Video Everywhere More Engaging With Questions

Thanks to YouTube's Video Questions Beta Editor you can make Bb's Video Everywhere even more engaging by adding questions to aid in student understanding. It only makes sense for Google (who owns YouTube) to add a question module for teachers that want to help students check for understanding while watching one of their class videos. Right now, the program is in beta, but anyone can sign up for

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Little Things You Can Do To Help Others

Part of my job as an educator is to share information and to help shape the lives of those I have the opportunity to interact with. While this is usually in the area of business and technology topics, I also take a little time to encourage my students to help others when possible and how ever possible. Below is a few ways that each of us can help those in need, while possibly reducing clutter in

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Blackboard Learn Testing Notes

Test Results and Feedback Options
A setting  within LEARN allows instructors to decide whether to allow a student to take a test after the due date has passed. If students are not allowed to take a test after the due date has passed, they will receive a message telling them the test cannot be completed because the due date has passed.When the instructor allow late submissions, they

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It takes A Lot Of Work For A Women To Be Successful

The Conference For Women by SkillsPath Seminars reminded me just how much harder women have to work in the professional world to be respected and promoted. It is possible to succeed just as these unstoppable women did.


Sally Priesand, American Rabbi
VA Rometty - female CEO of IBM
Wilma Mankiller - female chief of Cherokee Nation
Mary Kay Ash- Founder Mary Kay Cosmetics
Lucille Ball - female

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#Blackboard Learn Gifts..Little or No Assembly Required

Blackboard Inc (Bb), recently released an update for the trinity Software Updates, Cloud Profiles, and Social Profiles & Tools. So what is the big deal with this update? It will provide the much client desired updates for privacy, opt-in, and institutional policy options. There is even away to stop some campus-wide courses\organizations from appearing in the users people (learning network)  area.

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Schedule Tech Free Time, To Keep Balance

For the last two days, I did the inexplicable.  I only checked & responded to critical email and was on the computer for less than two hours each day. Yesterday, was solely for a Blackboard Webinar.  I was able to do this only because both of the institutions I work for were closed due to the weather.

I should probably share at this point that I consider myself an addict (likely in the clinical

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Educators Can Get Rewarded For What They Do!

SoftChalk is a Blackboard partner, but you don't have to a Blackboard institution to submit the 2014 SoftChalk Lesson Challenge. If you are a SoftChalk client, you have no doubt created some incredible content to engage your students. So take the time to so the off your best and most creative lessons for recognition and a chance to become one of three prize winners. For the past 5 years the

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A Glimpse Of This Weeks Bb LEARN Discussions

This week I was accused of having a PhD in Blackboard. I have checked Blackboard's training program here and see nothing about them offering a PhD program yet...but who knows maybe one day. Seriously, I do have a PhD but it is from an accredited university and is in Applied Management and Decision Sciences. But the comment got me thinking on doing a post that shows how much clients have to learn

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A Thanksgiving Poem About Blackboard Incorporated

This poem is a summary of my year working with Blackboard as a System Administrator, Developer, Student, and Instructor. 

Built upon the belief of dreams and a better society.
The year has turned its circle at Blackboard Incorporated.
The known issues list has come and gone with each service pack.
As the chilly D.C. wind blows, the vast Blackboard products have all been gathered into one.
Staff

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One MVP's Quest To Name A Bb Support Moose, While Reaching Users

The User Experience (UX) Team used multiple animals to mark their usability labs during Blackboard World 2012. There was a tiger, a bear, and a Moose that I know of. I have to admit that I really did not know why animal heads were hanging on the wall for at the time. This year when Andy Jacobson and crew visited Shenandoah University's (SU) campus I learned what those animals represented. But

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Financial Aid Reporting Available For Bb Learn SP12+

Yesterday, while sitting in the Blackboard (Bb) Inc. SP13/SP14 Admin Cohort, I noticed that there was a new building block. I was even more intrigued by the name "Financial Aid". The first thing that popped into my head was that is in our SIS, what is Blackboard up too?

So I was off to install on the development instance, test instance, and staging instance...all were successful. Finally it went

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RenderingHook API and Blackboard Learn Warning

If you are a building block developer for Blackboard Learn 9.1 platform and your building block uses the RenderingHook API, you or those using your building block (B2) may have problem when they upgrade to Service Pack (SP) 14. 


As we learned in the SP13/14 Cohort  from Jeff Kelley and David Ashman that "the RenderingHook API was restricted to require a Blackboard signed B2
in order to use the

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In Review: One Administrators Day At Bb Headquarters

Last Friday (11/8), I had the pleasure of spending the day at the Blackboard Inc (Bb) Headquarters in Washington, D.C and talk with some of the greatest minds in educational technology. This was a day of learning for me and hopefully Blackboard also learned a few things. 



I was highly frustrated about parking in D.C. when construction around the Bb office was going on. But once again my

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YouTube, Video Everywhere, and Movies in Learn

I hear users state that they have a video in YouTube but Blackboard Inc's (Bb) YouTube mashup is not finding it, so it most be broke. Or that the Video Everywhere is useless because it only captures what the camera sees. I try an point out that it is how they tools are used and what they are trying to do with that matters. 



I am going to explain this based on my experience in Learn 9.1

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It Pays To Blackboard!

Blackboard (Bb) Learn is an amazing, feature enriched Learning Management System (LMS).  However, behind the Graphical User Interface (GUI) lies a lot of program code. This code is turned into the working features that users see. But sometimes even the best design or code is not accepted by users or is not as easy as the creator expected. To further complicate the issue educational

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Try Blackboard Spaces

Blackboard Spaces is one
more fantastic feature that is offered by Blackboard.  To get to the
Spaces page, navigate from the "My Bb" page, down the left side to the Spaces Link 


Spaces will provide all Bb users with a
place to gather, post, and organize themselves to plan meetings, events,
study-groups, clubs, and special-interest groups in a user friendly and
safe environment.



If you

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Why Vote For Blackboard Learn?

With today being election day, I thought I would do a quick little thing on why an institution may vote to use or keep Blackboard Learn at their institution.

The following are based on words words and definitions from the SAT Words List on Vocabulary.com. These words show what makes Blackboard (Bb) stand above others Learning Management Systems.

V = Varying (Allows for diversity or different

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Spell Checking In Blackboard Learn ... Customize It

Of course Blackboard (Bb) Inc., would have a Spell Check tool. But did you know that Bb allows each institution to upload their own dictionaries into Bb Learn to as long as it is formatted within the myspell or hunspell format. This gives each institution the option to make several different dictionaries in almost every language available to their students.

**************************************

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Open Learning for Everyone: MOOCs

Open Learning for Everyone: October MOOCs



In most cases, you can register late. Expand your knowledge or become a life long learner through MOOCS on CourseSites. 



Coasts and Communities, UMASS Boston

Duration: 09/30-11/1 Register Now



Isocrates, University of Pittsburgh

Duration: 10/1-12/3  Register Now



Innovation & Design Thinking, University of Cincinnati

Duration: 10/7-11/24  

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VaBUG 2013 Conference Recap

If you were not in Richmond on Friday, October 25 attending the Virginia Blackboard User (VaBUG) Group's Annual conference then you missed a great learning opportunity. This year was more special because Blackboard, Inc (Bb) included the conference on their Never Stop Learning Tour.  Bb has over 17 stops on this years tour and has already talked with over 1200 clients.

The check-in process upon

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Integrating Training Into Bb With Atomic Learning

I arrived yesterday evening just in time to enjoy a nice dinner with Virginia Blackboard User Group (VaBUG) leader George Hoffman. It is funny, no matter how hard George & I try NOT to talk about work we always seem to end up doing it. We also had the pleasure of talking with fellow SU employee & VaBUG presenter, Don Silvus. You can see the all the presentations scheduled here.





