CT at the Show
BbWorld ’06, San Diego
eLearning Moves Ahead
A Done Deal
At a joint keynote at Blackboard’s
annual user conference, CEO Michael
Chasen (left) and Chairman Matthew Pittinsky (far left) announced the completion of the merger of
Blackboard and WebCT into one company, and the two
unveiled the company’s “Blackboard Beyond” initiative.
During an exclusive briefing after the Feb.
28 session, Pittinsky told CT, “The Blackboard
Beyond initiative is really about focusing on the
next generation of eLearning [eLearning 2.0],
which we think won’t just be about institutions
and their own courses; it will be about how institutions
cooperate and collaborate with each
other and how students and faculty across institutions
work with each other… It really is an
effort to network our client base… The greatest
value we can offer today is not just the products;
it’s the community of practice. It’s the fact that
no matter what kind of institution you are or
where you are in your development, odds are, across our global community, someone or
several institutions have done it before.
Collaboration is the nature of academe…
Any institution can tap the expertise of any
other institution through that community of practice. So it’s powerful.” Read CT’s full interviews
with Pittinsky on page 14 of this month's issue and online.
Buzzing on the Floor.
Besides a giant Blackboard presence, more than 50 companies
added to the excitement of the exhibit hall (photo at left).
It’s the Relationships that Count.
Malcolm Gladwell
(photo at left), author of The Tipping Point and Blink, delivered the
opening keynote. While Gladwell’s wide-ranging talk drew from his research
in psychology, sociology, and neurology, he concluded with the down-to-earth
observation that it’s often personal relationships that foster change.
PDA Panelists.
An Academic Suite track with more than 200
speakers gave higher education attendees a multitude of choices. Frances
H. Cornelius (far left) and Mary Gallagher Gordon (left), both from Drexel
University (PA), participated in a panel session offering “Case Studies in
Student Mobility: PDAs in Action.”