The BbWorld 2012 Call for Presentations is now open! Your insights and experiences are the backbone of the BbWorld program.

The 2012 conference will take place from July 10 – 13 in New Orleans.

Top Reasons to Present
1.       Receive discounted registration fee
2.       Share your best practices with peers
3.       Influence and enhance teaching and learning at other institutions
4.       Shape eLearning around the world

Be sure to submit your proposal by January 20, 2012, and please, encourage your colleagues as well!

Day 1: 7/12

Day 2: 7/13

Day 3: 7/14 (look for Eric starting 0:22)

Overview: (Eric 1:27)

Bb Learn

• Attend over 150 sessions (presentations available here) by experts and leaders in the field from colleges and universities.
• Connect and network with peers, colleagues, and Blackboard representatives.
• Discover best practices, emerging technologies, and teaching strategies.
• Engage and participate in formal and informal discussions around key themes and issues facing educational technologies.
• Learn from innovative speakers and thought leaders around the next generation of teaching and learning with technology.

Spread throughout the conference were themes around ensuring the Blackboard networked learning environment is of highest quality, state-of-the-art and innovative, and a system with best-in-class support which provides an extremely aggressive competitive advantage in the market.

This video clip was played at the Blackboard Corporate keynote and it highlights the reality of today and the potential of the future of the Blackboard environment…

Keynotes:

• Sir Ken Robinson, Author, Creativity Expert and Thinker
• Sir Ken Robinson, best-selling author and internationally recognized leader in the development of creativity, innovation and human potential, delivered a keynote address at BbWorld 2011. Robinson has authored two New York Times best-selling books about the intersections between education, creativity and the challenges of the 21st century: “The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything,” and the recently re-released “Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative.” His famed 2006 TED Talk has been downloaded more than 5 million times and is one of the most favorite TED videos of all-time. Knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for decades of service to education and the arts, Robinson currently works with governments in Europe, Asia and the United States as well as international agencies, cultural groups and Fortune 500 companies to address creative challenges facing education in today’s global economy.
• Here is a video clip from the green room at BbWorld:
  
• Steven Johnson, Author, Technologist and Social Critic
  • Steven Johnson, best-selling author of “Where Good Ideas Come From,” “Everything Bad is Good for You,” and “Emergence,” delivered a keynote at BbWorld 2011. A social critic, technologist and a three-time TED speaker, Johnson is noted for his ability to see emerging trends and explain why they are relevant to both personal life and work. At BbWorld, Johnson discussed the genesis of ideas, exploring the types of environments and systems – including institutions, communities and disciplines – that propagate creativity and innovation.
  • Here is a video clip from Steven Johnson from the green room at BbWorld:
    

Blackboard announcements:

