Best Practices in Teaching and Learning with Blackboard
This global event was packed with 118 sessions, 250 speakers, 24 sponsors and over 14,000 registrations representing 106 countries, spanned across two days in July.
Missed the virtual conference? Didn’t register? No problem! Starting today, you can visit the Blackboard Community to access select presentations and premiere session content from #BbWorld20.
Whether you attended live, and missed popular sessions, or weren’t able to join the event at all, or simply want to re-watch your favorite presentations, you can do it all on the Blackboard Community site.
Let’s Advance Learning [CEO Blog]Check out Blackboard’s updated mission statement that reflects a passion and commitment to learners, educators and institutional success.
Join thousands of educators from around the world July 21 and 22 for a FREE, interactive online experience.
Tune in for two days of live sessions on topics that are top of mind for fall, including new models of teaching & learning, accessibility & inclusivity, student engagement and the impact of COVID-19 on education.
You’ll mingle virtually with thought leaders, instructors, techies, leaders and more – because you never know where you’ll get inspiration for your next great idea.
During this live online event, you will:
1 –Learn from our line-up of engaging speakers and presenters. Discover best practices, discuss what’s taking place on other campuses and spark new ideas from around the world in a single, supercharged event.
Participate in free workshops on: Exemplary Course Design in the Ultra Experience, Design Thinking and the Future of EdTech, and Collaborative Activity Design in Online Learning.
2 –Energize, chat, network! Explore the Discovery Hall and learn about Blackboard technologies, get involved with the Blackboard Community, and visit the UX Lab.
3 –Explore the first-ever BbWorld space station, which will be full of engaging and interactive spaces.
Step up your Blackboard game at the Partner Universe. Interact with Blackboard Partners and learn about the latest Blackboard integrations.
Take a well-deserved break at the Lunar Lounge which will offer a stellar line-up of surprise experiences to keep you engaged while having fun!
GVSU Nursing faculty Nancy Schoofs and Sue Harrington wanted to try something new in their Professional Nursing course. Instead of dividing their students into groups and having them submit a review of the course readings, they decided to use Blackboard Collaborate Ultra and have the students record themselves engaged in a group discussion about the text. The results exceeded all of their expectations.
To carry out the discussions, students were divided into small groups and provided access to the Collaborate Ultra course group tool where they could share content and use the whiteboard, as well as create recordings.Half of the students read one course text and the other half read a second. They were then required to discuss a set of questions about each reading during a series of Collaborate Ultra sessions that were recorded throughout the semester. A rubric was used to evaluate their discussions based on the content they covered, their organization, teamwork, delivery and effectiveness.
According to Professor Schoofs and Harrington, their students really embraced the opportunity to discuss, rather then write about, the readings. Most of the students joined the sessions using their own computers and devices, but some chose to meet face-to-face and simply used Collaborate to record their discussion. Both methods worked exceptionally well and the results were both engaging and insightful. Given the opportunity, both Professor Schoofs and Harrington agreed that they would use the Collaborate Ultra course group tool for similar assignments in their future courses.
System administrators Katie Clark and Colleen Cameron and eLearning and Instructional Technology Specialist, Vince St. Germain attended the national Blackboard “BbWorld’19 – Moving Education Technology Forward” conference which was held from July 22 – 25 in August, Texas.
Pictured left to right: Andrea Linn, Blackboard Account Executive, Vince St. Germain, Colleen Cameron, Katie Clark at the BbWorld Conference taking a ride in the Blackboard Ally “On the Road to IncluCity” VW Bus
Here are a few notes and highlights captured by the eLearning team and some photos too!:
Ally Roadmap Notes
New features in development or coming soon to Ally:
New Institutional Report:
Instead of With/Without Ally, the Institutional Report will display:
Overall Score: based on everything
File Score: Word docs, pdfs, etc.
Average WYSIWYG score: based on content from the text editor
Usage Reporting: Will be available to System Admins
Departmental Reporting: Based on institutional hierarchy and allow delegated access to departmental administrators (will require a Learn update)
Extended accessibility checklist with WCAG 2.1
Starting Trial of BeeLine Reader
An additional alternative format (color pattern transition in text to help with reading)
Instructor-facing Course Report
Provides summary to instructors and helps with prioritization
WYSIWYG live scoring
Made Ally Indicators more prominent for students: Instead of the dropdown arrow, the A icon will display
The Ally Roadmap presentation concluded with a picture of Katie, Colleen, Vince, and Andrea on the way to IncluCity – because we’re kind of a big deal.
