Skip to Content

Found Footage: Blackboard course management system coming to iPhone

by Cory Bohon Mar 12th 2009 at 9:00AM


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!

View Tags

Related Stories

Categories

iPhone App Store iPod touch

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...
 

Add a Comment

Sign in »
*0 / 3000 Character Maximum

30 Comments

Filter by:
John Mish

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.
http://www.online-flash-game.com/

May 05 2009 at 9:39 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
zorg

I am one of these professors who refuses to use Blackboard and I don't think students realize how bad it is. Students see only the inconvenience, not the money drain and brain drain Blackboard causes. I saw a Moodle developer post above and I would use Moodle in a heartbeat over Blackboard EVEN IF IT IS CURRENTLY WORSE than Blackboard. This is because the Blackboard model of doing business just sucks schools dry and can never get substantially better (adding "features" does not equal getting better in terms of meeting learning objectives). Unfortunately, students see only a snapshot of inconvenience and are little / no help in advancing tools like Moodle with only a long-run benefit and no instant gratification.

March 13 2009 at 2:32 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to zorg's comment
Eric

On the topic of brain drain. Tools like Blackboard enable professors to do things never before possible, but these tools don't make good teaching. In other words, poor instruction in the classroom isn't made better with technology online.

Technology like Blackboard can be leveraged to help students meet learning objectives if they are used and integrated properly - with a focus on instructional design. In addition, Blackboard is helping faculty help each other through their Exemplary Course Award program, where high quality courses are evaluated through a rubric and these faculty are celebrated and their courses shared with the goal to help other faculty.

On the topic of cost. Just because Moodle is opensource, doesn't mean that it's total cost of ownership is free. Usually, a campus will need to hire more staff of software programmers to keep an open source system up and running when you compare it to more fully featured and robust vendor supported system.

Blackboard and course management systems in use today, are arguably the single most used campus system (on a daily basis by students and faculty), and in so much they are powering the core business of an institution. The value add is clear, and in most cases, Blackboard is exceedingly cheap compared to other "admin only" institutional systems such as Peoplesoft, Oracle, Banner, etc.

March 16 2009 at 9:35 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
julian

yay blackboard own my life.
now its going to infiltrate my phone
.... ugh i guess i ll be more productive//not forget my hw

March 13 2009 at 12:46 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Dan Semaya

Usually the term in this context is LMS, or Learning Management System, not CMS.

March 12 2009 at 4:27 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Rudy

THANK THE GOOD LORD IN HEAVEN

March 12 2009 at 3:12 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
massimo.berta

CMS (Course Management System)... FAIL

CMS... is and will be Content Management System...

March 12 2009 at 12:51 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Paul S.

As terrible as Blackboard is, I'm glad this app is being released.
My school recently updated to BB 8, and for some reason I can no longer log into it from Safari on my iPhone.

March 12 2009 at 11:52 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Ryan

I just wanted to jump on the Blackboard hate-wagon, because it really is that awful. It's awful enough that most professors even avoid using it. That means you end up with information about your classes sprawled all over the web. Some profs. use Blackboard. Some have their own sites. Some don't use the web at all and I have to rely on my scanned copy of the Syllabus. Very annoying, but welcome to University!

March 12 2009 at 11:50 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Yakov Chodosh

nothing but hatred for blackboard. like the way that online courses force you to browse the course lesson in a frame that is locked to only take up about 1/8th of the screen…

March 12 2009 at 11:49 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
vanaheim7

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......

March 12 2009 at 11:37 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Buy an ad here

Hot Apps on TUAW

Tweets

© 2012 AOL Inc. All Rights Reserved.