• Blackboard Report Card – Each year, Ray Henderson, President of Blackboard Learn provides a report card on the topics of: support, transparency, openness, and quality
• Blackboard Collaborate – This is a new platform from Blackboard that combines the Elluminate and Wimba companies that were acquired.  This solution makes up the only dedicated synchronous tool (Collaborate 11) for education along with the only instant messaging tool as well (Blackboard IM).
• Textbook Publisher Partnerships – In addition to an existing partnership with McGraw-Hill, Bb adds partnerships with Pearson, Cengage, Wiley, and Macmillan which provides nearly 98% coverage in the digital content market.
• Quality Matters – Blackboard announced a partnership with the Quality Matters program.
• Product Roadmap – The future of Blackboard is as innovative as it gets in the course management system market, coming soon are features such as:
• Blackboard Analytics – A new solution from Blackboard driven by the acquisition of iStrategy in February.  This will provide a suite of dashboards, data warehousing, and reporting capabilities.
• BbDrive – A way of accessing files and editing them and saving them directly through the browser.  This will provide an outstanding workflow for faculty to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of grading.
• VTBE – A brand new visual text box editor will be more powerful and include features that provide a better “paste from MS Word experience”.
• True Student View – So that faculty can better test and check their courses and content from the student perspective, Bb will be providing a new student view that is more accurate.
• Enterprise Survey Tool – Blackboard will be including at no extra cost a robust campus wide survey tool to make it easier for campuses to gather data.
• My Blackboard – A new feature that provides a better view of the updates in a course.  This is completely revamped from the What’s New feature that exists today and provide a better news feed (or stream) that is similar to Facebook.  This will include social media as well such as Twitter.
• New Course Wizard – Upon entering a course for the first time, a wizard screen will appear to guide the faculty member in the building of their course.  This will include course themes as well as pedagogical configurations such as: lessons, modules, units, social learning, lab based, constructivist, lecture based, and activity based.
• New Calender – A brand new calendar will offer enhanced tools for faculty and students to better stay organized and keep on top of due-dates.  This will also include a “date rollover tool” for faculty to transition from semester to semester more efficiently.
• Google Docs – Integration with Google docs will be provided to better streamline the use of Google’s features for sharing and access.
• Administrative Tools – New in Service Pack 6 for version 9.1 is a version checker that provides system administrators with the ability to easily check for version updates for Building Blocks and the product versions.
• eTextbooks – In addition to partnerships already announced (CafeScribe and Nook Study), Bb announced integration with CourseSmart which is another vendor in the electronic textbook space.
• Bb Mobile Portal – A new GUI based editor will provide easier editing of the Mobile Central apps.  This will provide colleges with more timely and easier app updates for their mobile initiatives.  In addition there will be an analytics view of mobile access to better track usage of the mobile deployment.
• UI Enhancements – The entire user interface will be streamlined and cleaned up to provide a more uncluttered and streamlined view.
• Built-in Standards – In the creation of assignments, Bb will provide built-in standards to better link assignments to outcomes.
• Here are a series of photos taken at the corporate keynote the provide some visuals of the highlights to come:

GRCC Team

• Grand Rapids Community College participated in the national BbWorld 2011 Blackboard conference at many levels.
  • GRCC attendees included: Kevin O’Halla, Eric Kunnen, Meegan Lillis, Garry Brand, Bill Faber, Szymon Machajewski, Mark Nordblom, Fred Bauman, Diane Sparks, Tricia Siegel, Deb Vilmont, Ann Alexander, and Tim Koets.
    
  • Eric Kunnen, Garry Brand, Bill Faber, and Szymon Machajewski presented a session at the conference, entitled: “Leveraging Academic Analytics in System Administration, Professional Development, and Course Improvement”  The presentation is available here.
  • Symon Machajewski and Mark Nordblom attended the Bb Developers Conference and Open Source Day as well.
  • Szymon Machajewski was presented the Blackboard Catalyst Award.
  • The GRCC team took notes, blogged, and used Twitter to capture the event and to provide information back to the campus.
  • The GRCC team authored over 46 posts and a complete set of notes gathered at this event, please see:  http://bbworld.wordpress.com
  • Also, there were more than 4,845 tweets at the conference with the GRCC team (Eric Kunnen, Szymon Machajewski, Meegan Lills, Garry Brand, Fred Bauman, Mark Nordblom, and Bill Faber) providing more than 420 based on data gathered from twapperkeeper.com and topsy.com.  The latest GRCC DLIT tweets are available at: http://www.twitter.com/grccdlit

1. Ten over Ten – A Decade of Online Learning Strategies
   
   
   Speakers
   Becky Vasquez, Chief Technology Officer, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
   John R. Watret, Executive Vice President and Chief Academic Officer, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Worldwide Campus

   Session Description
   For over ten years, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s Worldwide Campus has been using Blackboard to power and grow online learning. What started as correspondence courses has now become a transformative learning experience for over 12,000 students per year. Our presentation will provide information on the top ten strategies that have helped us achieve success with eLearning.

   Notes:
   Strategy #1 Believe
   Myths – online classes are easier… students cannot learn online… how can i teach if i am not in front of students?

