If you want to stir up a pedagogical conversation on campus, mention Blackboard. For many years, the company's learning management system has dominated the higher education market. Some faculty members swear by the package and others refuse to use it. Most are probably somewhere in between.
Then there are the student comments, which have given "the dog ate my homework" a whole new format.
Interestingly, some teachers have switched to Facebook, which is certainly not as comprehensive or robust (as the techies say) in its applications, but it's completely free and students are, more likely than not, already logged on as we speak. And the "free" part may be increasingly attractive right now. Faculty members report that they simply create a Facebook page for instructional purposes only, and then post all he links, documents, videos, and messages they wish. Obviously privacy is an issue with Facebook.
According to an article by Steve Kolowich in Inside Higher Ed., Blackboard is embarking on a number of new projects designed to solidify its position. Some of the new tools are in a whole new direction that is seemingly unrelated to course management. You'll have to read the whole piece for the full range of new products that the company is (or soon will be) offering.
An interesting excerpt (and here's the link to Moodle, which is mentioned in the passage):
Selling the applications separately allows the company to make them sophisticated enough to keep up with competitors while not simultaneously blowing up the price of Learn and shutting out customers who can’t pay for the fancy new tools, Henderson said. More products don’t just mean more revenue streams for Blackboard, he said; they mean greater choice for customers.
In fact, Blackboard’s strategic shift might represent a greater challenge for the company than for its clients. Any company that plans to bring in 70 percent or more of its revenue from sources other than its core product is taking a risk, said Lou Pugliese, a former Blackboard executive who is now president of Moodlerooms. (Moodlerooms competes with Blackboard by providing services to institutions that use Moodle, a leading open-source platform.) “The higher ed market is moving away from overly complex products, add-ons, and features,” said Pugliese. “They’re sticking to the core LMS … everything else is, to some extent, a nice-to-have.”
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