Pearson has notified customers that LearningStudio will be shut down as a standalone LMS over the next 2-3 years. Created from the Pearson acquisition of both eCollege and Fronter, LearningStudio has been targeted primarily at fully-online programs and associated hybrid programs – not for simple augmentation of face-to-face classes. The customer base has mostly included for-profit institutions […]
Blackboard Did What It Said It Would Do. Eventually.
Today we have a prime example of how Blackboard has been failing by not succeeding fast enough. The company issued a press release announcing “availability of new SaaS offerings.” After last year’s BbWorld, I wrote a post about how badly the company was communicating with its customers about important issues. One of the examples I cited […]
Launch Of Moodle Users Association: 44 members sign up, mostly as individuals
The Moodle Users Association (MUA), a crowd-funding group for additional Moodle core development, announced today that it is open for members to join. Technically the site was internally announced on its web site last Friday, but the press release came out today. As of this writing (Thurs evening PST), 44 members have signed up: 37 at the […]
Inside Higher Ed: One year after selling majority stake in company
One year ago I wrote a post critical of Inside Higher Ed for not doing a blanket disclosure about the sale of a majority stake to a private equity firm with other education holdings (most notably Ruffalo Noel Levitz). Subsequent to the disclosure from the Huffington Post, IHE put up an ownership statement disclosing the ownership change […]
It’s Called Data Analysis And Not Data Synthesis For A Reason
I’ve never been a big TEDtalks fan, but recently I’ve been exploring some of the episodes, partially based on peer pressure. @PhilOnEdTech @mfeldstein67 y'all should do a weekly PTI style podcast rundown of the issues raised each week in edtech. — Glenda Morgan (@morganmundum) January 15, 2016 In the process I ran across a talk from […]
Patents Rethought: Khan Academy Did the Right Thing
To recap what’s happened so far: Audrey Watters called our attention to a patent filing by Khan Academy. I expressed my concerns about the continuing patent problem that we have in educational technology. Carl Straumsheim explained the defensive use of patents in more detail and in the process motivated me to take a look at […]
Ed Tech Patent Update: The Innovator’s Agreement
Carl Straumsheim has a good piece out on the Khan Academy patent Inside Higher Ed today. Much of it is a primer on the uses and limitations of defensive patents, but there is a piece on the specific nature of the patent pledge that Khan Academy has signed that I missed. The pledge, originally created […]