   Strategy #2 Leadership
   - Leadership support is paramount as people listen to leadership // gospel
   - Need funding as it relates to mission – may need to reallocate funding.
   - Faculty and staff buy in is important
   - There needs to be college initiatives
   -  Need to convince them is an important marketing need – influential
   - Tap into influence (Sloan-C, ITC, Educause, ECAR, NSSE, Blackboard)
   - Technology makes us better – interview with president featured in student newspaper.

   Strategy #3 Have a Plan
   - Write a plan for elearning: Exec Summary, Methodology, Planning Period, Purpose, Campus Strategy, eLearning Strategy, Initiatives (current, initiative, tech required, category, impact, timeline, and resources.)

   Strategy #4 Make it easy!
   - Keep it simple keep it customer focus.
   - Toolbox optimize – make it so people say “that was really easy”
   - All courses available by default
   - Use templates
   - Instructional designers
   - Course developers
   - Student orientation
   - Bb Training
   - eLearning support
   - Center for teaching and learning effectiveness

   Strategy #5 Be Bold
   - Be bold!  Faculty senate declares that all faculty must use bb with faculty development courses, software certification, requirements for full-time faculty and directors of academic.

   Strategy #6 Innovate
   - The act of starting something for the first time, introducing something new.  live virtual classroom
   - Find faculty to bring initiatives forward to solve problems together

   Strategy #7 Quality
   - Focus on quality – need to ensure things get done well, end of course evaluations, quality managers, surveys, monitoring, oversight teams

   Strategy #8 – Evolve
   - Evolve what you are doing – “technology is not technology if it was invented before you were born” / sir ken robinson

   Strategy #9 Fun!
   - Have fun!

   Strategy #10 Believe
   - Believe some more!!! Can’t stop believing in the power of elearning and what it can do for your students and the benefits for them  “We need men who can dream of things that never were.” John F. Kennedy

   Celebrate also, at Embry-Riddle, face to face classroom enrollment down nearly -10% and online growth up nearly +5%

   Get recognition through: Bb Exemplary Course Award, UCEA Course Award, CIO 100 Award CIO Magazine, Best Academic Deployment, Quality Matters  — and market this!

   Highlight students – word of mouth!

   Presentation available here.

2. BbWorld Keynote
   
   Speakers
   Sir Ken Robinson, Author, Creativity Expert and Thinker

   Session Description
   Sir Ken Robinson, best-selling author and internationally recognized leader in the development of creativity, innovation and human potential, will deliver the closing keynote address at BbWorld 2011. Robinson has authored two New York Times best-selling books about the intersections between education, creativity and the challenges of the 21st century: “The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything,” and the recently re-released “Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative.” His famed 2006 TED Talk has been downloaded more than 5 million times and is one of the most favorite TED videos of all-time. Knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for decades of service to education and the arts, Robinson currently works with governments in Europe, Asia and the United States as well as international agencies, cultural groups and Fortune 500 companies to address creative challenges facing education in today’s global economy.Notes:
   Book: “Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative”

   3 Themes:
   1) We are living in Times for which there is no precident in human history.  No prior examples to learn from.  Driving forces include:
   2) Meeting the challenges we face we need to think differently about our talents skills and capabilities.
   3) We have to do things differently if we are to face the future.

   “To face the future we need to radically re-think the core concepts of education.” -Sir Ken Robinson

   We have to think differently about our talents…we must radically reinterpret the differences in education
   “come on…I haven’t got all minute!”

   New technologies profoundly affect *how* we think…

   Nobody knows where technology is going really… we can project but we cannot predict effects on culture.  We have always been bad about this.  Gutenberg and press could not predict Martin Luther and the reformation.

   Technologies don’t add to culture they transform the culture.

   No committee will stop technology innovation and people will use them – eg. a committee could not stop TV.

   Population growth – how many people have their been?  Nobody knows… but it is an interesting question.  There are estimates and the best is: 60 and 110 billion.  Almost 10% of them are here now.  We are the largest generation ever in the history of humanity.  We are approaching 7 billion.

   Technology has affected our sense of “possibility.” – Sir Ken Robinson

   This is a time of revolution and we are facing the future with institutional structures rooted in the past and not for the future.