Today,

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The System Administrator's Never Ending Struggle

System administrators, regardless of software application, struggle with the never ending issue of how to to apply upgrades or updates to their application when users want the application up 24 hours, 7 days a week, 365 days a year (24/7/365). In today's world, software is always improving and if a system administrator only has a one or two time slots to apply upgrades or updates to their

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10 Tips For Institutional Blackboard ROI

To students Bb Learn is a simply system to use and it will organize course content and keep them in consent contact with instructors and classmates. Well that is, if faculty actually use it and system administrators keep it tuned up and current.

Here are 10 tips on how every Blackboard (Bb) Learn instructor and/or organization leader can help their institution get a greater return on investment

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Pondering Technology Thoughts For October

Graphic From www.intelligentitnyc.com

I was reading the October 2013 (Vol.19 No. 10) issue of Redmond magazine about the Shattered Trust  (Click here to read) that some Information Technology (IT) decision makers are having now due to the revelations about the NSA's PRISM surveillance program and how many have stopped deploying enterprise cloud deployments.  Then I read this article about a

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Basics Requested Before New Features

I am hearing a lot of rumblings from the users I support that they want basic features or at least what they perceive as basic features to be what Blackboard Inc. adds into their Bb Learn platform. While my users do admit they would like screens to be more modernized and simplistic like Bb's competitors eventually, but what would impress them more is if Bb Inc would fix all the products known

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What is ... Flipping the Classroom?

This post is being reproduced from the monthly newsletter from the Instructional Technology Office at Lord Fairfax Community College.

Many educators are exploring and, in some cases, adopting the flipped classroom approach. This means that lectures and instructional materials are placed in an online environment and class time is reserved for strategies that pay off in learning, such as practice,

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Sometimes it takes a someone special to remind us!

Sometimes we take for granted what we have. Sometimes we get so tied up in daily work requirements, we forget what we admire about our employer. Sometimes we forget why we selected a university to attend or what makes that university special. Well today, Shenandoah University reminded me by helping Gabriella Miller meet her third Make-a-wish Foundation wish come true. 



When she was nine,

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Help, Blackboard Lost My Scroll Bar!

Has Blackboard Learn seemed to have lost your vertical scroll bar? Faculty quickly notice this in Grade Center but it can be seen in other areas also. Stop and ask yourself: Did I recently upgrade one of my web browsers? Oh, a web browser is Firefox, Chrome, Safari, or Internet Explorer. Most likely, the answer is yes and that is why your vertical scroll bar has disappeared. So please, do not

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Uncrossed T's Cause Improvements To Be Lost

Blackboard Learn 9.1 users have been seeing some great feature enhancements from Blackboard, Inc. (Bb) over the last several months. Users are seeing these enhancements, along with new features, rolling out faster and with the building block (B2s) format. The faster delivery is something that CEO Jay Bhatt promised at the BbWorld user conference in July. These features are modernizing Bb Learn to

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Where's The Office?

Shenandoah University's  (SU) Institutional
Computing and Google have teamed up to add indoor floor plans of
Shenandoah University buildings to Google Maps. The indoor maps are
now available for 99% of the buildings. The remaining maps
should be completed soon.




These
new maps will allow SU's campus community members and university

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Learn more about Pruvalu by SchoolChapters on 10/3/2013

"Technology is blurring the boundaries between ePortfolios and social networks, widening the gap between the software an institution is using for accreditation and the ePortfolio solutions students prefer. How can institutions ensure that administrators, instructors and students have the right resources to leverage the work they’re completing in their programs, classrooms and individual

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Virginia Students Let Your Voice Be Heard!

Blackboard users from across Virginia are gathering near VCU on Friday, October 25th,
for the fourth annual Virginia Blackboard User Group Conference! 



If your institution is uses Blackboard (Bb), I am sure they would be proud to have a student delegation go to share their Blackboard
stories or merely observe the day's Blackboard related events.

They may not pay for your gas to Richmond

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Every Client Should Host A Blackboard's UX Vist

What is Blackboard, Inc's UX? UX stands for User Experience in the Blackboard (Bb) community. The UX team consist of people that are not only interested in collecting user feedback on existing & new product features; they also are product knowledgeable, friendly, fun, and truly interested in understanding how clients use the Bb products.

Those of us that have attended a BbWorld user conference

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One Clients Thoughts About Blackboard Layoffs

Yesterday, I watched as Twitter was flooded with tweets about the recent layoffs at Blackboard Inc (Bb). The list-servs were full of emails with links and personal comments from clients. The business rags were also posting comments about the layoffs all day. Let me start by saying I am glad to see people waited a couple of days before going crazy with the story line. That was very respectful

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Two Computer Support Stories

The items below were shared with me from a variety of people and I hope that you find them as entertaining as I did. These items helped reduce high stress levels over the past month.

Support Story (it is suppose to be true):

Computer problem in Florida TECH SUPPORT, how can I help you?  FEMALE CALLER: 'Last night my computer started making a lot of hissing noises at me so I shut it down.

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Kryterion Konnect for the Blackboard Learn

Blackboard, Inc's (Bb) partner team does it again and shows they are listening to the needs of their clients, when they announced the availability of Kryterion Konnect™ for the Blackboard Learn™ 9.1 platform (SP6+). Now clients have the option of using a scalable & secure process to handle distance education proctoring needs, while making it possible to ensure academic integrity without losing

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Newer Generations Are Forgetting Respect

With over 10 years teaching experience, I have to say that this semester I have the rudest group of students I have ever had. The rude students all fall within the ages of 18 and 24, also known as Generation Y (Gen Y).  Yes, there is usually one in a class here and there that makes it tough but not a whole lot of them.

These students talk rudely to other classmates that maybe older, want to

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Technology is SOOO COOOL!!!

Yesterday, Kevin Lowey from the University of Saskatchewan shared on the Bb System Administrator's Listserv an amazing tale of one of his co-workers who is passion it about his role in providing customer service to the University's users. This story hit the core with many administrators and reminded us all of the creativity that some people employ to solve a problem for their users and how with

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Two MOOC Offerings For Eductors

Blackboard Inc (Bb) is sponsoring FREE professional
development opportunities for educators.

Open Learning for Educators: MOOCs
Course: Overcoming Barriers of Technology AdoptionInstructor: Dr. Rick Van Sant Description:
This course is designed to guide you in gaining a deeper understanding
of the change management process associated with technology adoption in
general and Blackboard

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Heard of Moose Internetational, Mooseheart, or Moosehaven?

Have you heard of Moose International? Maybe not, but you probably have heard about a Moose Lodge, Club, or Family Center.  Well what we here and see in local Moose establishments is not always what Moose International would like us to.   

So lets back up for  moment to make sure everyone is on the same page. Moose International is the parent organization of all the baby Moose's around the world

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Nature, Kids, & Family Time Keeps Stress Low

This has been a not so great week at Shenandoah University in respect to their Bb system. That is another story for another day (soon). There have been extremely long work hours, high stress meetings, dirty looks, and lots for miscommunications. If it was not for outdoor evenings and morning times with my family in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley, I probably would had a total melt down.



Taken

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Mozilla Firefox Version 23 & Bb Learn

As if Blackboard (Bb) Inc's battle with management changes and LMS competitors aggressively going after their client base was not enough, now Mozilla makes people think Bb's Learn product does not work with recent versions of Firefox. Why is this a big deal, because for years many Bb Administrators and Support personal have actually recommended Firefox as the browser to use with Bb Learn because

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Fourth Annual VaBUG (Virginia Blackboard Users Group) Conference Scheduled In October

GUEST POST By George Hoffman





If you haven't already heard, planning is underway for the fourth annual VaBUG (Virginia Blackboard Users Group) Conference! All blackboard users are welcome to attend.
 
