The Blackboard Collaborate™ Hall of Fame for Excellence in Collaboration celebrates educators around the world who have shown exemplary innovation and creativity in their use of the Blackboard Collaborate platform.
Congratulations 2011 Hall of Fame Inductees
This year Blackboard Collaborate recognizes two traditional 4-year universities in the U.S., two 4-year universities from abroad, one K-12 school district, and a community college.
Join Us at EDUCAUSE 2011. Stop by booth #1427 to see Blackboard Collaborate 11 in action, hear about latest product roadmap, and register to win an iPad. Plus, don't miss our showcase session, "4 Reasons to Integrate Collaboration Tools Into Your LMS" or our open Q&A forum. See you in Philadelphia!
Southern Cross University Saves Money, Reduces Carbon Emissions. By holding 26 virtual course-review meetings in Blackboard Collaborate, the Australian university saved Aus$41,000 on fuel and associated costs and also eliminated 6.1 tonnes of greenhouse gases by not requiring staff to drive the 27,778 kilometres that would have been required had these meetings been held face-to-face. Read case study.
Lights. Camera. Action. Look who's talking about Blackboard Collaborate! Here are two new videos for your viewing pleasure.
K-12 Schools tailor instruction, expand the physical classroom, and save on travel (view video)
Colleges and Universities expand access while saving time and money (view video)
Hall of Fame Spotlight: Dalhousie University. Each day, university students, faculty, and staff access hundreds of Blackboard Collaborate rooms and archives for online instruction, office hours, and outside experts. In fact, in just one week, 1,171 students and instructors participated in more than 260 hours of live online sessions. Learn more.
Webinar: Using Blackboard Collaborate Enterprise Instant Messaging. Join speakers from Ivy Tech Community College, Holmes Community College, and Grand Valley State University on October 12 at 2pm EST as they discuss how they’ve expanded the use of Blackboard IM to save their schools time and money while improving access and outcomes. Register now.
Got Feedback? Have a question about anything in this issue? Just give us a call or send us an email. We'd love to hear from you.
Best regards,
Maurice Heiblum
President
bbcollaborateinfo@blackboard.com
1.866.463.5586
Blackboard Collaborate NewslineThe ePublication created exclusively for educators.
Elluminate and Wimba Announce Product Vision and StrategyHave you heard about our new equation for collaboration? As you can see, the whole is definitely greater than the sum of its parts.
Blackboard Announces New Integrations for Wimba and Elluminate Solutions.It's all about setting the standard for collaboration. Joining the Elluminate Bridge for Desire2Learn, Wimba's has released a new D2L integration, the first to follow the Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) standard. What's more, the Wimba Pronto Universal Integration now enables Pronto to support any LMS, CMS, or homegrown course information solution by using flat-file integration. Read press release.
Blackboard Collaborate Adds New Clients With Seamless Integrations. Wimba and Elluminate's leading education-focused Web, video, and audio conferencing technologies are used by thousands of higher education, K-12, professional, corporate, and government organizations worldwide. Both solutions can be used independently or integrated with Blackboard's learning management platforms and other open-source and commercial course management systems. Read press release.
Elluminate Center of Excellence Spotlight: Thomas University. At TU, Elluminate is used pervasively in academic programs and for administrative meetings, events, and faculty development. "When a whole school is Elluminated, we improve our ability to achieve academic success," says Mary Prentice, Academic Technology Specialist and Elluminate Hero. "Elluminate has changed my online teaching life," adds Assistant Professor and fellow Elluminate Hero Bei Zhang. More ...
OHDELA Teachers Talk About Engagement, Collaboration, and Student Retention with Wimba. Learn how the Wimba Collaboration Suite became a key differentiator for White Hat Management/Ohio Distance & Electronic Learning Academy. The teachers use Wimba every day to collaborate and interact with K-12 students to help learning and build valuable social interactions. More ...
Pronto: Connecting Your Entire Campus in an Instant. Schools across the world now use Pronto for instant communication across entire campuses, from help desks to libraries, to remote offices. Learn how a large community college uses Pronto to connect nearly 50,000 faculty, students, and staff at 26 schools. Register now.
