BlackBoard Narration
The BlackBoard is a widely used learning management system. This
system provides powerful and easy-to-use systems for educational instruction,
communication, and assessment. This helps to make everyone daily lives more
convenient and secure, and keep them informed and aware. BlackBoard works with
more than 5,000 institutions and millions of users focusing on how to increase the
impact of education by transforming the experience of education (BlackBoard.com). The
Blackboard Learning System has become the dominant e-learning software company.
BlackBoard Inc was formed by the joining of two companies, BlackBoaord LLC
and CourseInfo LLC in 1998. Blackboard LLC was founded in 1997 by Matthew
Pittinsky and Michael Chasen. It started as a consulting firm providing technical
standards for online learning applications. CourseInfo LLC was a small course
management software provider that originated at Cornell University. It was founded by
Daniel Cane and Stephen Gilfus. In 2000 BlackBoard acquired the Richmond base
competitor MadDuck Technologies and in 2001 they purchased CampusWide Access
Solutions Inc from AT&T and CEI SpecialTeams from iCollege Inc. Then in 2002 they
purchased Promethius from George Washington University and in 2003 acquired SA
Cash. In 2009 they purchased ANGEL Learning, which was an educational software
development company developed by Indiana University.
BlackBoard went public in 2004. It provided a user-friendly means of inputting
course information such as syllabi, references site, and study guides on the web. It is
used to manage e-learning, transaction processing, ecommerce, and online
communities. "The programs within this new initiative will give instructors, CIOs,
technologists, systems administrators and others dedicated to the success of e-learning
access to a broader expanse of expertise and best practices, and allow them to
maximize the value and usefulness of their e-learning systems," said Pittinsky.
Blackboard can be accessed from the internet at anytime and anywhere.
Students can retrieve all of their course materials including assignments, lecture notes,
slides, internet hyperlinks, and audio/visual aides. They can submit their assignments
as soon as they are complete. Blackboard tracks student usage of courses and posts
these results in the course statistics area. Instructors can obtain statistics on all
students or individual students within the course. Individual assignments can also be
tracked. There are several additional skills that are promoted with the use of
Blackboard. These skills include organization and time management, which go hand-inhand in helping students carry out their assignments efficiently. Blackboard provides the
ability to include a calendar for each course in which a student is enrolled, thus
optimizing students’ efforts to match course expectations.
BlackBoard was created to help address the needs on improving communication,
increased availability, quick feedback, skill building, and tracking. BlackBoard’s goal is
to increase the impact of education by transforming the experience of education. The
intended audiences for BlackBoard are textbook publishers, government, corporations,
associations, and the military. Also, it includes educational institutions and their
administrators, faculty/staff, and students. BlackBoard’s product line includes
BlackBoard Learn, BlackBoard Transact, and Former WebCT. It can be easily
integrated with various other technologies. Also, it can act as an alert and notification
system. It develops and license software application for over 12 million users, 2200
education institutions, more than 60 countries, and in over 12 languages. BlackBoard
helps to provide a user-friendly means of inputting course information on the web. For
example syllabus, study guides, and assessments.
The potential adopters of BlackBoard were faced with many decisions. For
example whether or not to adopt for distance learning purposes. The technical
difficulties that they could have faced were another decision. Also, the software was
hard to learn, cost, inefficiencies in bandwidth when downloading materials, and certain
options restricted to specific operating systems. BlackBoard can be confirmed through
its global use. It is contracted to the IMS Global Learning Consortium, named to Forbes
Most Connected Campuses List, contains more than 2500 supplements from
educational publishers, and is traded on the NASDAQ.
Some of the perceived attributes of BlackBoard is the content delivery with
custom paths, assessment tools for feedback and analysis, IMS development, and
communication tools. The innovators are educational institutions and corporations. The
early adopters are technology savvy teachers and students. Laggards are veteran
teachers and businessmen. The most useful perceived attributes are observability, trial,
and relative advantage. Blackboard is a valuable learning tool. Decentralization is the
preferred diffusion method. The key change agents are educational institutions,
teachers, students, corporations, and military.
BlackBoard has reached it critical mass. It is used globally and can be easily
integrated with other technology. It has acquired most of its competitors. Also, Gives
instructors, technologists, systems administrators and others dedicated to the success
of e-learning access to a broader expanse of expertise and best practices, and allow
them to maximize the value and usefulness of their e-learning systems. It can be
accessed anytime anywhere allowing it user’s quick feedback, improved
communication, skill building, and a means for tracking.