The conference this year is going to be a part of Blackboard's "NEVER STOP LEARNING" tour, and is scheduled for Friday, October 25th, 2013.
It will be held at the Crowne Plaza in downtown

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Blackboard ... Coming To A City Near You

Graphic From Bb, Inc.

Blackboard's (Bbs) Never Stop Learning Tour is hitting the road again and they will be making stops all across North America featuring sessions led by Blackboard clients in the various regions. The tour provides users with the opportunity to network with peers, join or meet other members of regional Blackboard User Group (BUGs), and ask questions or share feedback with

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Will Reliable Applications Disappear In The Future?

As I was reading the August Communications magazine from the Associations form Computing Machinery (ACM), I came upon the article written by Philip Guo in which he provides new programmers/developers some times for starting a new project and a different view of programming that he believes is not shared with students by the education system today. The title of article "Teaching Programming the

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Blackboard Calendar Basics - Seen Through New Eyes

I just had to re-post this nicely done blog post from Shenandoah University's (SU) Technology Support Liaison, Tristan Plummer. He is not only new to SU but new to Blackboard (Bb) and quickly saw the advantage and simplicity of Bb's calendar tool for students. However, I think Bb user role could learn something from this post. 



Seriously, I can barely tell the difference, but then again, I'm

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Less Clicks Blackboard, Not More!

Oh, I am dreaming of a version of Blackboard (Bb) Learn where the developers have thought logically from the users point of view and remembered to employ the old development method known as KISS (keep it simple, stupid).  I truly mean no disrespect to Bb and this is nothing they haven't heard me say several times, but users want less clicks not more.

Why oh why, when I click on the Course

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Blackboard Learn Has Gone Social

I am sure many of you have heard about Blackboard (Bb) Learn's Social Learning Tools, if not hopefully this post will enlighten you a little. Today, networking is key to career advancement and professional development and with the "always connected" attitude social media has become more popular than ever. Yet students and faculty did not want to expose their personal lives to each other, so Bb

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Bb Conference Resources...See What You Missed

This year at Blackboard's (Bbs) annual conferences in Las Vegas, NV there was almost 3,000 people networking together. Over the course of a week which also included DevCon,
participants from more than 30 countries shared ideas and engaged in a
rich program focused on the future of education and teaching and
learning with technology.  Ok, so some were there just to meet Bbs new CEO Jay Bhatt,

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The uKnowKids now has an iPhone app

The uKnowKids iPhone app is now avaible to download!





uKnowKids will let you monitor many of the channels your child uses to communicate on his or her iPhone including contact and photo review, as well as location monitoring. Many of the iPhone's native features are integrated with Facebook®. uKnowKids collects and analyzes all Facebook data as well as:

Twitter
Instagram
Facebook Messenger

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3Play Media For Captioning & Video Accessibility

Below are some resources that might be helpful in regards to captioning and video accessibility, provided by 3Play Media. 3PlayMedia was one of the vendor present at BbWorld 2013, perhaps you visited them in booth #






Captioning for Blackboard Collaborate
Read step-by-step instructions








Video Accessibility Laws
Get the latest updates








Case Studies
Read about successful

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New Self-Paced Online Courses for Blackboard Learn

Blackboard (Bb) adds four New Self-Paced Online Courses for LEARN!

If your switching from snapshot or just wanting to take advantage of the SIS Integration features, or wanting to learn how to improve institution wide collaboration, to learn tips on course delivery, or are you a trainer/support person who needs to understand Bb from the faculty side? The below courses may help you. 

 

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LMS Roadmaps & Why No One Vendor Is Perfect

I work for a two Blackboard (Bb) institutions, yet one has challenge me to teach with Canvas to try it out. Canvas presented at the last New Horizons conference sponsored by the Virginia Community College System (VCCS) which is a Bb client, so I have experience and exposure to both products. My experience with D2L is less and only within a sandbox environment. Read my This is not my only prior

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You Can Survive A Business Trip With Gastroparesis

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the Blackboard (Bb) annual conferences in Las Vegas, Nevada. Learn more about what happened at these conferences in any of my prior eight post. Today I want to talk about how I as scared about going to this conference as I was excited to go and present.





internaldrive.com

While being treated at the University of Virginia (UVA) for another issue, one

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Things I Discovered By Going to Bb 2013 Conferences

I returned from my fourth BbWorld conference and my third DevCon conference almost a week ago…and what a 1/2 week it has been. I got new neighbors whose kids seem to live in our yard, I submitted 4 Bb support tickets, I returned to a work where I am told a trained monkey can do my job, I wrote a book review for the ACM, several vendor demos, my son learned to dive off the swim team blocks and

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My Blackboard Annual Conference Reflection

Blackboard (Bb) users started descending upon the desert area of Las Vegas, Nevada as early as Saturday, July 6. To attended either the Open Source Day conference, the Bb Developers Conference (DevCon), or the BbWorld User Conference or a combination of these conferences. I attended the DevCon and BbWorld conferences. I always forget to go down a day earlier for the Open Source Day conference,

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My Closing Day of BbWorld 2013

I woke up with sadness in my heart due to the BbWorld conference coming to an end today. The event goes by so fast. Why, because it is the one time a year Bb users from around the world get to talk to each other in person and learn from each other with the common goal of using educational technology to better the world.

Today was the first day I actually made it to breakfast and I even had time

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Blackboard World Day 2 In Review

I apologize for not writing my review of Day 2 (Wednesday) at BbWorld quicker. Wednesday was the first full day of BbWorld 2013 and it was packed full. I was exhausted by the end of the day! Of course, the evening 10 mile hike around the strip that the SU team took after the did not help things either.

Blackboard (Bb) nominated 23 people for the Key to the Community and then opened the doors for

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Blackboard World 2013 Kicks Off

Only a short time after the techno geeks attending Blackboard's (Bb) Developers Conference finished lunch, Bb kicked of their annual users conference known as BbWorld. Conference attendees had to chose from sessions on analytics, mobile, transitioning, streaming video, course design, online program management trends, server consolidation, cloud discussions, cross-platform strategies, strategic

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Blackboard Developers Conference Day 2 In Review

 My day started off with an early web meeting with Blackboard (Bb) Support Tier 2 Engieer Charles Cloutier, with Tier 3 on standby. Sadly the hotel wi-fi just was supportive of this activity. We opted for Charles doing direct backend data extraction and quickly learned that Tier 3 needed to handle. I really appreciate Charles working around my DevCon session schedule, so I can get a problem

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Bb's DevCon 2013 Day 1 In Review

I missed the opening session and part of Franco's Social Security session due to oversleeping and working with Southwest on finding my luggage. Then I was unable to activate Google Glass via voice controls due to the level of conversation going on, Glass could not here my "record a video" command. I was amazed as to the level of intensity in the room by some who want an "ok" from every user

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Bb DevCon Or Bust .... Almost a Bust

This year I decide to leave later on Sunday to get as much family time in as possible before heading to Blackbaord's (Bb) Developers Conference (DevCon). Little did I know those extra hours would possibly cost me dearly and almost cause me to miss the DevCon conference. I should have seen the signs late packing, rushing to finish meal preps for family, a flipped school bus causing traffic delays,

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My Google Glass Adventures Continues

As society is learning more about wearable technology through Google Glass, I am learning more about Google Glass through society. I think society is starting to under stand how Glass works, but if your still a little confused click here to learn more. While there are people who still have privacy concerns, even though Glass does not invade privacy any more than recording on a cell phone or

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3Play Media, Job News, Free iPads and More

