Over the past several days at BbWorld 2012, I’ve been able to attend a variety of keynote presentations, hearing product roadmaps and exciting new product developments from Blackboard Collaborate, Blackboard Mobile, and Blackboard Learn. As others like Eric Kunnen have already done a stellar job of summarizing the major announcements from the keynotes (see Eric’s detailed summary from the Bb Corporate keynote), I figured I would simply compile the biggest takeaways for me personally from the keynotes presentations I’ve viewed. Blackboard Collaborate On Tuesday afternoon, Bb Collaborate President Maurice Heiblum kicked off the series of BbWorld keynotes with the Bb Collaborate keynote, highlighting the new features available in Bb Collaborate 12. Announcements I found most exciting included: Storage space for hosting of archives will be increased from 5GB to 500GB for each institution at no additional cost! Echo cancellation now included in Bb Collaborate 12…no more headsets needed! Bb Collaborate mobile app to be released by fall 2012 will be available to current Bb Collaborate customers at no additional cost as well! Blackboard Mobile Immediately following the Bb Collaborate keynote, I made it into the standing room only Bb Mobile keynote session. Kayvon Beykpour gave an inspiring talk, discussing "disruption" in our society today and how mobile is facilitating these disruptions at an even faster pace. The amazing sketchnote artwork is from Gerren Lamson. Announced the following day as part of the Blackboard Corporate keynote, Kayvon also announced: New "end user licence" of Bb Mobile Learn - students will be able to purchase (for iOS or Android) either year-long ($1.99) or unlimited ($5.99) access for Blackboard Mobile Learn Augmented reality being added to Mobile Central apps Blackboard Learn Michael Chasen on sharing content during Bb Corporate keynote The Wednesday morning Blackboard Corporate keynote featuring Blackboard CEO Michael Chasen and Blackboard CTO and President of Academic Platforms Ray Henderson recapped the advancements that Blackboard has made in the past year and shared some exciting announcements concerning Blackboard’s roadmap for the next year, including: Project XP - beginning with xpLor, cloud based cross institutional learning object repository for sharing course content and discussion boards, being released in beta Fall 2012. Khan Academy will be part of the content AND you can create new content to share - no matter the platform. Project XP also to eventually include open calendar and discussion tools. Enterprise course evaluation surveys coming to Blackboard in SP10 - FREE SMS system notifications coming to Bb Learn - FREE Blackboard Social coming Fall 2012 - FREE for institutions w/ Bb Community license Ray Henderson announcing that free enterprise surveys are coming to Blackboard in SP10 Ray Henderson announcing that SMS system notifications coming to Bb Learn as free new feature Ray Henderson announcing Blackboard Social to be released Fall 2012, free for institutions with Bb Community System What were the biggest takeaways for your from the BbWorld product announcements? Feel free to leave a comment with your reflections and key takeaways!

Udemy added three seasoned executives to its management team which further underlines that the startup days for the course marketplace are over. The new hires will take over roles as vice president and general manager Udemy for Organizations, vice president of business development and vice president of finance and operations. Paul Sebastien who will lead all marketing, sales, strategy and operations for Udemy for Organizations has worked for T-Mobile, Disney Mobile, Microsoft, Sony and SugarSync, and was most recently chief marketing officer at T-Mobile/Deutsche Telekom HBS. Richard Qiu who will handle content, distribution and strategic partnerships between Udemy and organizations previously led business development, sales and partnerships for TRUSTe, 4INFO and BeVocal. Dave Arnold who will help the Udemy bolster operations in the U.S. and further expand into international markets has worked for Visa, J.P. Morgan and Deloitte and for the past five years he was vice president of finance at Boku, Inc. All roles will be crucial for scaling Udemy’s business in the US and key markets overseas, a goal that the company’s CEO Dennis Yang set after raising a $32 million Series C in May. As Yang states in the press release, this is a pivotal time for Udemy as the company still has to prove that its business model works better or at least as good as those of more established players like lynda.com. In May TechCrunch reported that about 15% of the users are converted into paying customers with the majority taking free courses on the platform. On the other hand, Udemy is clearly pushing more towards B2B through its Udemy for Organizations offering. In July Udemy also announced a program for nonprofits and social entrepreneurs called Udemy Social Innovation, offering monetary grants for course creation and reduced prices for the company’s products. Further Reading Udemy Expands Leadership Team with Three New Executive Hires | Press Release Udemy Announces Social Innovation Program to Support Nonprofits Pursuing Positive Social Change | Press Release Related Links HEDLINE: Udemy raises $32 million Series C to Expand Internationally HEDLINE: Dennis Yang new Udemy CEO - Eren Bali becomes Product Lead Links udemy.com | Twitter | Facebook | CrunchBase | AngelList

