Filed under: iPhone, App Store, iPod touch
Found Footage: Blackboard course management system coming to iPhone
If you work in any type of academic environment, there's a huge chance that you might be using Blackboard for your CMS (Course Management System). Blackboard is a system that is prevalent across many college campuses and is even used by some high schools to manage course work, grades, assignments, and more.
In this found footage, Northwest College of Agriculture captured a video demo at ConnectED of the upcoming Blackboard application for iPhone and iPod touch. The application will allow you to connect to your schools Blackboard server and get important information from your account. I personally can't wait for this application to ship, and I'm sure many college students and professors are eager to use it. According to the representative in the video, the application will be free when it launches. If you didn't catch the application layout, you can see it on Flickr.
Thanks, Micah!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Zachary Tirrell said 9:16AM on 3-12-2009
Probably only available in Blackboard 9... Yay! An $80,000 iPhone application...
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bliks said 9:26AM on 3-12-2009
It's probably going to be free to students and teachers. It would be pointless if it wasn't because no one would use it.
Zachary Tirrell said 9:30AM on 3-12-2009
Absolutely it would be "free" to students and faculty. My point is that this is a small feature in the insanely over priced Blackboard 9 upgrade. So... while it is "free" to students and faculty, the BB9 upgrade takes a massive amount of time and resources for the given University's IT staff. Hopefully this is not the only thing exciting in that upgrade.
Eric said 9:09AM on 3-16-2009
Just wanted to point out that from what I understand, this is part of an overall strategy for Blackboard to provide such integration points (through Blackboard Sync) such as Facebook (already available), iPhone, iGoogle, Yahoo, etc.
I'd also imagine that it isn't only available with Bb 9, since this is another Blackboard Sync destination point. Sync runs via Building Block so you wouldn't likely have to upgrade to 9. Also, Bb upgrades are part of a license, so you don't have to pay extra to install it. Yes, it will take time and resources for staff training, but that applies to any software application in use at educational institutions.
Adam G said 9:32AM on 3-12-2009
My god I hate Blackboard. So annoying to use, locks up my browser, tells me I need to do a browser check every time I use it. Hopefully this would make it *slightly* easier to use.
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Brian Rubinton said 9:36AM on 3-12-2009
Finally! It is currently a painful experience checking course announcements, calendars, assignments, etc on the iPhone. I wonder if it will support streaming recorded lectures...
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Ben K. said 9:33AM on 3-12-2009
We're running Blackboard 8 at our University.
And I can't stand Blackboard, honestly. I hate it.
Or maybe because our university serves it off of a pizza box.
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Ben K. said 9:38AM on 3-12-2009
Well, in either case, four years of using it has left me bitter. I wish it weren't so.
Eric said 9:17AM on 3-16-2009
Hi Ben,
Why do you hate Blackboard? Do your instructors use it? Do you find it helpful and convenient to access your grades at any time, access course documents / schedules / syllabi, easily communicate with fellow classmates and your instructor, see the latest announcements from your classes?
Just curious as to what electronic functionality you would ideally prefer to help you with your coursework?
Matt Kelch said 9:44AM on 3-12-2009
Too bad Blackboard is such a piece of crap.
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Eric M. said 9:47AM on 3-12-2009
Blackboard is such a horrible and overpriced product. The school where I work moved to Moodle (open source CMS/LMS) a few years ago, and that is what I do full time - coding for Moodle. It has a very large and active community world wide.
I've actually been pondering making a Moodle iPhone app, I have have to find the time...
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mabhatter said 11:50AM on 3-12-2009
just make mini-web pages simplified for iPhone, no need for a separate app. iPhone has a browser that does just fine, just lay off the complex input like Java based text boxes and you'll be fine!
colouroflight said 10:53AM on 3-12-2009
Bad software made portable.
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Unknown said 10:56AM on 3-12-2009
I used Blackboard everyday, and it may be the worst piece of Software I have used to manage course work. The UI is ugly, and navigation is complex. It's good to see they are still attempting to improve it, and I welcome an iPhone app.
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Eric said 9:22AM on 3-16-2009
Have you seen Blackboard 9? It's UI is one of the most accessible in the market and has been freshened with Web 2.0 context sensitive drop downs, edit inline, drag and drop, etc. See: http://www.blackboard.com/release9
meowmeow5 said 11:28AM on 3-12-2009
Whatever...the big box eLearning solution NOW works on iPhone, whoopee. Never mind that Sakai has a mobile view, and Moodle works perfectly through mobile Safari. What do you want to bet that schools have to buy and install a "building block" to make this work for students?
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mabhatter said 12:04PM on 3-12-2009
Blackboard is very bad. Fortunately, my college has all their teachers put stuff only in Blackboard, so that reduces the clutter, but even their use of Blackboard isn't consistent enough.
The software itself is horrible. Every small bug fix seems to entail a day or two of downtime, and a new version number. Each time it's updated, various browsers are flagged as incompatible...(we have many online classes, so classwork is required 5 days a week... the reliability problems are not cool.. and you're at home with nobody to call to fix it!) They'll just stop being able to post assignments or have pages outright fail to load. I've looked at Moodle long before using Blackboard for school and can't believe they can still sell the product. It's really bad.
Kwahnoom said 11:30AM on 3-12-2009
Blackboard is a horrible software. I started making a very long list of UI changes necessary when I found out that the university I teach at will be dumping it for alternative options.
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Ed said 11:34AM on 3-12-2009
Moodle is popular here in the UK - never heard of Blackboard... Doesn't sound like I want to either.
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vanaheim7 said 11:38AM on 3-12-2009
I have to agree to many comments above. Blackboard is pesky. Admin adds annoying announcement all over in my courses and I cannot do anything about it. It is slow. It allows very limited way to manage the site. Horrible......
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