Exhibit Hall Booth #511: 
3Play Media works with Higher Education institutions to
provide captioning & transcription services. Stop by Booth #511 in the BbWorld Exhibit Hall and talk with them about the challenges you face in making your videos accessible and learn how 3Play Media may potentially help. 3Play Media recommends the following sessions:

Be Proactive: Creating An Accessible Online

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Today's July 1 News & Information

Today is the day that: 


Canada celebrates it independence
Estée Lauder was born in 1906 (Cosmetics Company CEO)
Dwight Eisenhower marries Mary `Mamie' Geneva Doud in Denver, Colorado
Many new laws go into affect in the United States
You must vote by 11:59p for the Key To Community award
BbWorld 2013 is now only 8 days away

 #5: Key to the Community Award –
a new award  to recognize clients

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Software Update Alerts Within Blackboard Learn

Blackboard (Bb) made Bb Learn System Administration easier when they added the "System Updates" module on the System Admin Tab. Bb claims that this module "provides system administrators updates specific to your Blackboard Learn installation, including Major Releases, Service Packs, and Patch Sets, as well as building block updates and newly released building blocks. The module lists the number

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The Voice Viewers Selected Their Winner, Now The Bb Community Selects Their Winner

In short, The Voice is a show where four stars coach selected participants during the course of the show hoping to lead their student to victory. This years winner was a 16 year old with an amazing voice. Each week the world voted for their favorite performer and the ones with the most votes moved on to the next round. Read more about The Voice here. The trick is for the performers to convince

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Bb Adds New Twist To Developers Conference 2013

Christopher Borales' big announcement email to Blackboard (Bb) Developers Conference (DevCon) attendees has created quite the stir. The name of the 2 day conference is a little misleading, you don't have to be a developer to attend. There are lots of us system administrators in attendance, along with those amazing developers. These two days consist of highly technical content. Many of the people

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Progress Bars, Alert Emails, xPlor, & Kaltura

As I stated on Friday, June 21, I installed SP13 and had less then perfect results.Strangely today on my instance with the xPlor administration panel not working it magically worked or maybe it was the hard reboot I did over the weekend. I am just thankful it works! Bb is still working on getting all the cloud & social items to work again on another instance. I don't really think it is a building

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BbWorld User Experience Research Lab

With only two weeks left till the long awaited annual event you should already be registered, but if not click here to register.  Remember there is more to BbWorld than just talk about Blackboard, click here to read more.

If you are already registered, start planning your time now. The conference time will go by fast and there is so much to see and do, organization is a must. After you have

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Is it Ginkgo Tree or GinkgoTree?

Never heard of a ginkgo tree, maybe you know it as fossil tree, maidenhair tree, or kew tree. Still not ringing a bell? Maybe you know its species name, Ginkgo biloba. This tree is known to be the oldest tree on earth, has large shady branches, can grow in city environments, provides fall foliage, and offers homeopathic advantages. Read more about the life of the ginkgo tree here.

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Blackboard Conferences Are Not Just About Blackboard

Of course during 2013 Blackboard (Bb) user conference (#BbWorld13) & developers conference (#DevCon13), attendees will learn lots about Bb's products and partners. They will learn not only from Bb staff, but from fellow Bb clients and vendors. Click here to register.

Attendees also have the opportunity to network with thousands and to enhance their personal learning networks. They even have

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Two Steps Forward & One Step Backward

In a time when other LMS companies are aggressively trying to steel customers away from Blackboard (Bb), I am amazed that Bb is not taking pain staking steps to assure near perfection when rolling out updates or new features. I strongly believe that Bb Learn is the best LMS out there in respect to features and user/institution control. However, I am worried that in Bb's haste to provide clients

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eXplorance, Blue Man Group, & BbWorld 2013

eXplorance will be attending BbWorld this year as a Blackboard (Bb) premier partner and platinum sponsor.  In short, if you are looking for a product that provides course evaluation & survey tools while offering value through flexibility and depth. I am specifically talking about eXplorance's Blue feedback management software system which offers the flexibility for each university to  tailor it

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Four days into Google Glass & learning lots about society

I was surprised upon returning to work on Monday, that no one asked immediately, where is the Glass. It was not until 2:30 p.m., when I went to a meeting with my supervisor who wanted to try it out. I quickly learn that meant he wanted me to give it to him for a few days, we finally settled on him playing with it during our meeting and me taking a picture of him wearing it. Next two Network

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Quick Tips: Blackboard Content Editor Basics

The Content
Editor within Blackboard (Bb) Learn SP10+ has been redesigned to improve your experience adding text and
other digital  content to your Blackboard course. The new content editor
has two view modes: simple modeand advanced mode. 

Basic Information - 


By
default text is formatted to 12-point, left-justified, Arial. Multiple
methods available to add, format, and edit text and

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Blackboard Clients - Have YOU done your part?

Any client of Blackboard (Bb) Inc., can tell you the obligations that Bb has to them. But most rarely talk about the obligation they have to Bb.  Bb's clients have an obligation to perform activities that enable Bb to improve their product for the greater good of the Bb community.  

One way to do that is to attend the annual user conference (aka: BbWorld)  July 7 - 12 at the Venetian/Palazzo

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My Google Glass Day, In Review

Google New York

As I shared Friday, June 14, I was selected to be a Glass Explorer through Google's #IfIhadglass contest. While I was hoping to be able to pick up at the Reston, VA office; I was just as excited to go to the New York office. My family and I left after my son's baseball game. We got up early and spent the most of the day seeing New York and then finally my 4 pm appointment time

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Google Glass Is Coming to Virginia

This week I had difficulty staying focused and not have my mind wonder off to the happenings tomorrow, June 15. What caused this? Google Glass!






Yes, there have be lots of people talking about it, trying to ban it, and using it...but now it is my turn.  It started of with that exciting direct message that my glass was ready. Then came the difficult decision of what color to pick. It took me

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NBC Learn Helps With Phonics & Word Recognition

Think of it as vocabulary code-breaking: the Common Core English Language Arts Standards consider the ability to identify and know the meaning of the most common prefixes and suffixes, and decode words with common Latin suffixes to be “Foundational Skills” in Reading as early as Grade 3 — with an understanding of affixes and word roots beginning in Grade 4.*

Enter the words “Word Roots” in

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Apple's Mac OS X Causes Problem for Bb Collaborate

Issue: 
Recent security
changes released by Apple may prevent Web Conferencing customers from
launching Blackboard Collaborate sessions and recordings. Customers
using OS X Mountain Lion v10.8.4 will be affected. The security changes
no longer allow users to auto-launch JNLP files, instead the user gets a Apple message and forced to click OK. Clicking OK will not auto-launch the session

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Common Cartridge Exporting & Importing For Bb Learn

Blackboard (Bb) Learn supports different Common Cartridge packages formats. Common Cartridge is over seen by the IMS Global Learning Consortium. Common Cartridge standards are used to enable flexibility and sharing within different systems. To enable reuse in a broad number of LMS, the Bb generated Common Cartridge package is limited to widely available features. For detailed information about

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Feedback on Inline Grading Within Bb Learn 9.1

Back in March, Blackboard (Bb) released the Inline Grading building block for customers running SP10 and higher. Click here to learn more about the building block. I was excited to get this building block installed, but I was also a little concerned about this because when Canvas released their Crocodoc tool, it had a lot of known problems from the start. Click here to see Canvas' problems. Yes,

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Support for Google Analytics Is Built into Bb Learn

System Administrators are often so concerned with making sure upgrades happen seamlessly and that they cross all their T's and dot their I's, that they actually miss a new feature. Sometimes they note the feature and plan to get back to it at a later date and forget about it. That is what must of happen with me and incorporating Google Analytics in the Blackboard (Bb) Learn instances I manage.