Blackboard Next Generation (Version 9.1) Upgrade The upgrade to Blackboard Learn, Release 9.1 at Northern Illinois University from Release 8.0 has proven to be very successful and has been receiving a lot of positive feedback from faculty and teaching staff. This session I led at Blackboard World 2012 on Thu, 7/12/12, 8:45AM-9:15AM, Digital Content and Upgrade Center shared the strategies and practices that made the upgrade a success and can be applied to any upcoming LMS upgrade. Join in the conversation on Twitter using session hashtag #niulms and find online interactive handout, including links to download plan source files, at j.mp/niuplan This session was recorded and the link to view the archive will be added here as soon as it becomes available.

The same day Udemy announced its three new management hires, lynda.com shared that itself made an important new hire. Andrew Wait becomes Chief Revenue Officer, overseeing the company’s strategic direction including, global expansion, marketing, customer experience and enterprise sales. Wait will report directly to CEO Eric Robison. Before joining lynda.com, Wait was president at EF Englishtown from January 2012 to June 2014. During that period he doubled the company’s revenue, accelerated subscriber growth and opened new markets according to his LinkedIn profile. During his time as SVP and GM at Ancestry.com from March 2006 - July 2010, Wait grew the company’s revenue by 24% and drove 70% growth in the US by the end of 2009 among other tasks, concluding in a successful $575 million IPO in November 2009. In his new role at lynda.com, Wait is expected to prepare the company for an IPO similar to his work at Ancestry.com. In an interview with Pando Wait states that the two companies are similar. Both were growing nicely over a long period of time but hit the mid-stage blues. "It was full of potential, but operating on infrastructure designed to get it to market - to support $30 million in revenue, not $100 million. The company definitely needed another generation of management and infrastructure." Nevertheless, lynda.com has maintained a stable growth rate since its investment round 20 months ago which would bring this year’s revenue to $200 million and 2015 to $300 million estimates Pando. As a first step to get the company more lean and up to date with the latest technology and user experience, lynda.com is opening a new office in San Francisco to attract fresh talent in marketing, engineering, product management, and user interface and experience. The following step is going to be a more aggressive expansion into new markets with Asia being on top of the list. Wait also plans to further acquire companies or products when it makes sense reports Pando. Earlier this month lynda.com acquired the video library of Interface Technical Training, adding more than 2,500 videos teaching business, technology and creative skills to its content list. Further Reading Former Ancestry.com and EF Englishtown Executive Andrew Wait to Drive lynda.com Growth as new Chief Revenue Officer | Press Release lynda.com Acquires IT Training Video Course Collection From Interface Technical Training | Press Release Lynda.com levels up, hiring its first ever CRO while IPO rumors loom | Pando Related Links Udemy hires Seasoned Execs - Focus on Scale and Growth Links lynda.com | Twitter