BbData
The first component of BbData has been released. Conference attendees encouraged to participate in 21 Days of Blackboard Data where participants can complete one challenge per day to help prepare for the developer release of BbData: https://21days.blackboard.com/
Tips and Tricks for Inexpensive Accessibility Testing
Elizabeth Simister
“All accessibility issues are usability issues, but not all usability issues are accessibility issues.”
This session provided an overview of some inexpensive techniques such as basic keyboard commands, color contrast analysis, use of operating system accessibility features, and how to interpret automated testing results from tools such as Axe, Wave, and SiteImprove.
Dr. Szymon Machajewski, an affiliate professor in the School of Computing and Information Systems at Grand Valley State University, has been named a winner of the Blackboard Inc. Catalyst Award in the “Optimizing Student Experience” category.
Machajewski said using Blackboard in his CIS 150 course is a critical component and helps drive student success.
“The coordination of the course focuses on improving student experience and ensuring that Blackboard technology scales instructor efforts in communication of announcements, grades and course outline,” Machajewski said. “Students have a better course experience when they know their current grades to manage their academic effort and exact due dates through notifications and mobile technology to manage their time.”
About the Optimizing Student Experience Blackboard Catalyst Award
Founded in 2005, the annual Catalyst Awards recognize and honor innovation and excellence in the Blackboard global community of practice, where millions of educators and learners work every day to redefine what is possible when leveraging technology. Winners are selected by a cross-functional team of Blackboard experts.
Specifically, the “Optimizing Student Experience Award”, honors those institutions whose educational and administrative innovations have markedly improved the total learner experience. This includes their addressing of new and changing dynamics in fields such as student recruitment, financial aid, enrollment, retention and assessment, graduation, and beyond. More information about the Catalyst Awards can be found on Blackboard’s website.
Optimizing Student Experience at GVSU
As coordinator and instructor of CIS 150 Introduction to Computing, Machajewski has integrated Blackboard tools to engage with students and to motivate them to succeed. In addition, he is an expert in leveraging technology in a variety of ways, always focused on student success and optimizing the student experience. Here are a few examples of his work at the intersection of teaching and technology:
The eLearning team at GVSU congratulates Dr. Szymon Machajewski in receiving this recognition, and his commitment to student success!!!
“We’re thrilled to honor this year’s Blackboard Catalyst Award winners for their commitment to improving the educational experience for all learners through EdTech and sharing these insights with the broader community,” said Lee Blakemore, Chief Client Officer and President, Global Client Operations & Success at Blackboard. “Clients like these inspire us to accelerate innovation driving student success and we’re proud to be a part of their story.”
– Lee Blakemore, Chief Client Officer and President, Global Client Operations & Success at Blackboard
Machajewski will also be honored alongside other Blackboard Catalyst Award winners during BbWorld 2019, Blackboard’s annual user conference to be held July 23-25 in Austin, TX.
Dr. Szymon Machajewski was also recognized with a Blackboard Exemplary Course Winner award in 2017 for “Introduction to Computing” at GVSU.
About Blackboard
Blackboard is the leading provider of learner success-focused technology solutions and services. Its product portfolio is unmatched in the marketplace, spanning teaching and learning, analytics, community engagement, campus transactions and security solutions as well as student services.
Our mission is to partner with the global education community to enable learner and institutional success, leveraging innovative technologies and services. With an unmatched understanding of the world of the learner, the most comprehensive student-success solutions, and the greatest capacity for innovation, Blackboard is education’s partner in change.
With a variety of technologies being used in higher education, Campus Technology has been surveying readers of across several product categories to find the favorites. These awards have been given for the past 4 years and readers vote on the best technologies in place at their institutions.
“Technology has changed our culture and also our classrooms!”
This post highlights technologies that have received award recognition and are currently used at GVSU to support teaching and learning.
Learning Management Systems & E-Learning Platforms
Platinum: Blackboard Learn
One of the highlights for the eLearning team was honor and recognition of receiving the 2018 Blackboard Catalyst Award for Professional Development. The team was recognized on the main stage, while receiving an award at a special luncheon reception for Blackboard Catalyst winners.
Pictured below is Colleen Cameron, Katie Clark, Vince St. Germain, and Eric Kunnen who received the award on behalf of the eLearning team. Recognition was provided by Tim Atkin, Chief Client Officer and Bill Ballhaus, Chairmen, Chief Executive Officer, President at Blackboard Inc. (Pictured below left and right respectively.)