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Two Great Ideas are Now Part Of Bb Learn 9.1 SP12

I hope by the time you finish reading today's post you feel the pride I do in the Bb Community working together as a team to better Bb Learn product. I am also proud to be a partner with a company (Bb) that clearly is listening and addressing the needs of their clients.

Last November, Carl Kuzmich from University of Southern California, shared with the Bb System Administrators code that they had

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Biometric Security Now Available To Control Cheating Within Blackboard

Do you consider your test, quizzes, and/or exams in Blackboard Learn to be high stakes in respect to your course? Do you want to make sure that it is your student completing that online activity? Then you probably have been little less then happy with Bb Learn because there is no built-in secure testing feature. If an institution wants to promote secure testing then they have to reach out to

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Good Bye Snapshot, Hello SIS Integration

Since Blackboard's (Bb) announcement of Student Information System (SIS) integration, it has been my goal to move Shenandoah University (SU) from the Bb Snapshot tool to the SIS tool. Why? Two reasons, first to stop paying Bb the extra fee for support of the snapshot controller and the second to take advantage of the additional features available through the SIS tool. These additional tools

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Be A Pawn Star At Blackboard World 2013

Graphic From: www.vegaschatter.com

If you haven't watched the show "Pawn Stars" on the History Channel, I suggest you do to better understand today's post. You can also watch it online at http://www.history.com/shows/pawn-stars/videos. After watching an episode or two you well see a company: (1) where employees enjoy their jobs, (2) that wants to make money, (3) that knows when to walk away (4

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SlideShark Great, BrainShark Not At #BbWorld13 Sad

Have you heard of SlideShark? If not, SlideShark is an app for showing PowerPoint presentations from your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch with animations, fonts, colors, graphics, videos and hyperlinks intact. SlideShark is considered to be a powerful solution built by Brainshark. When I check the Apple store this morning the app had 2,000+ reviews and a 4.5 star avg rating! MacWorld gave the app a

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Priceless Treasures Await You At Conferences

Treasure Island

"Blind Pugh was After hidden treasure, just like the rest of his shipmates, but could not see the map of Treasure Island. However, his hearing was shipshape, and he intended to locate the treasure from what he overheard and get there before the others. The island was divided into a 4X4 grid of equal squares, each square having a unique color. He had heard the following facts:

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Users Can Hide & Rearrange Courses In Bb Learn

With the start of the Summer semester, I am getting asked about how to personalize the "My Courses/Course List" module within Blackboard (Bb) Learn. I figured if I am getting this question, the chances are that others are also. Maybe my post will reduce questions for my peers or give them a starting point to build instructions for their users.

As new courses are loaded into Bb, users start to

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Enhance Connect For Learn With Mobile Preferences B2

Blackboard (Bb) Connect for Learn is a tool that helps ensure that Bb users get up-to-date course/organization notifications. When a user opt-in to receive notifications through the Connect for Learn, they can receive automated alerts for a variety of course/organizations changes
including system announcements, course/organization notifications such as due dates, and/or grade posts by voice,

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Six Named As VIP Bloggers For #BbWorld13

It is official as of Friday, May 17! Josh Murdock (@professorJosh), Greg Ketcham (@Greg_Ketcham ), Aron Adair (@aaronadairphd), Shayla Burroughs (@shaylamsb), Sky King (@skyvking), and my co-worker George Hoffman (@GeorgeHoffman4) were select as the VIPs for the 2013 BbWorld conference in Las Vegas!

Make sure you follow these VIP Bloggers on Twitter and/or subscribe to their blogs below.

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My Bb Learn 9.1 Experience To SP12

Well after months of preparing users, participating in the SP12 Beta group, participating in the SP12 Admin Cohort, and doing test upgrades on our development and test instances of Blackboard (Bb) Learn last Friday (May 17) SU was finally going to upgrade their production server. Something, I personally thought would take only a few hours turned out to be a weekend nightmare that is

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Running Bb Collaborate V12.5 Yet? You Should Be!

Blackboard (Bb) Collaborate 12.5 web conferencing includes:



Support for Android devices, including Kindle Fire HD, to expand opportunities for mobile learning
Built-in phone conferencing
with auto-provisioned call-in numbers, eliminating the need for a
third-party teleconferencing provider (North American enterprise license
only)
Single-click individual permissions and ability to toggle

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One Creative Way To Use Bb Collaborate

A little history: 
Blackboard (Bb) purchased two company's: Wimba and Elluminate. You can read more about this by doing a search in any search engine or click here to see one of the news announcements on the Web. Blackboard took features from both companies and made a new product sold as Blackboard Collaborate. Click here to watch a video from Maurice Heiblum about the new product. You can

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Blackboard Learn 9.1 Is A Made To Order Solution

As I waited for my turn to order my made-to-order (MTO) sub from Subway today, it hit me that Bb was a MTO Learning Managment System. Blackboard (Bb) claims that "Learn is an innovative, user-focused LMS designed to engage students and ease the burden on educators." Some will disagree by saying Bb is difficult to use, expensive, and and out-of-date. Others will say that students prefer Bb in

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Qwickly Simplifies Faculty Task Within Blackboard

Qwickly is a FREE building block that Baldwin Wallace University created and has so nicely shared with the Blackboard (Bb) LEARN community.  It allows instructors to: 1- send the same email to all the users in one or more courses (only type the email once), 2- post an announcement to one or more courses (type the announcement once), 3- make unavailable courses available without having to

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Who Will Be the 2013 VIP BbWorld Bloggers?

The entire group of official BbWorld 2013 bloggers are waiting to hear who will be promoted to VIP Blogger status. Several have been tweeting about the anticipation. With so many schools having graduation this weekend, I find it timely that Blackboard (Bb) is providing the same type of suspense for those official bloggers hoping for one of those three VIP Bloggers spots.



While I am

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Blackboard Gives Customers The 10 Things They Want

According to research conducted by The Rain Group (read the full report here), customers surprisingly ranked the 10 items below higher than they did "best price and best value" (James, 2013). 

Bring New Perspectives and Ideas
Be Willing to Collaborate
Have Confidence In Your Ability to Achieve Results
Listen, Really Listen, to the Customer
Understand ALL the Customer's Needs
Help the Customer

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Plagiarism Prevention Is Part Of Blackboard Learn

Wondering what tool Blackboard (Bb) Learn has to discourage plagiarism?  Well that is SafeAssign.
This tool is very similar to TurnItIn, except that it comes free from Blackboard, Inc.
SafeAssign™ is a plagiarism prevention service, offered by Blackboard.  This service helps educators prevent plagiarism by detecting unoriginal content in student papers.  In addition to acting as a plagiarism

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255 Live Sessions, 2000+ People, & Tech Vendors?

Where can you find 255 live mind blowing sessions, talk with over 2000 people, visit with lots of technology vendors, and have three days away from the office?





That's right Blackboard World 2013! The BbWorld 2013 conference has live sessions, engaging keynotes, and professionals from around the globe. If you have not registered yet, do so today as you don't want to miss this event and an

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Get Help Setting Up Your Summer Courses From Bb, Inc

Like watching short videos instead of reading text for learning a new skill? Learn more about Blackboard (Bb) Learn through the On Demand Learning Center.
The On Demand Learning Center includes short, interactive video lessons
called Quick Tutorials and short documents, called Getting Started
Guides, designed to get you familiar with a feature in 15 minutes. Many
of the Quick Tutorials are

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Review Of Apple Blossom Festival

Graphic From: www.thebloom.com




The festival started for me as with most other "locals" with a day off work. Friday, May 3rd is an official local holiday and Shenandoah University is the host of several festival events; such as the Queen's Ball, Rock The Bloom concert, Jazz and Concert band competitions. While I did not physically have to go into work, by no means was it a day off. Up by 6a

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My Blackboard World Sessions

Greetings, I am going to do a plug for my two #BbWorld13 sessions, but first if you have not registered or have not signed up to be a VIP Blogger do so now please by clicking here.  Otherwise, you might miss the opportunity to get 2000+ Blackboard (Bb) users input on how to solve your educational technology questions and talk in person with Bb's expert staff! 