Recap and a few highlights from day 2 of BbWorld 2012, June 11, 2012

There are many factors to consider when implementing corporate language training programmes, including student motivation, emphasis on communication skills training, as well as social and mobile learning tools. But there’s another issue that has stood out particularly in recent years and that is data protection. Online language training is an innovative and flexible way of boosting your employees’ business communication skills, but do you know where their personal data will be stored when working with a provider? This white paper showcases the potential risks of cloud-based learning and offers you some useful guidelines for managing your corporate training so that you comply with European Data Protection Regulations and ensure the safety of your learners’ personal data. To download this white paper, please fill in the form below. [email-download download_id="1" contact_form_id="9661"] By entering your information and downloading the white paper, you agree to our Privacy Policy. Picture License  Some rights reserved by perspec_photo88  

I gave this presentation as part of the online session, "Using Twitter for Teaching, Learning and Professional Development in Higher Education" January 28, 2011. More details, including session handout and links to online resources, are available at j.mp/twitterinedu

When the ancient Greeks decided they wanted to teach a class, they started by simply talking to their students. It was all oral lecture. That worked for awhile, but as humanity’s understanding of the world advanced, the topics became more complicated and they just couldn’t remember it all. So they needed a way to gather together all of the different things people were discovering and talking about. How did they bring it all together? Well, there was this technology called the alphabet, and they used it to start writing information down. Then educators quickly figured out that just pages of information wouldn’t cut it, so they started putting all their lesson pages in order, and bound them together. Now, keep in mind this wasn’t just a book that was full of stories that someone dreamed up. No, the author had to do a lot more legwork. He or she had to seek out the latest information, verify that it was correct, and put it all together in a cohesive way that the instructor could follow. Add Gutenberg’s press along the way and voila, you have what we all know and love today (well maybe love is too strong of a word), the course textbook. And that worked...for a long time. For centuries, textbooks made it easier to educate the next generation efficiently and consistently. But then it became a business. And for lots of reasons -- mostly the wrong reasons -- books became expensive, really expensive. And sometimes so expensive that it actually made students think twice about taking the courses they needed. How often is textbook pricing an issue? At one point or another 65% of students have opted against buying a textbook due to price. So instead of the solution, they became part of the problem. Many educators who care about their students recognize this and are moving away from what was once such a valuable teaching tool, and trying other approaches such as writing their own texts, scouring the web for other resources, or even going back to the old standby, the oral lecture sans text altogether. How’s that for progress? Luckily for us, and unlike the ancient Greeks, we live in a time where we have something amazing -- the Internet. And it’s a free-flowing river of information that is always gurgling along with novel approaches to describe, illustrate and assess concepts. Plus, at this stage of it’s evolution, that information is pretty college-level course-worthy. The problem is that high quality content is also mixed in there with distractions of cute cat pictures, the latest viral video sensation on YouTube and fake articles from the Onion. No, I don’t think Barnes & Noble is giving away unlimited free tablets - or are they? So we have a solution--and it’s simple. We just went back to basics and are doing what the Greeks set out to do -- use the latest technology to gather the best information available in one place -- and make teaching more efficient. And just like a classic textbook, we use experts to help figure out what the best information is, and how to organize it. Now, the only difference is that those plain, flat written pages have blown up in ways the Greeks could never have imagined. We use videos, games, interactive tools, and more - the best that the Internet has to offer. Nicely and neatly packaged and aligned to your syllabus and learning objectives. And because we don’t have to create this all from scratch, we can keep the costs where they should be - affordable. That’s it. That’s our big idea. And it’s what our app does for you. We have courses already created that you can just start using today. Or, we can customize them for you, or if you don’t see what you need, we can work with you to create brand new ones. We keep them fresh and up-to-date and do the legwork for you. Come see the simple solution that will get the mission of educating our next generations back on track. Picture Plato i sin akademi, av Carl Johan Wahlbom (ur Svenska Familj-Journalen)" by http://runeberg.org/famijour/1879/0077.html. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