Eric Kunnen, Associate Director of eLearning and Emerging Technologies, blogged several sessions at the conference. Also, #BbWorld18, the Twitter hashtag at the event was a popular stream of highlights.
The eLearning and Emerging Technologies (eLearning) team is honored to receive the 2018 Blackboard Catalyst Award for Professional Development!
GVSU’s eLearning team was recognized by President T. Haas at the July 13th Board of Trustees Meeting.
Pictured Left to Right – GVSU President T. Haas with eLearning Team: Kim Kenward, Justin Melick, Glenna Decker, Sherry Barricklow, Colleen Cameron, Eric Kunnen, Hunter Bridwell, Katie Clark (Not pictured: Vince St. Germain and Matt Roberts) – Photo by Elizabeth Lienau
Every year, institutions are recognized for their innovative uses of Blackboard through a series of Catalyst Awards. This year, 32 recipients were selected out of 75 submissions across 7 categories. The eLearning and Emerging Technologies team (Eric Kunnen, Katie Clark, Colleen Cameron, Vince St.Germain, Sherry Barricklow, Kim Kenward, Glenna Decker, Matthew Roberts, Justin Melick, and Hunter Bridwell) will be honored alongside other Blackboard Catalyst Award winners during BbWorld 2018, Blackboard’s annual user conference to be held July 16-19 in Orlando.
In short, GVSU’s eLearning team was recognized for their creative suite of innovative professional development support and resources at Grand Valley State University.
“The eLearning team’s focus is centered on innovation in new pedagogies and the creative use of technologies at the intersection of teaching and learning. By leveraging Blackboard, the eLearning team provides high quality professional development through empowering faculty and students in the creation of the next generation of education.”
As higher education continues on the path of the digital transformation of teaching and learning, the eLearning team collaborates with faculty to apply technology to reflect innovations in pedagogy. In fact, the eLearning team’s slogan is: “Supporting faculty pursuing innovation in teaching and learning.”
At the core of the faculty professional development provided by the eLearning team is a specific focus on student success through the GVSU 2021 Strategic Plan, with direct alignment in the areas of inclusive learning and innovative teaching. The eLearning team aligns to the university’s institutional outcome whereby GVSU supports innovative teaching, learning, integrative scholarly and creative activity, and the use of new technologies.
Further, the eLearning team provides the key institutional strategic support for GVSU 2021 Strategic Plan Objective 1.D.2 which states: At least 93% of faculty members regularly use electronic course management tools, such as Blackboard, in their teaching.
As part of the Information Technology Department at Grand Valley State University (GVSU), eLearning and Emerging Technologieshttp://gvsu.edu/elearn is on mission and is dedicated to supporting faculty, contributing to teaching excellence, and enhancing student success through a unique synergy between the following professional development facets:
This combination of professional development and support resources provides great breadth and depth in the support of faculty and students at GVSU. The work of the eLearning team is further extended through institution-wide partnerships and collaboration, including: the Office of the Provost, Pew Faculty Teaching and Learning Center, Disability Support Resources, and University Libraries.
In summary, the eLearning and Emerging Technologies team is highly accomplished, providing a unique blend of innovative professional development programming at GVSU that contributes to teaching excellence and student success.
eLearning provides innovative training methods to create a rich and well organized set of resources for professional development and faculty support. These resources go above and beyond the common help desk support that is typically offered. The ultimate goal is to widely share best practices and innovative pedagogies to inform and to transform teaching at GVSU. The following list is an example of the wide array of support that is provided to faculty at the university:
eLearning and Emerging Technologies Blog – Highlighting timely events, noteworthy teaching practices, and shining a spotlight on resources is the focus of the eLearning blog.
Email and Social Media – Monthly campus wide eLearning Newsletters are leveraged to increase communication with faculty. Twitter and Facebook provide community wide sharing of eLearning trends and the latest updates from the eLearning team.
Print – The eLearning team leverages postcards, seminar handouts, and a variety of print materials to further communicate strategies to advance education through technology.
TECH BYTES Video – Recently added to the eLearning YouTube channel (and also uniquely available on Fire TV via an Amazon App), video is used to widely share best practices in leveraging Blackboard as well as a variety of instructional technologies to enhance teaching. In fact, eLearning offers 14 “TECH BYTES” videos as well as 10 videos that highlight good practice in teaching online or hybrid courses.
eLearning Open Office Hours – GVSU has a geographically spread out campus with the main campus about 20 minutes from downtown Grand Rapids. To provide presence to faculty and to support them where they are located, eLearning offers drop-in assistanceat a variety of locations and times. Assistance is available for Blackboard, instructional design, digital media, online/hybrid course development, and instructional technology support.