My first session is titled,

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Free Activities During #BbWorld13 Downtime

Now that you have gotten the approval to attend the big BbWorld 2013 conference in July, you need to be reviewing the schedule at a glance here and figuring out what you are going to do in your  down time. As most of your probably know, Las Vegas is a unique and lively place.




National Geographic Vegas Guide


Winona Dimeo-EdigerJanuary 28, 2013 provides a suggestion list here of 10 favorite

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Short Week Tips & Tricks

This will be a short week for me due to the Apple Blossom festival which will be rocking Winchester this weekend. The one time a year the town almost completely shuts down to celebrate a fruit, the apple, that has such a strong history in the town. While not today, but in the past Winchester was the apple capital of the world. White House Foods have their home here. This short weeks means I

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Be Adventurous While in Vegas For DevCon 2013

Blackboard's (Bb) Developers Conference also known as "DevCon" is a more technical conference, than BbWorld user conference is. The name "DevCon" sounds like a spy movie, but it fits the attendees because they are usually the system admins, programmers, and database admins who are constantly sneaking around in the system behind the scenes trying to find clues and solve mysteries. They are also

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Review Of The 2013 Bloomin' Wine Fest

Graphic courtesy of Chester Magazine

This year I was unable to serve as a volunteer work at the Bloomin' Wine Fest, but I was still able to enjoy a "girls afternoon" with my mother and sister at the event. The weather was perfect, which  was very different usually I am attending in the rain.

The event had to change its layout due to construction on the downtown walking mall. This year it was

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Thoughts On Blackboard's Exemplary Course Program

 


I am a Certiport Certified professional instructor, a Microsoft Certified Trainer, Earned certificates in the Virginia Community College System's IDOL & TOPS teaching online program, participated in Bb's Exemplary Course MOOC, and my course has been through successful Quality Matters evaluation.  I have earned distinctions by helping others, providing continuing support in the areas of

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What Not To Do Or Forget For BbWorld

Over the past 4 years I’ve had the pleasure of attending the Blackboard (Bb) BbWorld and Devon Conferences and have participated at various levels.  I am also a co-founder of the Virginia Blackboard User Group (VaBUG). Blackboard provides some tools on how to convince your boss to let you go, they even wrote the letter for you. Click here to download it.  I suggest being an official BbWorld

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Enhance Bb Video Everywhere With VideoNot.es App

Video Everywhere is a feature added to the Blackboard (Bb) Learn 9.1 SP10+ Content Editor (formerly Text Editor). When installed & activated within Bb a new icon will display among the content editor buttons.  When activated, users can record video
and upload it directly to YouTube, by taking over control of the computers webcam. The feature initially has moderate privacy set with the initial 10

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Bamboo and Blackboard

Photo: mike lowe/Flickr

Is Bamboo a tree or plant? That is a question that has been long argued. According to the Hemp-Guide (2007) it is "woody perennial evergreen plant that is actually part of the true grass family" (para 4). The reason some thing that it is a tree, is probably because it can grow to towering heights. "Bamboo along with being one of the tallest grasses in the world, is also

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Do you Bitcoins?

Do you have Bitcoins? I do not have any, but many do. I realized though that many people had yet to hear about Bitcoins as I listed to my students at Navy Federal Credit Union (NFCU) present on the topic. I received confirmation that many people had not heard of Bitcoins after I joked on Twitter with Blackboard (Bb) users about maybe next year being able to pay for Bb's annual BbWorld conference

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Las 5 mejores cosas sobre ser un #BbWorld Blogger a mí

Cuando
empecé a hacer mi lista de los cinco mejores cosas de ser un blogger
BbWorld, rápidamente me di cuenta de que esto iba a ser una tarea
difícil. Me he sentido muchas ventajas desde que ganó el concurso del año pasado.

Pero me obligué a reducirlo, así que aquí están mis cinco mejores cosas de ser BbWorld Blogger:
1. Tienes
la oportunidad de estar prioridad en todas las sesiones

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Thank You Blackboard For Changing My Life

For the past 9 years I have been teaching students about technology, yet I was not actually using things that I talked about such as Twitter, Blogging, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn etc... That all changed exactly 1 year ago today.

On Apri1 19, 2012; I created my first blog post and made my first tweet to enter the Blackboard  Inc (Bb) BbWorld VIP Blogger contest. Click here to read my

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Blog With Me at BbWorld & Bb DevCon in Las Vegas

I just signed up to be an official #BbWorld13 Blogger and if you are going you should sign up also. There are two options for blogging. You can sign up just to officially blog about the sessions you attended, which gets you a t-shirt, a following, and priority seating at keynotes OR you can participate in the VIP Blogger contest. For this contest Blackboard (Bb) will select 3 official

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LMSs Still Out Shine Apple's Course Manager

From: www.macgasm.net

When I first heard about Apple's iTunesU Course Manager, I expected to see a better designed interface that loaded quickly, had Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) integration options, and possibly could be used instead of an Learning Management System (LMS).  Many Apple supports claimed that it would be the reason for institutions to stop using LMSs.  I think that this

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Educational Blogging Benefits Simply Stated

Mrs. Kathleen Morris posted on Friday, March 8th 2013 "The Benefits of Educational Blogging" which was actually and an update from older posts about the benefits of educational blogging, but simply explains the benefits that students get from blogging in the classroom. While Mrs. Morris is an elementary school teacher, but the benefits that she discusses are there for students of all ages.


The

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Introducing the Glass Collective

If you have a brilliant idea that will incorporate Google Glass, check this out. Official Blog: Introducing the Glass Collective

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My Blackboard Annual User Conference Wish List

Graphic from: www.blackboard.com

I have now attended several BbWorlds and a couple DevCons and look forward to the 2013 conferences in July, click here to learn more. Each year I go I learn more then I did the year before and get more involved. Taking an active part in the BbWorld conference gives me an opportunity to help make it the best conference possible, to give feedback to Blackboard,

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Don't knock Google Glass until you try it!

Just as Brad Nierenberg (2013) points out that it is not important how many Twitter followers someone has as Andrej Karpathy  is pointed out here. Karpathy points out that 26% of people have less than 100 followers, 61% of people have less than 1000 followers, and 7% of people have more than 10,000. What is important about Twitter is the content and quality of the content a person tweets about (

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New Horizons Conference Day 2 - Part 2

As I stated in my first post for Day 2, there were a lot of excellent sessions to pick from and in some cases I split my time between two sessions.  I really wish conferences would record all presentation and make them available to attendees after the conference for a limited period of time, instead of just selecting a handful to record or stream.

Richie Crim from Lord Fairfax Community College

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New Horizons Conference Day 2 - Part 1

The New Horizons Conference (#nh13) had a morning packed with a networking breakfast and sessions for everyone. I have been hearing people having a hard time picking what to attend to because they want to attend sessions that are at the same time. The hope is that all the presenters will make their presentations available on the conference website by the close of the conference.


