Washington — Nov. 5
Blackboard Inc. has unveiled a new release for its flagship LMS Blackboard Learn.
The release aims to bring a fresh approach to the user interface, an emphasis on social learning and improved value for institutions and educators working to improve student retention.
Backed by user testing and research, the release aims to offer an enhanced approach to system usability that is consistent with the experience that teachers and learners have come to expect from current technology.
One of the biggest changes, “My Blackboard,” aims to offer users a simpler way to access information that’s most important to them with a centralized view of updates from all of the courses and organizations they participate in. Using the same feature, instructors can check activity across their courses and quickly engage students as needed.
The release also lets users create profiles and, through an additional update planned for later this year, follow and message other users with similar interests, post to their profile pages and make their profiles discoverable by people at other institutions using Blackboard Learn.
A planned feature called “Spaces” would let students set up their own study and work group pages to collaborate at their own institution and others using Blackboard Learn, without requiring instructor or administrator approval.
In addition to a new experience for students, the release also brings new capabilities that seek to ease workflows for educators and improve the ability for educators and institutions to leverage the LMS to support student retention.
At the institutional level, the release includes enterprise surveys that allow clients to collect feedback on courses, departments, institutions and external audiences, and gain greater visibility into performance by disaggregating data and analyzing outcomes by term or by year.
For instructors, the release aims to bring enhanced communication through two-way text messaging and text-to-voice notifications from Blackboard Connect for Learn, allowing them to interact more easily with students.
The release also includes a completely redesigned content editor that makes it easier to deploy rich content throughout the course environment, including wide use of video with a planned update to come later this year.
The release also includes a new item analysis feature that helps instructors improve the validity and effectiveness of test questions and a completely overhauled calendar, an improvement over the current version with new capabilities and customization options.
Source: Blackboard Inc.