   The Element – How finding your passion changes everything.  – Book
   - Cultural differences in visual perception. Some cultures people see the whole picture in western culture we see a focus in the picture and focus on individualism  It frames how we see things and what we see.  How are we perceive things we can screenout enormous areas of human potential.

   People tend to underestimate their natural abilities and talents.

   Our current systems of ed are about standardization and conformity.

   “No child left behind” is… ironic.  We are leaving millions of children behind… unintentionally because of the obsession with standardization and conformity.  Intelligence is tremendously diverse. We thrive in diversity… each person is unique.

   To be born at all is a miracle – so what are you going to do with your life.  Our educational systems are not predicated on diversity but for conformity with efficiency in mind rather.  Many feel marginalized by ed because it was not designed to meet their needs.  More and more are simply dropping out of it.  30% dropout between 9 and 12 grade this is a catatastropy.  Education is a PERSONAL process.  Each has own personal drivers, motivations, expectations, desires, interests.  Ed doesn’t engage them generally.  New tech offering like Blackboard can provide extraordinarily capabilities to personalize and to encourage creativity.

   Why is Las Vegas here… it makes no sense.  The power of imagination is the one thing that sets us apart from life on earth.  We have an edge of power to bring to mind of things are not present… creativity is applied imagination.

   This power has led us to problems and innovations.  We need ot look further ahead and more deeply.  Look hard at nature of teaching/learning and the curriculum and personalization of our assessment systems.  Tehcnology has a role but is not the whole answer.

   Tools are only valuable if there are creative minds using them.

   If the conditions are right… life is inevitable.  If the educational conditions are right and there is freedom to grow and the encouragement is there if the energy is there – they will grow.  The tech needs to be personal and the furtherance of creative thinking.

   Poet – There came a point where the pain of remaining tight in a bud is greater then the pain to flower and flourish.

   “If we do this right we will create a future we want to live in.”

3. Ask Dr C Booth – Eric Kunnen participated in the Exhibit Hall as an ask Dr. C.
   

Here are few highlights from the day:

1. Breakfast Meeting – Szymon Machajewski, Bill Faber, Garry Brand, and Eric Kunnen met with John Fritz from UMBC at breakfast.  UMBC is a pioneer and well respected college that uses iStrategy, Peoplesoft, and has developed an analytics system.  GRCC plans to work with UMBC to extend the bbStats Blackboard Building Block as well as continue to work together to share ideas and best practice in connecting student activity with levels of engagement and success.
2. Session:  A Year in the Life: One School. One Year. One Blackboard Partnership

   Speakers
   Misty Cobb, Director of Distance Education, Jacksonville State University
   Jim Johnson, Strategic Account Executive, Blackboard
   Kerri Reese, Distance Education Specialist, Jacksonville State University
   Carey Smouse, Instructional Designer, Jacksonville State UniversitySessionDescription
   In less than one year, Jacksonville State University went from considering other learning management systems to licensing four of the five available Blackboard platforms, establishing BamaBUG, hosting an e-learning symposium with Blackboard, participating in the BIE and Blackboard Learn, Release 9.1 Upgrade Cohort, , and ending up summarily pleased with Blackboard. This presentation will share our story of how our relationship has grown from a typical client/vendor relationship to a true mutual partnership.

   Notes:
   - Through extensive campus communications and support through JSU’s administration, the college has managed to increase the critical strategic value of Blackboard.
   - Involvement from the president’s office as well as technology areas and student life contributes to a shared responsibility for success in the deployment and advancement of Bb.
   - The key learning is that it is important for a collective advocacy for advancing education through technologies such as Blackboard.

   Implications for GRCC:  Administrative involvement and the sharing of what Blackboard provides to our campus needs to be more effectively communicated.

