We’re in that period leading up to EDUCAUSE when everybody makes their big announcements. Two caught my eye as being relevant to e-Literate; I’m sure there will be more. First, Blackboard announced some improved integration of Wimba and Elluminate with competing LMS platforms. I argued previously that there’s good reason to believe that they would […]
Blackboard-Inc.
Blackboard's Wimba and Elluminate Acquisitions
I have often said that, if you want to understand the likely future behavior of a publicly traded company, the best way to approach it is to think of it as a complex money-making machine. If you can understand how the machine works, then you can make reasonable guesses as to how it will behave […]
Blackboard Mobile Learn: More on Web vs. Native Development
Update: Literally a minute after I published this, Scott Wilson tweeted about this Slideshare presentation about the relative advantages of web-native development for smartphones. Thanks to George Kroner for this link to data on student mobile phone usage at University of Edinburgh. Now, this is just one data point, so we have to be careful […]
Moodle 2.0 Versus Blackboard 9.0/9.1
Here’s a video highlighting some of the features in Moodle 2.o, which is expected to be released some time in the next couple of months: You can see a video of Blackboard 9.1 highlights here. (Sorry, it’s not embeddable.) Note that neither of these videos are “official”; they are both made by adopters. It’s interesting […]
Some Strengths of Sakai 2
I write a fair bit about Sakai 3 because I am excited about the possibilities for change that it represents. That said, there are a couple of points worth emphasizing. First, Sakai 3 doesn’t exist yet and won’t be adoptable as a full LMS for a while. (See Sakai 3: What It Is and When […]
Blackboard's iPad App and its implications
Ray Henderson has a post up about his sense of responsibility to customers regarding balancing innovation with mature products (careful refinements in features and support services to meet customer needs) versus innovation in new areas (bold thinking and experiments). It’s vintage Ray—thoughtful, balanced, and customer-focused. And while Ray is always the first person to admit […]
A Closer Look at Mobile App Development for Higher Education
I have been blogging a fair bit lately about the competing mLearning efforts between Blackboard and the Moodle community. Much of the conversation so far has focused on the front end apps and whether web-based or native apps are better. (The latest is that there is a native iPhone app for Moodle in addition […]