BbWorld So Far

Very, very full days so far.  Yesterday, the week got underway in earnest for clients with pre-con workshops and training.  For me, a highlight was sitting in on a stimulating and sometimes daunting discussion on improving K-20 student progression.  Called the Pipeline Matters Council, this exchange among 50 or so leaders who joined us from across education segments represented the jumping off point for the newly forming Blackboard Institute, a practices research group taking shape within the company.  The input from all these perspectives reminded me of what’s so challenging about tackling this kind of issue.  You always end up along the fault line of wanting to improve the existing world versus throwing out today’s models and going for more radical change.  In the end the group came up with some promising action steps on both fronts. Jon Mott blogged on the model part of the discussion and captured some of the progression of the thinking in the meeting. 

BbWorld officially got going this morning with a powerful keynote from Seth Godin who spoke persuasively on his theory of tribes and what they mean for the change each of us can (and should) make in education.  Provocative stuff to chew on. 

The biggest part of today for me has been taking the stage today with Michael to deliver the Blackboard keynote.  I sent a summary of what we covered to the client community this afternoon.  Some of the main points:

New Mobile Platform Announcement – We shared our news on the mobile strategy front with the acquisition of mobile application developer TerriblyClever Design, LLC., maker of the MobilEdu^TM (http://www.blackboard.com/Company/MobilEdu.aspx) suite of iPhone and mobile web applications for Education.  With students wanting to do close to everything on their mobile device these days, my mind’s already going to all the possibilities for learning from this new step.  More to come. 

Latest in Project NG – We also took a drive through Project NG.  There’s some powerful stuff in there.  And I’m struck by how many sources that stuff comes from - our Bb developers, client developers, partners.  Project NG really is in many hands going forward.  That’s the same idea behind my inclination to openness.  When many people can work off common frameworks, the more rapidly and deeply we can innovate. 

My in-person introduction and focus outline – I gave a quick intro on me.  After 60 days this was really my first opportunity to present myself to the community in person, share a bit about my background, and outline my hopes for the organization beyond what I covered in my introductory letter to the community last month. 

Another Step in Openness—the Open Database - On the platform openness front I covered the new step that we will open the database for NG, removing obstacles to direct access to the production database, just as we’ve done for the ANGEL community.  More to come on this in a separate communication in the coming weeks – but I’m very pleased about the reaction this received on announcement.

Those are some of the main points.  On to the rest of the week, lots of meetings, new faces and some client sessions I have my eye on.

Cheers,
Ray

Comments

[Steve diFilipo]

I have been following the developments of mobile learning opportunities from the research conducted by SONY-Ericsson in the early 2000's to the middleware platform developed by RAVE Technologies. I am encouraged to see the development continue with integration with a significant learning platform.
Is Bb MobileEDU available with Bb Basic?