by Tiffany Tooley
Guest post by Misty Hanks, Coordinator of Instructional Design, at Morehead State University in Kentucky.
Over the past several years, Morehead State’s online course adoption (both hybrid and fully online) has grown considerably. In fact, nearly every course has an online component and purely online courses grew from 17% to 28% during the last five years. With the success of our online program, coupled with a limited budget, we had to consider the most appropriate learning management system (LMS) for our University.
When we started the evaluation process, we were using Blackboard Learn 7.3. We considered either upgrading to Blackboard Learn 9.1 or adopting Moodle with the overall goal to find a solution that would help faculty create interactive and engaging learning environments while remaining cost-effective. We spoke with other institutions and faculty about their experiences using both solutions. The feedback highlighted the overall simplicity of the updated Learn 9.1 interface, the inclusion of SafeAssign™ (the plagiarism detection solution) and the ease of the upgrade. I’m thrilled to say that we are extremely happy with our decision to upgrade to Learn 9.1.
by Jen Matthews
What does openness and efficiency look like bundled into one?
Blackboard continues to find ways to innovate and make users more efficient in their daily tasks. There are various ways we can accomplish this. It may be through the core Blackboard Learn™ platform. Or, it may be through Blackboard Building Blocks™ where we augment the platform and provide clients with a greater choice of instructional tools. And, as we develop, we continue to consider how we can contribute back to not only the education community, but the developer community, as well. We’re excited to announce two important Building Blocks – Bboogle and the Paste from Word Mashup – are now available and certified for the Blackboard Learn platform.
by Katie Drossos
McGraw-Hill recently released a case study in which they explore how LearnSmart, an adaptive learning system within McGraw-Hill Connect®, has helped students in Professor Tuckwiller’s Psychology class at Florida State College to learn core course content outside of class. By integrating LearnSmart into the classroom, the study shows that students spent much more time with course material and, in this particular case, course pass rates increased from 75% to 83.6%. Additionally, Professor Tuckwiller notes that her class time has become much less about lecturing and much more about exploring the field through active learning.
by Julie Kelleher
As the U.S. Peace Corps celebrated its 50th anniversary this year, my husband and I were fortunate enough to spend it with our great friend, Sheila, who is now working as the Country Director for the Peace Corps program in Romania. Sheila and I met ten years ago on our flight to Ukraine to serve as Peace Corps Volunteers ourselves. Little did we know we’d be back in the same part of the world a decade later continuing to fulfill the goals of the program John F. Kennedy started half a century ago.
For those less familiar with the Peace Corps, it has 3 simple goals:
1. Bringing technical skills to interested countries through volunteer service
2. Promoting a better understanding of Americans in the countries where volunteers serve
3. Promoting a better understanding of other countries and peoples through volunteers
by Ray Henderson
Originally posted on www.rayhblog.com
Corporate Update: After months of media coverage about a potential go-private transaction for Blackboard, last week we closed the deal. Blackboard is once again a private company, owned primarily by Providence Equity Partners. Net effect? Our ownership is made up of a much smaller group of people who share a much more closely aligned idea of where we want to go as a company.
A First Strategic Impact – Blackboard deepens its K-12 bench: I’ve noted in an earlier post that one of the things that attracted us to Providence was their experience investing in education companies. One area of particular interest to us was Edline, a highly regarded purveyor of K-12 education platforms in use at over 20,000 schools in North America. Our team had actively sought a partnership with Edline to assist us in our own growth in K-12. We’re big fans of Edline’s learning community management platform, and its excellent school portal and parental communication tools. And Providence has been seeking to extend Edline to support more advanced learning management, online collaboration, and mobility support. This is the basis for our first major event as a private company. With assistance from Providence, Edline is now a part of Blackboard and significantly strengthens our K-12 forces and offerings. More importantly, we’ll improve the value of the Edline offering to our K-12 clients sooner and with greater quality than could have otherwise occurred.