View Elluminate's Accessibility Timeline. For almost 10 years, our core "No User Left Behind" philosophy guided us to build in accessibility from the ground up. The end result is a richer, more interactive online teaching, learning, and collaboration environment for everyone. Learn more about our history of accessibility. Click on link, then History tab
Wimba Distinguished Lecture Series. "Building Community at a Distance: Faculty Development, Peer Review, and Collaboration Technology" at the University of Northern Colorado with presenters Nancy Matchett and Carrie Main. Register NOW!
Blackboard Announces New Integrations for Elluminate and Wimba Solutions
New Wimba Integration is First to Achieve Industry Standard for Interoperability
WASHINGTON, Oct 11, 2010 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/—In an effort to support greater interoperability and technology choice for clients, Blackboard Inc. (Nasdaq: BBBB) today announced new integrations that enable Blackboard Collaborate(TM) solutions - including Elluminate and Wimba Web, video and audio conferencing technologies - to be used seamlessly with a wide range of commercial and open source course management systems.
The new integrations join a number of existing versions built on open architecture and open APIs that support the use of Elluminate and Wimba solutions with Blackboard’s own leading teaching and learning platform, Blackboard Learn(TM), as well as ANGEL(R), WebCT(R), Sakai, Moodle, Desire2Learn(TM), Pearson LearningStudio(TM) and Fronter(TM).
One of the new integrations supports Wimba Classroom(TM) and Wimba Voice(TM) for Desire2Learn, and is the first for Wimba that meets the IMS Global Learning Consortium’s standard for Basic Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI). Separately, the new Wimba Pronto(TM) Universal Integration supports use with flat-file course management systems including ANGEL(R) Learning, Sakai and Desire2Learn, and homegrown information solutions, synchronizing the collaboration suite with user, course and enrollment information and significantly expanding the solution’s reach.
The new Wimba integrations are joined by a new version of the Elluminate Bridge for Moodle, which was enhanced and recently re-released to meet the specific needs of its users.
“Our goal is to support teaching and learning wherever it happens, regardless of what learning management system is being used,” said Maurice Heiblum, President of Blackboard Collaborate. “To that end, we continue to invest in open, standards-based integrations that increase availability and choice for institutions and ensure that our existing customers and prospects are well positioned for the future.”
“We support Blackboard’s continued vision of openness and are pleased they are providing us integration with their solutions no matter what system we choose,” Dr. David J. Ayersman, Chief Information Officer at New River Community and Technical College. “With Pronto, everyone at New River can more easily communicate since course-based groups and administrative groups are pre-populated with the right students and staff tied directly to our Banner system.”
As part of Blackboard Collaborate, Elluminate and Wimba solutions continue to be developed with an emphasis on accessibility for all users and on open standards for greater interoperability that increase the flexibility institutions have in selecting technologies to support their learning environments.
“Blackboard gets it: they get that students learn from practice, they get that most learning experiences begin with informal learning moments, and most importantly, they understand that to build a tool, you first consult with the tool wielders,” said Christian Pruett, Assistant Executive Director for eLearning and Instructional Technology at Mississippi State Board for Community and Junior Colleges. “They build an online version of what we already know and love: informal meeting spaces, classrooms, and corridors where we can learn from one another - and let us connect it to the course management system of our choice.”
For more information about Blackboard Collaborate, please visit http://blackboard.com/sites/collaborate/index.htm. For more information about the Elluminate and Wimba solutions, please visit: http://www.elluminate.com and http://www.wimba.com.
About Blackboard Inc.
Blackboard Inc. (Nasdaq: BBBB) is a global leader in enterprise technology and innovative solutions that improve the experience of millions of students and learners around the world every day. Blackboard’s solutions allow thousands of higher education, K-12, professional, corporate, and government organizations to extend teaching and learning online, facilitate campus commerce and security, and communicate more effectively with their communities. Founded in 1997, Blackboard is headquartered in Washington, D.C., with offices in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.
Any statements in this press release about future expectations, plans and prospects for Blackboard and other statements containing the words “believes,” “anticipates,” “plans,” “expects,” “will,” and similar expressions, constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including the factors discussed in the “Risk Factors” section of ourForm 10-Q filed on August 9, 2010 with the SEC. In addition, the forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company’s views as of October 11, 2010. The Company anticipates that subsequent events and developments will cause the Company’s views to change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company’s views as of any date subsequent to October 11, 2010.