3. Session:  Walking the Walk: Using Adaptive Release in a Faculty Training Program

   Speakers
   Karin E. Readel, Director, Instructional Technology, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

   Description
   This talk will highlight the use of Blackboard’s Adaptive Release function in University of Maryland Baltimore County’s (UMBC) Alternate Delivery Program, a training program for faculty interested in converting face-to-face courses to hybrid format. Faculty must complete a series of assignments in order to proceed through the program successfully. Access to these assignments is controlled via Adaptive Release rules, providing faculty with the same experiences and challenges that their students might face in their own courses.

   UMBC uses an online faculty development model where an instructor self-enrolls in Hybrid Course Design organization site in Bb and the first step is that the faculty member posts in the discussion board.  The facilitator is subscribed to the forum and in turn welcomes the instructor to the training.  Adaptive release is used to guide the participants through the learning.  Marked reviewed is used and a Doodle poll to setup a meeting and also the assignment tool is used to submit a letter of approval for the development of a hybrid course.  “Ten Questions for Course Redesign” is used and the participant submits their responses to this using an assignment.  Instructor then reflects on their own Bb usage based on the UMBC stats in comparison of other instructors. Then there is a F2F interview setup using the quiz tool.  Then view adaptive release rules make available the videos of presentations of effective practices from other instructors.  The participants are then asked to present: “10 minutes of Fame” where they pose pedagogical problem, show how Bb solved the problem, discuss student/peer feedback, describe next steps and then time for Q&A.

   Implications for GRCC: This strategy could be used for our online training and also may dovetail nicely into the OHCC course.

4. Session: Faculty Helping Faculty: Collaborative Strategies for Supporting the Blackboard Learn™ Solution

   Speakers
   Shayle Adrian, Instructional Designer, Seton Hall University

   Description
   This session will highlight some of the strategies that Seton Hall University has used to help faculty share pedagogical ideas, answer questions, and solve problems with their Blackboard courses. A weekly “Tech Tips” blog has been very successful at proactively educating the community about new tools and techniques in Blackboard. Other tools include a new crowdsourcing website encouraging community support of Blackboard, and a weekly webinar including instructional designers and faculty discussing Blackboard.

   Notes: The Tech Skills Course was developed with Articulate.  They developed a Tech Tips blog that combined IT support, Center for Teaching and Learning, instructor designer.

   Implication for GRCC: Expand Faculty Best Practice dlitgroup.wordpress.com blog to bring in IT, CTE, DLIT into one place for sharing information with faculty.

   Seton Hall revamped their tech website technology.shu.edu with a goal to help faculty help themselves.  These included print and video tutorials and also a Twitter feed “@shutechhelp” to promote.   Seton Hall also created a Bb organization site that included WebEx recordings for Online Teaching and Learning.

   Implication for GRCC: Leverage Bb organization sites and web and blog and Twitter for consistent messaging.

   Bb Voice is a monthly webinar/conference call through WebEx and faculty led the presentation and sharing, these sessions included FAQs, etc.  They also launched a crowd-sourcing website: setonhall.ideascale.com.  Overall this session has some great ideas for GRCC to review to consolidate, promote, and advocate self-help resources.

   Presentation is available here.

5. Lunch with iStrategy and Blackboard Analytics – GRCC met with Blackboard representatives to discuss the value of data, reporting, benchmarking, and data warehousing.
   
6. BbWorld Corporate Keynote
   Speakers
   Michael Chasen, President and CEO, Blackboard
   
   Ray Henderson, President, Blackboard Learn, Blackboard
   
   Description
   Michael Chasen and Ray Henderson will deliver news and updates on corporate announcements and initiatives from the past year and provide an overview on plans for the future.