Open Badges – eLearning facilitated the implementation of open badges for faculty professional development. In fact, the first badge awarded at GVSU was eLearning’s “#EdTech Summer Teaching Institute” badge. Further, 7 badges are currently offered by eLearning, including 4 Blackboard badges, a digital media badge, an #EdTech Summer Teaching Institute badge, and a badge for the successful completion of Foundations of Online and Hybrid Course Development and Delivery.
Department Engagement – Through the eLearning team’s staff of instructional designers, digital media developers, and eLearning and instructional technology specialists, a variety of departments are provided with ongoing support.
Faculty Learning Communities – With over 150 faculty enrolled in a Blackboard Organization Site, instructors teaching online or hybrid classes are provided with a wealth of resources, access to meeting minutes, and opportunities to learn about new pedagogies in distance education. The Blackboard Organization has become a growing repository of tips and best practices associated with online instruction and course development. The Online/Hybrid Faculty Learning Communities are offered in partnership with GVSU’s Faculty Teaching and Learning Center.
Academic Advising Blackboard Sites – Through automation, eLearning offers a series of advising organization sites in Blackboard. These efficiently connect faculty advisors and students while providing a home base for helpful resources and opportunities for increased communication for advisors.
Certificate of Completion – With the aid of an opensource “Certificate of Completion” building block by Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, instructors at GVSU have the ability to create and distribute custom certificates that students can proudly post, print or display. This tool has allowed nursing faculty and staff to be more efficient and effective in providing students with achievement verifications.
ePortfolios for Faculty – GVSU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS) is the largest of the university’s colleges. The benefits of using Blackboard for ePortfolio work provides additional opportunities for faculty while encouraging greater adoption of the system for teaching.
Class Photo Roster – Based on a project request from faculty involved in the GVSU Faculty Teaching and Learning Center’s “Strong Start Initiative”, a class photo roster feature was implemented in Blackboard to enhance personal connections between faculty and students. The Strong Start Initiative focuses faculty attention on best practices for engaging students in first-year undergraduate courses and important aspects of the college experience vital to student success. Blackboard’s Class Photo Roster at GVSU assists faculty in learning students’ names, which contributes to improving student success, along with being more approachable as a faculty member. (Note: This photo roster tool is an opensource Blackboard Building Block by Szymon Machajewski, an affilate faculty member at GVSU.)
Special Events – eLearning at GVSU assists in a wide array of campus events including: New Faculty Orientation, establishing a new 2 day #EdTech Summer Teaching Institute, and facilitating the Teaching with Technology Symposium which has been offered for more than 16 years. This yearly event brings together faculty and staff to focus on enhancing teaching and learning through technology.
Rich Faculty Digital Media Support –Sharing and creating content for faculty across the curriculum leads to student success and faculty effectiveness. At GVSU, faculty do not have to spend time worrying about the technical details, as the Digital Studio comes along side professors to support digital media creation. Faculty focus on their content and the delivery, and the Digital Studio handles the rest. Here is a comprehensive list of a creative set of Digital Studio projects that eLearning has provided as a resource to faculty at GVSU.
Leveraging Blackboard Collaborate Ultra for Global Reach at GVSU – Blackboard Collaborate Ultra provides live web conferencing, virtual office hours, guest speakers and more at GVSU. The following examples highlight a few of the unique ways that the university is leveraging the use of LIVE videoconferencing applications that are integrated into Blackboard:
Physical Therapy LIVE from Iraq
Lunch and Learn Brown Bag Series LIVE from Palestine
United Nation’s Youth Virtual Conference LIVE from Africa and Europe
Emerging Technologies and the Technology Showcase – As part of the eLearning team’s work, the latest emerging technologies are a focus of the Atomic Object Technology Showcase. The mission of the showcase is to provide faculty, staff, and students with an immersive and engaging environment to: interact, discover, learn, and share how innovative emerging technologies can enhance teaching and improve student learning at GVSU.
Culminating together, the achievements and support offered through eLearning at GVSU illustrate a rich and structured professional development program that:
focuses on course quality
shares best practices
generates economies of scale
coordinates resources
evaluates to focus on continuous quality improvement
“Blackboard enables GVSU to transform education by empowering faculty to be more effective in their teaching – and students more efficient in their learning.”
Congratulations to the eLearning and Emerging Technologies team!