The first

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Take A Technology Time Out

Yesterdays review of day 1 at the New Horizons conference was my first post after a week's break. That is because I was taking a "technology free" vacation.  First let me explain what I mean by "technology free", for this post I am talking about no cell phone use, no email checking, no tweeting, no blogging, no Facebook, no communication with the office, and reading traditional books. At the

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New Horizons 2013 Conference Day 1 Review

The New Horizons 2013 Conference is hosted by the Virginia Community College System (VCCS) each year.  While the majority of the participants are from one of the VCCS' 23 colleges, participants from any college is welcome. It is an expensive conference but a great place to network with other educators, see new technologies, talk with vendors, and to learn how others are using technology at their

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Community Support, Spring Snow, Atomic Learning, & BbWorld13

The Rotary Club of Frederick County, Virginia hosted the Harlem Ambassadors in a friendly game of basketball against some of the areas leaders (aka: Diplomats) on Friday, March 22 at Sherando High School in Stephens City, Virginia. This basketball game was to help raise money to build a Habitat For Humanity house.  In case you don't know about the Harlem Ambassadors, you can check out their

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Do You Trello?

Do you Trello? Have you heard of Trello? 


I do now Trello and I had not heard of Trello until John Dennett of Blackboard, Inc (Bb) emailed the folks on the Bb Mobile list serv (3/25) about this nice tool. Trello lets you organize anything easily, from life goals and to-do lists to group projects; Add images, checklists, due dates, attachments, and more to your Trello board; team areas all for

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Social Media Does Matter

Social Media is probably more important than most of us realize or want to admit. For example did you know that "Nearly a quarter of the total time spent online is on social networks" (Tom Ewer ,2012). Social Media is no longer an option, if you want to advance your career or make your personal brand recognized. Ewer (2012) further points out that "Social media users spend the most, and are more

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A System Admin/Faculty Point Of View on Blackboard Learn's Inline Grading

Last week Blackboard (Bb), Inc. released a new tool called "Inline Grading" for their LEARN platform. This feature is suppose to be part of Learn 9.1 SP12, but if your institution is running SP10 or SP11 you do not have to wait. Just ask your System Administrator to download and install the building block. The install takes less than 2 minutes and the rewards will be great for faculty, as well as

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Cool Tools You Can Integrate With Blackboard Learn 9.1

Even if you believe that Blackboard (Bb) Learn 9.1 is the best learning management system (LMS) out there based on quality, ease of use, flexibility, and level education technology experience; you will also have to admit that there are some cool Web tools available also. The best part is that more of the Web tool developers are realizing that people do not want to be restricted to just their web

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Open Education Week, OER, & School of Open

http://www.openeducationweek.org/

Open Education Resources (OER) "are freely accessible, openly formatted and openly licensed documents and media that are useful for teaching, learning, education, assessment and research purposes." (Wikipedia, 2013). OER is not a new concept, as seen in Sally Johnstone's Educause article in 2005. OER has moved into the more educational discussions due to the

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Wiggo, D2L, Social Learing, and Bb

Let me start by first explaining what Wiggo.com is.  Wiggo.com is a site where someone can create a group and communicate online with members of that group.  Currently you can either create an Wiggo account or login with your Facebook account. According to the Wiggo "About" page the founders created the application out of their frustration in trying to work in groups, something I am sure we all

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Content Collection Within Blackboard Learn

Blackboard, Inc. (aka: Bb) offers an add-on the their LEARN platform known as the Content System. The Blackboard Content System gives instructors a place to store, share, and publish their course content within personal user folders and course folders. The content system serves as a virtual hard drive for their Blackboard files. Files stored within the content system can be linked to multiple

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Stange March Scramble

Blackboard Incorporate's North America tour - Blackboard (Bb) is traveling across North America looking to meet educators, technologists and leaders that desire to make the educational experience the best it can be in North America. You can learn more about their tour by clicking here or join the tour via Twitter by following the hashtag  #BbonTour.




Free Interactive PDF Syllabus Builder that

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Add Variety To Your Course Discussion Boards

Do you use discussion boards in your class? Are your students disengaged with your discussion boards? If you answered "yes" to either of these questions then maybe it is time to try a different way of using a discussion board.

“Think of it as a place to foster interaction between the students through a variety of means rather than just asking them questions, although that’s great too,” says

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Personal Learning Network, do you have one?

A personal learning network (PLN) is a group of people that you are connected to that help you learn and grow your knowledge in a variety of topics. I have also heard PLNs called social learning networks (SLNs). PLNs are not the same thing as social networks as some think and why I think people tend to stay away from calling them SLNs. These personal learning networks are not only self-directed

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What Technology Do Student Really Want?

I've had the opportunity to attended some more "geeky" informational technology (IT) conferences lately, getting back to my programming roots. I also have been able to attend more educational conferences, since getting my PhD. Since I live daily in both of these worlds, I understand both areas but am totally amazed how far apart these worlds are in respect to what today's learners really want

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Google Glass, Will It Help or Hurt Us?

You probably have heard someone talk about Google Glass, but what is it? Google Glass is basically augmented reality built into a computer that lives in the frame of a pair of glasses. If you want to be on the leading for technology you leading edge of technology or you like to be the first to have the new technology then hurry and get your application in today to be a Google Explorer. You have

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P2PU - WebMaking 101 Badge

Now that Blackboard, Inc has started me on blogging and Szymon Machajewski has created the OpenBadge building block it is time for me to learn more about Mozilla's OpenBadge project and other badges for professional development and as a teaching tool in the classes I teach. 

I learned about P2PU through a link within the Blackboard (Bb) open badge building block. By using P2PU myself I learn

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Dyslexia, the disability society does not understand

Dyslexia is a term that most have heard of, yet it is a disability that many will discriminate against often and truly do not understand. "The word dyslexia comes from the Greek language and means poor language" (Reading Rockets, 2013). The National Center for Learning Disabilities (2013) explains that dyslexia like other disabilities is a lifelong challenge and is something that is often

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Are you thinking about spring break? Instead, think Vegas in July

You may be thinking about the upcoming midterm exams you have to grade or spring break, but you really should be thinking about summer professional development in Vegas. The word Vegas, probably just put an image of a slot machine in your mind,  but I was really talking about you rolling the dice on being selected as one of Blackboards (Bbs) BbWorld High Rollers. Bb will select five people to get

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Blackboard Clients Share Their Knowledge

In 2006, Howie Southworth, Kemal Cakici, Yianna Vovides, and Susan Zvacek provided us a "Blackboard For Dummies" book. This book to show in easy step-by-step instructions to: Navigate the Blackboard environment, Customize your course menu, Add and organize course materials, Give online assignments, Conduct online discussions and chat rooms, and to Keep track of grades successfully. You can take a

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Good Opportunity To Learn about Amazon's Web Services

If you work in IT you probably have heard someone talk about Amazon's Web Services (AWS) at least once. You may have even visited the AWS website at http://aws.amazon.com/ and considered it as a way to cheaply test the "cloud" waters. AWS provides individuals and business a complete set of infrastructure and application services that gives them the ability to  run virtually almost everything in

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Piazza Your Blackboard Learn With LTI

One of the under utilized features of Blackboard (Bb) Learn is Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) integration from the IMS Global Learning Consortium. The purpose of LTI was to give instructors who like using applications outside an institutions LMS (such as virtual experiments, interactive demos, or question & answer sessions) the ability to do so easily through URLs in their courses as links

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Follow-up Feedback from Feb. 7, 2013 Post

Since my post on Thursday, February 7, 2013 highlighting some key points about Desire2Learn, Canvas, and Blackboard (Bb); I have been received several people telling me about studies done by other schools that say Blackboard is not the best product.

