It’s been a wild year-and-a-half working at Cengage Learning. I got to work on a project that I believe is one of the best educational technology ideas that I’ve seen in the last decade. I got to manage a product team and budget for the go-forward, mission-critical digital product of a company with a billion […]
Michael Chasen Leaving Blackboard
In case you haven’t heard the news yet, Blackboard has hired a new CEO—Jay Bhatt, previously the CEO of Progress Software. According to Mr. Chasen’s “open letter to the education community,” he will be participating in the transition for the next few months. No word yet on what he will do after that. Ray Henderson […]
Please Fill Out the Campus Computing Survey
This is an incredible time of change in the United States higher education LMS market. Here are just some of the relevant developments that are driving big movements: WebCT is in its last year of Blackboard support, forcing many campuses to migrate either to Blackboard or to something else. Instructure is on an absolute tear, […]
Interview with Mitch Kapor
I am delighted to share with you the rare treat of a conversation with famed entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist Mitch Kapor. Probably best known as the founder of the Lotus Corporation and designer of Lotus 1-2-3, the man is consistently so far ahead of the curve it is not funny. He told me that the […]
The Future of Sakai: My View
As a member of the Sakai Foundation Board, I have at least the appearance of conflict of interest in any analysis I write about Sakai. That’s why I encouraged Phil to write his own, independent analysis of the recent developments around Sakai OAE. I was happy to support him as one source for the article […]
Desire2Learn Mobile Contest Winners
I’ve been meaning to get to this post for a while. Way back in July, I had the privilege to be a judge in Desire2Learn’s Edge Challenge. Basically, they offered cash prizes for groups building compelling mobile applications for education. One of the nice aspects of the contest was that the apps didn’t have to […]
Open Secret: Pittsburgh’s Ed Tech Revolution
Generally when we talk about goals for educational technology, we talk about one of two things: improving access or improving effectiveness. Rarely do we get an opportunity to talk credibly about an innovation that can move both of those needles at the same time. And yet, I saw just such innovation in Pittsburgh this week […]