   Notes:

   About the Conference
   - 2,300+ in attendance
   - 70+ partners
   - 750+ institutions
   - 70+ partner orgs
   - 300+ partner attendees

   The Education Cloud
   - Cloud computing (software to scale for performance and users, scale to usage dynamically, scale for cost)
   - 3,000 institutions running Bb
   - 1,500 on 9 and 9.1
   - 1/3 is hosting
   - 2,000 locally

   Bb Collaborate 11 – Best of Wimba and Elluminate and most advanced architecture.
   Bb Connect 5 – Mass messaging for professors but also scale to entire campus.
   Bb Mobile – Full cloud based architecture to custom mobile applications,
   Blackboard Managed Hosting – Software as a service and support.
   Blackboard Student Services (Presidium) – Providing student help desk support and other services.
   Digital Learning Content – Question:  What is the relationship between learning management systems and learning content – what is the synthesis?
   1) Digital Texts – CafeScribe (eFollet), nookstudy (Barnes and Noble) have Building Blocks. And with CourseSmart Bb announces a new partnership.
   2) Digital Courses – McGraw-Hill connect and create products.   Pearson is now a partner with Blackboard. Mastering and MyLab products.  Increase student retention and letter grade improvement for outcomes.  Cengage Learning with products CourseMate and MindTap (PLE – Chris Vento from WebCT and Michael Feildstein) are now partners with Bb.  Wiley with products Wiley plus are now partners with Bb as well.  Further, Macmillan with products CompClass and PsychPortal are now partners. This brings 98% of the digital content in the market integrated into Bb.  This will speed the benefit of learning outcomes.

   Administration – Measure learning outcomes and achievement. Blackboard Analytics provides a comprehensive vision of goals and strategies.  Data warehousing and reporting tools provided by iStrategy.  Blackboard Analytics for Learn provides a good view of assessment strategies with insight into Bb.

   Enterprise Survey for Everyone will be a new tool surveys across the institution standard feature!  Blackboard is serious about improving the quality of insight of learning and business outcomes.

   The focus is on the “efficacy” and “fidelity” within the product.

   The Fundamentals – Bb’s Report Card with Ray Henderson
   - Author John Wooden highlights the fundamentals and these are really important before improvement begins.  Bb is focusing here.
   - Support improved 7 day ticket resolution by 30% last year.  1 day resolution rate 60% improvement.  100,000 tickets were received last year.
   - Transparency – A new behind.blackboard.com Connect decisions to strategy and Ray has blogged about these.  Product roadmap was shared more than ever.  Ticketing and issues and support have redesigned “Self Service / Community Resources / Bb Support”.  A new admin panel provides software updates that are intelligent for Learn updates and Building Block updates.
   - Openness – Bb OpenDB (850+ institutions taking advantage), Blackboard Building Blocks, Common Cartridge, Learning Tools Ineroperability (LTI), Learning Information Services (LIS).
   - Quality – 2x improvement in bug fixes within 1 service pack over the past year.  Blackboard Bug Squad with over 1,000 clients have been involved. (Opensource can’t compete here.)  Cohort upgrade programs are very important for helping institutions along. 75% of participants have successfully upgraded.
   - Quality Matters Program and Blackboard now have a partnership.  Codeveloping a new series of strategic consulting offerings with everyone that is a trainer at Bb is being certified in QM.

   The Road Ahead with Michael Chasen
   - Improving social learning
   - Customizing course environment
   - Content focus

   Product Roadmap includes:
   - System feeds, live rep for help, My Blackboard tab provides new feed is an completely revamped:  what’s new, classmates online instructors online, bb trends discussion.  Stream of messages, new calendar features, my places…
   - There is a brand new welcome to course wizard, course themes, managing course dates and date rollover feature, include standards for assignments, new wysiwyg editor, due after student starts for adaptive release, sharing repository, single sign on to google docs with editing options on screen with passed authentication, twitter integration,
   - Mobile platform, now has search feature for courses and favorites, new discussion tools provide threaded, supports attachments,
   - Blackboard Mobile Portal – Bb Mobile Central, Bb Mobile Analytics and a new development kit for onscreen builds.

   
   

7. Introduction to the Blackboard Analytics™ Solution
   Speakers
   Jim Chalex, Senior Product Manager, Blackboard
   Description
   In this feedback session we will seek your perspective about a new product under development – Blackboard Learn Analytics – to understand how you would like to leverage longitudinal Learn data to inform data-driven decision making. More specifically, we will discuss the use of Learn data to inform student retention, performance reporting, activity trending and analysis, and curriculum design.