I was really excited to learn nearly a year ago that Tanya Joosten was working on a new book on social media for educators. When the book availability was announced, I went out that same day and purchased it on Kindle but had to put off reading it until I finished a few other pressing projects. While on my flight to BbWorld 2012 I finally read through the entire book and must admit it is the book I wish I would’ve written on the topic. The author does a fantastic job in the book of laying a rationale and foundation for incorporating social media into teaching and learning, then shares best practices for selecting the right tool for an intended learning outcome. Strategies for assessing and documenting the effectiveness of using these tools are also shared. Even though the book is focused on higher education, the tools and techniques can be easily generalized for K-12 classrooms or organizational learn­ing. The best practices and faculty development tips can be informative for individuals involved in any kind of professional development or network-building. This book is a must-read for any educator who is considering incorporating social media into their teaching. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about the educational opportunities that social media affords. For those who teach education or social media courses, you should take a closer look at Tanya’s book as a possible course text. You can request an evaluation copy or purchase a copy on Amazon. To connect with Tanya, you can find her at tanyajoosten.com or follow on Twitter @tjoosten.

Motivation is a crucial ingredient when it comes to successful learning. Therefore, we are going to take a closer look at motivational factors in language learning at our upcoming event "Multilingualism in Europe" and discuss how citizens of the EU can be motivated to learn at least two foreign languages. In this Startup Profile we learn about StudyPact, an edtech startup that adds a crowdfunded motivational layer on top of learning apps and products. The concept is easy: as a learner you get paid when you reach your study goals. If you miss your goal, you have to pay a fine which is then used to reward other successful learners. Introduce your startup and give a short description of what you are doing. StudyPact is study motivation platform. We let you take stake in your study goals to make sure that your motivation to get started converts into a long term study success. More specifically we pay you for studying, but charge you if you don't follow up on your goals. Who are the founders, how did you meet, what are your different roles in the startup. We are three co-founders: Toby is our CEO. His background is Big Data and deep passion for behavioral design. Paul is our design genius and holds a half finished PhD in UX design. Evan is our master of mobile. If it fits in your pocket, he can make an app for it. The three of us met at a startup weekend contest 2 years ago, which we ended up winning. We have been working together ever since. What is the main problem in education that you aim to solve. Games vs Education is a battle that is increasingly being lost by education. Engagement and addictivity to make you start another game has been massively improved since I quit gaming 8 years ago. Today anybody can fall for games and get lost in them. Education on the other hand, with its (video) lectures and written study material is essentially still the same. If we as a society want to succeed, then we need to get education on the same level. People have to be able to freely choose between entertainment and learning. The amazing thing is that it is the first time in history that we are able to create products that can captivate & engage for years and at the same time reach billions of people. All we need to do is apply those same principles in education! In which markets / regions are you active. What markets / regions are next. Our current focus is the English speaking world. Who is your target audience. Our target audience has long term study goals. Language learning which takes many years is the prime example. How do you engage with your target audience. How do you convert them into users of your product. We are currently growing organically through our strong community of motivated users who love our product. What is your business model. How much does your product / service cost. Our service is free and even pays you for studying, if you finish your study goals each week. It will only cost you, if you fail on your own study goals. If you raised funding, how much did you raise. Who are your investors. If not, are you planning to raise funding. We joined the Open Network Lab accelerator early this year and are currently raising a seed round of $500k. Are there milestones you are especially proud of and would like to share. We are currently available on Android and have integrated with over 150 study apps and learn platforms. What are the next steps in growing your startup. We are currently in the first stage of three to become a global education platform: 1) Consumer (now): Our revenue comes from consumers and is based on commissions through the current pact model. 2) Partnerships (6 month+): We are currently in talks with several big study platforms to help them retain their users longer. Revenue will then come from our partners. This will free us up to add motivational services that do not rely on money to keep you motivated. 3) Recruiting (2 years+): There are 1 billion people coming online for the first time in the next 5 years - mostly from 3rd world countries who don't have access to formal education. Combine that with free online education, globalization and a college debt bubble and you begin to ask: "How do you hire them?" With increasing number of partnerships and users, we will know exactly how and what you study and will be in the perfect spot to become the LinkedIn for Online Education At the same time, we will always remain true to our vision: "For a smarter world" Links studypact.com | Twitter