It has been a few years since I’ve penned a note to Blackboard before a Blackboard World. The last three years I haven’t shared my thoughts, but that ends now. Blackboard brings its clients and partners together at the Orlando World Center Marriott. Ally is a game changer. In October 2016, Blackboard purchased Fronteer, a […]
July 12th Update: After this blog post, the folks at Elsevier reached out to me. It appears that they have worked to address this issue. I recommend you read the comment from Jeff Keating, the SVP of Engineering at Elsevier at the bottom of this post. – Bb Guru Elsevier recently decided to shut […]
Many of my Blackboard admin colleagues’ blood pressures rise when we talk about SCORM. SCORM (Shareable Content Object Reference Model) was developed by the US Secretary of Defense as part of their Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative. These standards and specifications were set in 2000 and haven’t had a major upgrade since 2010. However many […]
One of the great opportunities I have in my position at UA-PTC is the ability to bring in awesome products that help our faculty. Qwickly falls into that category. We’ve been using the tool integrated into Blackboard for the past semester. During that time, instructors became very pleased with what the tool did to improve […]
This week at Blackboard World, Blackboard introduced it’s new major mobile application, Blackboard Instructor. This comes as many LMS companies have either developed mobile friendly versions of their application or published their own mobile applications. In 2015, I reviewed the Blackboard Student app (now simply called Blackboard) which you can see here. Since that time […]
As I was driving Interstate 40 near Maumelle, Arkansas I knew something about this adventure was going to be different. I saw above the road, a huge rainbow coming down from the clouds. I thought to myself that the next 24 hours, no matter what happens, would be important to my life. It was true, […]
The EdTech world started buzzing when Providence Equity Partners, current owner of Blackboard, was looking to auction off the EdTech giant for three billion dollars which is twice what they paid for the company in October 2011. Since then many have pondered and pontificated about who would buy the company. Some believe Pearson, a major […]
During Blackboard World 2015, Blackboard made many announcements about their products, but none (in my opinion) with more impact than a new community site. I was lucky to provide a t-shirt design which Blackboard printed and gave away to anyone who signed up for the new site. During the conference, over 700 people signed up […]
Greetings friends and admin neighbors. The first day of Blackboard World 2015 has closed. There have been many discussions, good and bad, and a ball of confusion. Some of the topics will be covered in upcoming keynotes, so I won’t steal anyone’s thunder. However I do want to go over some things that I heard […]
Last year marked the fifth anniversary of Blackboard’s step into the mobile realm with it’s purchase of TerriblyClever in 2009. Over the past five years the company has grown in the marketplace with several products. The first was a the creation of a semi-customizable mobile app for organizations using the Blackboard Mobile Central platform later […]