   Notes:
   - Blackboard Analytics for Learn (in Development)
   - Educational Analytics and Reporting
   - Pre-built integration
   - Library dashboards
   - Advancement (in Development)
   - iStrategy Products include: HR, Finance, Financial Aid, Student Management

   Implications for GRCC: Currently bbStats and Project ASTRO provide a robust set of reports.  However, the Bb Analytics for Learn product seems to take a very deep dive using the power of the iStrategy platform as the basis.  It will be interesting seeing the collision between the open and free products and the solution that Bb is planning to release.

8. Extreme LMS Makeover
   Speakers
   Chris Borales, Senior Manager Technical Product Marketing, Blackboard
   George Kroner, Technical Lead, Developer Programs, Blackboard

   Description

   How cool would it be to have Podcasts and Google Docs integrated with your courses? Do you have a favorite Web 2.0 tool you like to use but wish it just worked better within your Blackboard course? Good news is that instructors just like you are using these things in their Blackboard courses today. This session will introduce you to the world of Building Blocks and how you can extend your course environment.

   Notes:
   - Bb is an Open Platform: authentication, Building Blocks, Open Standards, Open Database, SIS Integration, CSS/Themes, Web Services, Developer Community — Project ASTRO GRCC bbStats highlighted.

9. Softchalk Reception – Several members of the team attended a reception sponsored by Softchalk. GRCC is evaluating the use of this application for courseware development to support the expansion and growth of Distance Learning.
10. Blackboard Collaborate (Wimba) Dinner – Several members of the GRCC team had a great discussion about the collaboration potential of the suite of tools provided by Blackboard. These include: Blackboard IM (formerly Wimba Pronto), Blackboard Voice Tools (formerly Wimba Voice Tools), and also Bb Collaborate 11 (which is a best of both plaforms product, combining Elluminate and Wimba Classroom.)
    

Blackboard World and sun ~
Technology with mobile ~
Learning, sharing, fun. ~

2011-07-09 20:53:01

Blackboard World is awse ~
I get by with a little ~
help from my friends, yeah! ~

2011-06-23 18:23:19

#GRCC DLIT has the space and turtles promoting collision of hunches for good ideas. Fro Videos in mobile app http://t.co/EO8Phtv
2011-06-28 18:28:48

Blood in the Mobile shows the connection between our mobile phones and the civil war in the Congo. http://t.co/CKV2bPo
2011-07-08 19:59:52

Oracle’s Student Administration Integration Pack (SAIP) with Bb Learn over LTI #osd6 http://t.co/0T3nQzc http://t.co/f76y7B5
2011-07-10 18:22:58

Oracle LIS adds PeopleSoft Campus Solutions LTI to integrate with LMS (like Blackboard Learn) Listening to Linda Feng #osd6
2011-07-10 18:17:35

At $4 a student SAIP is an expensive option.

DevCon11 Morning Keynote notes:
1 of 4 themes: Simplify – 9.1 SP6 software update center with HotFix, Service Pack and parter block http://t.co/lmqBZSn
2 of 4 themes: Empower – Java developer tool: Eclipse Plug-in – New->Project->Blackboard Building Block Edit bb-manifest.xml in a GUI
3.5 of 4 themes: Transform – the #GRCC block bbStats http://t.co/7GGU7i5
3.3 of 4 themes: Transform – CourseSites, New Bb 9.1 Admin Console
4 of 4 themes: Evolve – @johnfontaine Create echo system based on simple rules

“People are choosing communities” – not just software! @readmeray http://t.co/xoV0Yz1

DevCon11 John Fritz Keynote:

UMBC PHP reports from Bb http://t.co/6afr50k John Fritz’s research
UMBC finding based on BI “Students earning a D or F tend to use Bb 39 percent less than student earning higher grades.”
John Fritz talking about self-service for students based on Business Intelligence data from Blackboard Learn
Khan Academy on TED http://t.co/gDfCcnX

The only real object of education is to have a man in the condition of continually asking questions M.Creighton

