for one day
• $20 = one student’s school supplies for one year
• $600 = one teacher’s annual salary
• $5,000 = support for existing school for one year
• $50,000 = one school building and support for up to five years

To further the impact we can have, share this widget on your Facebook page. This will allow your friends to donate as well. For more information about Central Asia Institute or Pennies for Peace, please call 406-585-7841 or visit www.ikat.org.

$10 will be added to your mobile phone bill/deducted from your prepaid account. Message and Data Rates May Apply. Reply STOP to 50555 to stop. Full Terms: mGive.org/T. Available only on US carriers. The Central Asia Institute name is used with its permission, which in no way constitutes an endorsement, expressed or implied, of any product, service, company or individual.

Today, Blackboard announced the acquisition of Elluminate and Wimba to form a new Blackboard platform – Blackboard Collaborate. There’s lots of information and detail on this news at www.blackboard.com/collaborate (client letter, FAQ document, etc.) and much more to come next week at BbWorld in Orlando for those of you who will be there. 

In the meantime, check out Ray’s blog for some initial thoughts: 

ELLUMINATE AND WIMBA TOGETHER: Both are leaders in applying synchronous learning and collaboration technology to the education context. Both have very strong technical proficiency and service levels, and enjoy high client satisfaction as a result. They’ve built strong teams and great thought leadership about the application of real-time collaboration technology to many forms of educational collaboration. And our clients have chosen both in good number so we wanted to invest in both to serve our whole community, not just a portion of it. To us it’s a potent combination, and one that provides a strong signal about our beliefs about the educational value and need for further innovation to support social learning and collaboration.  To read more click here…. 

After the Blackboard Teaching & Learning Conference in Swansea last week a number of us on the Blackboard team found ourselves stuck in London, refugees of the Icelandic Volcanic Ash Cloud.  With the cloud growing larger by the day, thousands of flights canceled across Northern Europe and no end in sight, the team began to realize we could be in London for a while.  We formed an Escape Committee to plan Blackboard’s Great Escape.  The Committee analyzed the situation and developed an Escape Plan.  It was Paris to Madrid or Bust!

UPDATE:

The Washington Post has published a new story that includes an important clarification to their earlier article reporting that someone had hacked into a client’s Bb system.  In the new story, the Post makes clear that the unauthorized access was achieved by someone who obtained an instructor’s password, and not due to a security vulnerability in the Blackboard system.

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