About Blackboard
Our mission is to partner with the global education community to enable learner and institutional success, leveraging innovative technologies and services. With an unmatched understanding of the world of the learner, the most comprehensive student-success solutions, and the greatest capacity for innovation, Blackboard is education’s partner in change.
About the Blackboard Catalyst Awards
For over a decade, the Blackboard Catalyst Awards have annually recognized and honored innovation and excellence in the Blackboard global community of practice, where millions of teachers and learners work every day to redefine what is possible when leveraging technology.
Blackboard is focused on highlighting client successes and raising awareness throughout the educational industry by celebrating client achievements and milestones. Our community centers on educators and administrators who are passionate about using technology in education and collaborating on best practices. The Blackboard Catalyst Awards are an opportunity to celebrate these accomplishments and help raise standard for the entire community.
The Blackboard Catalyst Awards include 8 categories this year:
Blackboard Catalyst Award for Leading Change
Blackboard Catalyst Award for Community Engagement
Blackboard Catalyst Award for Teaching & Learning
Blackboard Catalyst Award for Inclusive Education
Blackboard Catalyst Award for Optimizing Student Experience
Blackboard Catalyst Award for Training & Professional Development
Blackboard Catalyst Award for Student Success
For more information on the Blackboard Catalyst Awards, please visit the client awards website.
In short, the Blackboard Exemplary Course Program recognizes faculty and course designers from schools, colleges and universities around the world who develop exciting and innovative courses that represent the very best in technology and learning.
The award highlights technologically rich, engaging, well designed, and pedagogically sound courses that showcase best practices for the user community. Submissions are judged by peers and by experts on the following components through an Exemplary Course Program Rubric:
The following video spotlight features the exemplary course program and includes a segment by GVSU Affiliate Instructor, Szymon Machajewski, from the School of Computing and Information Systems.
Last year, Grand Valley State University’s professors Szymon Machajewski and Cheryl Kautz, earned recognition from education technology company Blackboard Inc. as recipients of the “Exemplary Course Award” through the Blackboard Catalyst Award program. The winners were recognized during the BbWorld 2017 conference to be held July 25-27 in New Orleans.
Szymon Machajewski, Affiliate Instructor, in the School of Computing and Information Systems at GVSU received a 2017 Blackboard Exemplary Course Award for his CIS150 – Introduction to Computing Course. The award also recognized Brad Brege, CIS150 course coordinator, as a course collaborator and contributor.
Cheryl Kautz, Affiliate Instructor, in the School of Computing and Information Systems at GVSU received a 2017 Blackboard Exemplary Course Award for her CIS238 – Internet Media and Programming Course.
About the Blackboard Exemplary Course Award – This award recognizes faculty and course designers who develop exciting and innovative courses that represent the very best in technology and learning.
Congratulations again to GVSU faculty Szymon Machajewski and Cheryl Kautz, along with all of the 2017 award winners:
Hawaii Pacific University: Dr. Han Nee Chong
Algonquin College, Ontario, Canada: Dr. Albert Dudley
Grand Valley State University, Michigan: Cheryl Kautz
Grand Valley State University, Michigan: Szymon Machajewski
Columbia Southern University, Alabama: Jacqueline Pica and Dr. Christine Whitaker
One of the best conferences of the year is the national Blackboard users conference “BbWorld“. This year, the event was held in New Orleans, LA.
In addition to the in person conference, there were also sessions streamed LIVE via “BbWorldLive“. Further, the conference was cohosted with “MoodleMoot” and was proceeded by the largest ever developers conference “DevCon“.
Pictured Left to Right: Eric Kunnen (associate director, eLearning), Colleen Cameron (systems analyst, eLearning), Szymon Machajewski (affiliate instructor, CIS), Vince St. Germain (eLearning and instructional technology specialist, eLearning)
Highlight #1 – GVSU Professors receive Blackboard Exemplary Course Award
Congratulations to Grand Valley State University’s professors Szymon Machajewski and Cheryl Kautz! These GVSU professors earned recognition from education technology company Blackboard Inc. as recipients of the “Exemplary Course Award” through the Blackboard Catalyst Award program. The winners were recognized during the a special reception at the conference.
Associate Director of eLearning, Eric Kunnen (middle) receiving Cheryl Kautz’s Exemplary Course Award with Tim Atkin, Chief Client Officer, Blackboard Inc., and Bill Ballhaus, CEO and President, Blackboard Inc. (right)
Szymon Machajewski, affiliate instructor in CIS, receiving his Exemplary Course Award from Tim Tomlinson, Chief Product Officer, Blackboard Inc.
