Wednesday August 20, 2008 Blackboard NG Intro Video
I'm not sure how long ago this "sneak peek" was posted to Blackboard's website, but take a look at this intro video:http://www.blackboard.com/projectNG/
Does it remind you of any other intros you've seen? Okay so they ripped off Apple, but I can't blame them for copying the greatest marketers in the IT world. I doubt we'll see any Blackboard logos on the backs of Honda Elements and Smart Cars any time soon, but trying to be friendlier looking is a good direction for them in general considering the lack of any real support videos, tutorials or any other materials for the last 2 years.
Some interesting points in the video to highlight.
- its got some AJAX magic sprinkled in, which is nice. Dragging and dropping is always easier than a series of clicks and choices (there's my UX adage for the day).
- chapter 3 talks about the dashboard - and they mention the Moodle/Sakai tie-ins. This is compelling for a few reasons I suppose, but to me the most important idea here for NCSU is the idea of a centralized point-of-entry for finding all of your online classes in one place. Right now a student takes online classes in Blackboard Vista, Moodle, WolfWare, WebAssign, Unity space, etc.
- instructor dashboard is kind of intriguing, what with the student performance monitoring page
- looking at it as a whole, and particularly chapter 5, "NG" looks more like "traditional" Blackboard than "Vista" (formerly WebCT Vista). I see the WebCT View option, and that helps, but it's still clearly more on the traditional side.
Anyway, the video is worth taking a look at for all of you following the LMS saga.
-Charlie
Posted by cdmorris ( Aug 20 2008, 08:11:29 AM EDT ) Permalink Comments [1]