For example, here is one where Butler University evaluated Bb against Desire2Learn, Moodle, & Sakai.  I find it interesting that this report

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Blackboard and Dropbox.com

Did you know that you can use Dropbox.com with Blackboard Learn?  While each of us have our own opinions on how Blackboard (Bb) Learn should look like or how easy it should be to use. So I am not even going to try to address that side of the house. What is important to me is that my Dropbox account can be linked to Bb Mobile Learn on my users iOS and Android devices! Students and instructors can

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Desire2Learn, Canvas, & Blackboard - Oh My

Lately I have been hearing about Blackboard (Bb) customers looking at Desire2Learn (D2L) and Instructure's Canvas products. While I understand the need to know what else is out there, I do not understand why people do not truly evaluate the other products fully. Instead the trend tends to be to leave Bb, simply because of someones personal interest or because a few users do not take the time to

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Failures and Flops Are Not Bad Events

Society tends to make the term "failure" a bad word, but we should not. Without people trying something new or different, society would not move forward.  When we do new things there is always a risk of failure, no matter who we are. There are tons of failures in the world, but they do not have to always be painful. Instead of focusing on not succeeding, look at the fun in trying. So remember,

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WileyPlus Integrates with BB Learn

One of the biggest challenge you are faced with when
teaching an online course is keeping your students engaged and
motivated? If you are using material from Wiley, you might want to consider integrating with WileyPLUS & Blackboard (Bb) Learn™ building block. It offers several pedagogical advantages including ways to:

Increase student preparedness,
Sustain student motivation,
Help students

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New FREE Blackboard B2, allows adjustments to LEARN

A "B2" is nothing more than a building block. It is just a shortcut used sometimes by Blackboard (Bb) staff and system administrators. If you are a system administrator, I am sure you have experienced frustration trying to find a CSS file or properties file within the Bb Learn system. I know I have. For example, with the new modern 2012 Theme the underlines for hyperlinks was removed and now

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The 2013 LMS SuccessBowl Champanion is the Blackboard Havens

The Blackboard Havens edged out a 34-31 win over the Sakai Sakaigers to win the 2013 LMS SuccessBowl in a thrilling battle of features, support, and lessons learned. Since October when the Blackboard coach, Michael Chasen, decided to step down; fans have been wondering if the Blackboard team would be able to deliver. Then Jay Bhatt created headlines before the SuccessBowl by guaranteeing to

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Blackbaord SP11 is designed with students in mind

Most of my day as a Blackboard (Bb) system administrator is spent monitoring the system, finding ways to improve performance, working with vendors to develop Learn integrations, and troubleshooting request for support. While I enjoy that, but one of my favorite this to do is talk with students about the technology. It is interesting how some students think they do not have a voice about

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Groups in Blackboard Learn & Google

Shared the below information from Blackboard Inc. (Bb) about an opportunity for faculty to help Bb improve LEARN course groups with some co-workers. Not all companies ask clients for feedback, so I strongly believe if they ask then take the time to assist or you do not have the right to complain. Just in case you are a LEARN faculty and did not get informed here is the information. 



SURVEY:

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MERLOT is not just a fine wine, but a great educational resource

When you here the term "merlot" you might be tempted to think about a fine wine, but try thinking about an organization that deals with " Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching" instead. "MERLOT is made up of over 43,000 members, who are primarily Faculty, Staff, Students, Administrators and Librarians" (Merlot.org, 2009).  Here are just a few things that Merlot has

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Blackboard Content Editor & Snapshot to SIS Integration

Peter DiFalco, from California State University  provided several Blackboard (Bb) System Administrators a good explanation as to why Bb users cannot just right click and paste into the new Content Editor, but instead have to use the keyboard shortcuts like CTRL-V. Since this is a question that I have also been asked,  I thought I would share Peter's answer with everyone.  Blackboard based the

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Jobs, Conferences, Old Brains, & Other Stuff

Here are just a few of the jobs I have heard about lately. 

Envy Labs & Code School are looking to hire some additional Ruby developers in Orlando. Click here to learn more. 

The University of Chicago has two positions open: Learning Platforms Service Manager – Req. #091575 (please note – Blackboard is referenced as Chalk at the University). Academic Technology Analyst – Req #091689 Please

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Blackboard and ePortfolio's

I am continuously getting asked about ePortfolio's within Blackboard, so here is what I know. At Shenandoah University we do not license the Bb content system, thus we don't have a "portfolio" option. Right now we tell instructors to use Google Sites, ePortfolio.org, Epsilen.com, or pay for integration with Learning Objects. While these tools work, faculty really want something that is inside

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Sometimes Blackboard System Administrator Is The Problem

I always tell my students at Lord Fairfax Community College that no one is a total "technology expert". With the rapid speed in which technology changes, there is always something to learn. Area experts do exist though and Dictionary.com agrees as "expert" is defined there as "A person who has a comprehensive and authoritative knowledge of or skill in a particular area." As much as the Blackboard

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LMS Interactive Rubrics Enhance Instructor Feedback

Since Service Pack 6 of Bb Learn 9.1 faculty have been able to include rubrics. Rubrics are a great tool to foster instructional best practices and help faculty teach more efficiently, while letting students understanding their scores on assignments.

According to Blackboard (Bb) Rubrics help:

Increase Efficiency – Rubrics built right into the grading workflow with click-and-score simplicity

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Discussion Boards in Blackboard 9.1

Only one day into our semester and I am learning how much people do not understand all the features of Blackboard's (Bb) discussion board features. Hopefully, this post will help some. 

To mark threads as read/unread:


Select a thread by clicking the check box next to it.
Point to Thread Actions, and then click Mark as Read or Mark as Unread. 

To lock Threads:



    Select a thread by

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6 Suggestions For The New Semester With Bb Learn

As higher education faculty start their semester, I thought I would provide a few tips and reminders to help get the most from Blackboard Learn 9.1.

Reflect on Your Activities: 
Think about what course activities you did in your classes before. What was the high points and what lead to them. What assignments were successes and not-so-successful? Think about how to make those not-so-successful

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Stange January Scramble

Vanderbilt not only creates Blackboard (Bb) building blocks for Bb Learn users, they are working to give independence back to people with paraplegia.  A team of engineers at Vanderbilt University’s Center for Intelligent Mechatronics has developed a powered exoskeleton that enables people with severe spinal cord injuries to stand, walk, sit and climb stairs. Its light weight, compact size and

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Technology Tidbits January 8, 2013

Google Changes Going into Effect This Month - A posting on the Google Developers Blog announced that some
features will be going away starting this month.  Most notably is the
ability to create Appointment Slots in Google Calendar.  Further
information can be attained by following this link: http://googleblog.blogspot.ca/2012/12/winter-cleaning.html


According to Lee Rainie and Maeve Duggan

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Blackboard Mobile Values User Feedback

Image from GWU.edu

I love the Blackboard (Bb) listservs because they provide a fast feedback when I need help from an administrative\system issue. I can go to my peers on the listserv and get suggestions quickly, which allows me to solve my problem without having to submit a support ticket. Additionally, it allows me to discover if the issue is just happening at my institution or are others

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My 2013 Wish List For Blackboard, Inc.

Just as people make New Years resolutions and wishes of what they hope happens in their lives during in upcoming year. I made a list of wishes for Bb's new CEO (Jay Bhatt) to consider. 



Wishlist from my Bb System Administrator job:


To have discounted and bundled pricing based on number of Bb products licensed at their institution. This will reward institutions who engage in all that Bb has

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Blackboard, Inc. 2012 in Review From One Customer's View

Blackboard, Inc. (Bb) was  busy in 2012 and they keep me busy trying to keep up. While I cannot say 2012 was always a smooth road with Bb and their products. I can say that if you drive into a pot hole with Bb, stop and ask them to help fix your car. They are willing to listen and try to find a solution that is best of all. Keep in mind that the solution may require you to give a little also, but

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MOOCS and Alternative Education Links

Below are just a few links if you want to learn more about MOOCs, why some universities are opening up their doors to classes, and why MOOCs have gotten a good response from today's learners and time short professionals. 



Massive Open Online Courses as Drivers for Change: http://alternative-educate.blogspot.com/2012/12/av-fall-cni-2012-massive-open-online.html  



All MOOCs, All The Time:

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