There are a lot of things that are hard to evaluate from the outside when gauging how a company is doing under new management in the midst of a turnaround with big new products coming out. For example, how good is Ultra, Blackboard’s new user experience? (At least, I think the user experience is what […]
Big Picture
The "Big Picture" category covers larger trends and topics that influence both the problems that technology can help address in education as well as the barriers to implementing high-quality technology-supported education. This includes research-based topics such as learning science and program effectiveness studies, philosophical discussions such as outcomes definitions, and macro-forces such as government policy, markets, and business models.
Reuters: Blackboard up for sale, seeking up to $3 billion in auction
As I was writing a post about Blackboard’s key challenges, I get notice from Reuters (anonymous sources, so interpret accordingly) that the company is on the market, seeking up to $3 billion. From Reuters: Blackboard Inc, a U.S. software company that provides learning tools for high school and university classrooms, is exploring a sale that […]
Giving D2L Credit Where Credit Is Due
Michael and I have made several specific criticisms of D2L’s marketing claims lately culminating in this blog post about examples based on work at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) and California State University at Long Beach (CSULB). I understand that other ed tech vendors make marketing claims that cannot always be tied to reality, but these […]
Unizin Updates on Florida State System and Acquisition of Courseload
I’m not sure when e-Literate was awarded the exclusive rights for non-PR Unizin coverage, but there were two announcements this week to cover. State University System of Florida Joins The first announcement is an update and confirmation of my recent post about the new associate membership option. If a member institution (one of the 11 members paying […]
Promising Research Results On Specific Forms Of Adaptive Learning / ITS
Recently I described an unpublished study by Dragan Gasevic and team on the use of Knowillage / LeaP adaptive platform.1 The context of article was on D2L’s misuse of the results, but the study itself is interesting in terms of its findings that adaptive learning usage (specifically LeaP in addition to Moodle within an Intro […]
D2L Again Misusing Academic Data For Brightspace Marketing Claims
Update 5/17/16: I made a mistake in my math on the UW Milwaukee improvements. The number of A’s and B’s increased 163% increased 220% for “unprepared” students and 170% for “prepared” students. I apologize for the error. Update 7/23: Read this blog post for D2L admission of mistakes and changes to claims. At this point I’d say that […]
ASU Is No Longer Using Khan Academy In Developmental Math Program
In these two episodes of e-Literate TV, we shared how Arizona State University (ASU) started using Khan Academy as the software platform for a redesigned developmental math course1 (MAT 110). The program was designed in Summer 2014 and ran through Fall 2014 and Spring 2015 terms. Recognizing the public information shared through e-Literate TV, ASU officials […]