Szymon Machajewski, Affiliate Instructor, in the School of Computing and Information Systems at GVSU received a 2017 Blackboard Exemplary Course Award for his CIS 150 – Introduction to Computing Course
Cheryl Kautz, Affiliate Instructor, in the School of Computing and Information Systems at GVSU received a 2017 Blackboard Exemplary Course Award for her CIS 238 – Internet Media and Programming Course.
Highlight #2 – Keynotes and General Sessions
There were a wide array of sessions offered at the conference. Eric Kunnen blogged at the conference, capturing 10 sessions. Here are a few noteworthy keynote sessions:
BbWorld General Session – Thursday’s general session started off with the Catalyst Awards winner presentation followed by Blackboard’s charitable giving program. Then, Dr. Mae Jemison, former NASA astronaut, engineer, physician & education advocate takes the stage to deliver an inspirational keynote address.
BbWorld Blackboard Opening Keynote – “Join us as we kick off BbWorld 2017 with Bill Ballhaus, Blackboard CEO and Katie Blot, Blackboard Chief Strategy Officer. Then, hear from lifelong education advocate, and former Second Lady of the United States, Dr. Jill Biden.”
BbWorld General Session: How to Partner for Success – “Join us in the general session theater as two panels take the stage. You’ll first hear from clients about how they are overcoming challenges around student access and student success. This will be followed by a panel discussion on the intersection between technology, education and policy as we work to understand what the future holds.”
Highlight #3 – GVSU Staff Presentations
Eric Kunnen, and Szymon Machajewski presented at the conference in the following session:
DevCon: Managed Hosting, Does it work? Will I get access to my data? – “University of Illinois at Chicago adopted the managed hosting environment in 2012 and has been successful in important user support improvements and stability of operations. While employing GAs and undergraduate students in the support structure the resolution time for Blackboard tickets was reduced from two weeks to a few hours. Deep integrations have been created for event driven user synchronization. A number of OSCELOT projects are being sponsored and developed in a staging managed hosted system. The experience and collaboration with managed hosted team allowed for strong support of Blackboard Learn adoption on campus. The panel will include representative from Grand Valley State University, where initial deployment to Managed Hosting was later reversed to again become self-hosted.”
Szymon Machajewski presented at the conference in the following sessions:
Course Design Patterns: Latent Class Analysis with Opensource BbStats – “Fostering the adoption of teaching and learning technologies requires taking stock of how faculty use the LMS through a process that is reproducible, reliable, and affordable. Studies in student activity patterns, such as the recent Patterns in Blackboard Learn tool use: Five Course Design Archetypes, help us to understand evidence of use. But what about the ways that faculty design courses before any student activity takes place? This session will explore a case study at University of Illinois at Chicago in which course design patterns in Blackboard Learn were derrived using BbStats and Latent Class Analysis.”
Gamification in Blackboard Learn – “Gamification is an important movement in business management, but also in higher education. Â Projects like the GradeCraft LMS, funded at $1.8 million dollars at U of M, demonstrate that designing student experience in learning is a top priority for major educational institutions.
Considering enrollment limitations and changes in population profiles, motivating students into program completion and into high employability STEM programs may provide a competitive edge for academic organizations.
Before switching to a fully gamified LMS, faculty, designers, and administrators should consider the capacity in Blackboard Learn  to support gameful pedagogy.  Gamification has the potential to motivate both the students and the faculty, especially in introductory courses.”
Highlight #4 – Product Roadmaps
In addition to keynotes and general sessions, there were a wide array of sessions offered at the conference. Eric Kunnen blogged at the conference, capturing 10 sessions.
Here are a couple product roadmap sessions from Blackboard, to showcase what is coming in future releases:
Blackboard Learn Product Roadmap – “We invite you to join our product management leaders to hear about the short and long term plans for Blackboard Learn. This session will cover both the Original experience (aka Learn 9.1) and the Ultra experience.”
Blackboard Collaborate Roadmap – “We invite you to join our product management leaders to hear about our short and long term product plans for Blackboard Collaborate.”
Half of the students read one course text and the other half read a second. They were then required to discuss a set of questions about each reading during a series of Collaborate Ultra sessions that were recorded throughout the semester. A rubric was used to evaluate their discussions based on the content they covered, their organization, teamwork, delivery and effectiveness.
Machajewski said using Blackboard in his CIS 150 course is a critical component and helps drive student success.
The 
eLearning Technologies @GVSU 