One week after the conclusion of Instructure’s Users’ Conference, CTO Joel Dehlin abruptly resigned from the company for a new job. Joel took the CTO job with Instructure in summer 2013, around the same time as Devlin Daley’s departure (Devlin was co-founder). Joel’s resignation comes as a surprise, especially given his prominent placement as the technology lead for […]
LMS
InstructureCon: Canvas LMS has different competition now
For the first few years of the Canvas LMS, Instructure’s core message was ‘Canvas is better than Blackboard’. This positioning was thinly veiled in the company’s 2011 spoof of the Apple / 1984 commercial and even hitting the level of gloating in a company blog commenting on Blackboard’s strategy reversal in 2012. Instructure made their name by being […]
Why Google Classroom won’t affect institutional LMS market … yet
Yesterday I shared a post about the new Google Classroom details that are coming out via YouTube videos, and as part of that post I made the following statement [emphasis added]: I am not one to look at Google’s moves as the end of the LMS or a complete shift in the market (at least […]
Google Classroom: Early videos of their closest attempt at an LMS
For years the ed tech community has speculated about Google entering the LMS market, including Wave (discontinued, but some key features embedded in other tools), Apps for Education, and even incorrectly with Pearson OpenClass. Each time there is some possibilities, but Google has not shown interest in fully replacing LMS functionality. Google Classroom, announced in […]
Six Months After Layoffs: No signs of growth at Desire2Learn
Late last year I wrote a post about Desire2Learn’s laying off more than 7% of the workforce, speculating that something had changed at the company. In particular, I didn’t buy the company line about continued growth. In the end, I have trouble believing that these recent cuts are solely based on improving Desire2Learn’s growth without needing […]
ITC Survey: Four trends to watch in LMS market for community colleges
The Instructional Technology Council (ITC), an affiliated council of the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), has conducted a distance education survey since 2004 focusing on online education trends among community colleges in the US and Canada. With this focus, the member colleges tend to be those with a stronger interest in online education programs […]
Two-Year Anniversary of Blackboard Acquisition of Moodlerooms and NetSpot
Two years ago today, Blackboard made a dramatic change of course with a series of public announcements: Blackboard acquired two Moodle hosting and service providers — Moodlerooms in the US and NetSpot in Australia (although they had different business models). Blackboard created an Open Source Services Group, which helps “institutions successfully manage open source learning management systems […]