CourseSites.com:
CourseSites.com uses unfuddle.com for Issue Tracking and Management (Git hosting, Subversion, bug tracking) #devCon11
CourseSites.com uses public blogging in addition to internal LMS blogs. The engine is pebble.sourceforge.net
Want to use Bb Learn + Community, Collaborate, Connect? Get a free online course space at CourseSites.com by Blackboard
Audience question:”So can you add your own building blocks to CourseSites?” Free courses, not yet free managed hosting!
CourseSites.com is a managed hosting Bb 9.1 installation with experimental building blocks – a Blackboard University
CourseSites Re-Imagined by @johnfontaine. Using Spring 2.5 with Building Blocks to do magic – teach 5 courses free

From @Bb_Mobile team a new tool to validate if B2 will work for other versions of Bb Learn fibbba.blackboard.com

VCCS with 5TB Blackboard Learn install uses NetApp snapshot for backups of live database and keeps archive logs #ItWorks
VCCS has large Blackboard installation. Lessons learned: no to virtualization, no to Oracle RAC http://t.co/zZ00Kdw #GRCC
Virginia Community Colleges would use over 3 petabytes of storage if it wasn’t for Netapp magic – .5 petabyte of raw storage
Virginia Community Colleges: 281k students, 253 workforce, 130k courses, 1TB db, 5TB content, 17 app blades; disk on NetApp

Sir Ken Robinson: Civilization is a race between Education and Catastrophe (H. G. Wells) http://ow.ly/i/ekN7

@georgekroner: Congrats Blackboard Innovative Dev Award Winners http://twitpic.com/5q5ezj http://twitpic.com/5q5f1r #GRCC
#GRCC recognized during Bb Catalyst Award ceremony. Photo opp with the president of Bb Learn http://ow.ly/1uCfLe
Ray Henderson during Catalyst Award Ceremony: 1 million faculty worldwide use Blackboard http://ow.ly/i/ekWX

Faculty must complete a six-week  certification where they complete training and develop course content.

Structure of Training Course

• Technology Skills
• Facilitating Online Learning
• Communication Skills
• Use of Specific Tools in Blackboard
• Hands-on, Real-World Experience

Online Training Process

• Participants register online
• Course taught by certified instructors
• Participate in the training for six weeks
• Participants must earn 90%
• Complete all assignments
• Record is kept in portal

Course Development Process

• Five course developers
• One committee with 10 members
• Technical check by online learning coordinators
• Course pilot-statewide
• Course is used statewide

Development Model

• Step 1 – Identify Course for Online Delivery
• Step 2 – Identify Course Developers
• Step 3 – Prepare for Development (Establish Milestones)
• Step 4 – Review and Approve Course
• Step 5 – Package and Deliver Course

Training Roles and Responsibilities

It sounds like they group participants and take turns facilitating other group members. A number of faculty drop the course and this can create a challenge (when there are fewer group members). They commit to 6-10 hours at least per week.

Wimba tools are used to help connect students and faculty on Marshall’s campus.

Site Referenced:

Learning Styles Questionnaire

• Create a Branding Guide, sort of like Best Practices for your institution to keep some things similar from course to course to make a student’s experience from course to course, semester to semester a good one
• Create a video or document that you include in the an Orientation or Course Information section to introduce your students to the layout of your course and how you name things, and what you have put in the various buttons, folders, and learning modules.
• Develop an institutional (departmental, program, school) template that locks down some certain things in Blackboard for consistency.

Learning Modules. There have been many comments at the conference about how when using learning modules in Blackboard 9.x, when you go to an assessment or a discussion, you are thrown out of the sequence of the learning module. One work around for this from a design standpoint, is to have links to these areas open in new windows so that their spot in the learning module is still open. A second option is to use the course link to send students to these various objects.

Customized Icons or actually images added in the visual editor. Note that on the Blackboard road map for sometime next year, this icon situation is supposed to be addressed.

It was great to hear all of the discussion in the room, and to hear Kathy Seville from Marshall University! I’ll be interested to get more in to course development and design at GRCC and learn how our culture uses Blackboard 9.1.