If you are looking for an elegant way on your mobile device to follow BbWorld conversations on social media, consider creating a custom channel on Flipboard for BbWorld13. Here’s a quick tutorial on how to do so. I have my Flipboard channels configured and will be following the tweets, photos, videos, and blog posts from #BbWorld13 via Flipboard on my iPad and iPhone. How about you? If you use some other social media aggregator, leave a comment and share what app or approach works best for you.

In this episode, David Blake from Degreed joins MEP to talk about unbundling the college degree, new models of credentialing, and what his company Degreed is doing to disrupt the education status quo. Don’t miss it! David Blake is the Founder and CEO of Degreed, a San Francisco based startup is on a mission to "jailbreak the degree" and give learners a new form of academic credentialing.  Degreed has gone through the Kaplan/TechStars ed tech accelerator and they’ve raised over $900k in funding thus far. Previously, David was part of the founding team of Zinch which was acquired by Chegg in 2011.  David also had stints at the Ed Tech Entrepreneurs Lab powered by Teach for America and New Schools Venture Fund.  He also consulted for UniversityNow as they launched and rebranded New Charter University without title four funding. He is a graduate of Brigham Young University with a "degree" in economics. Social Media & other Mentions: @davidblake Michael Horn and his work on disruptive innovation in education Clayton Christensen and his seminal work on the same subject For more episodes featuring thought leaders in education visit MeetEducationProject.com, subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and follow Nick DiNardo on Twitter.

I’m fortunate to be able to attend BbWorld for the second straight year. In additional to presenting, I’ll be leading a pre-conference workshop. I’m also honored to be able to accept a Blackboard Catalyst Award on behalf the NIU Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center. Here’s a list of the presentations I’ll either be giving or be a part of at BbWorld… Scheduled Presentations Offering Online Professional Development for Faculty Using a Cross-Platform Strategy For the very first time, Northern Illinois University offered a fully-online teaching effectiveness institute utilizing a combination of Blackboard Learn, Blackboard Collaborate, and Blackboard Mobile platforms. This cross-platform approach has proven to be very successful and provides a model for faculty to incorporate an integrated approach for implementing all three platforms in their teaching. In this session we will share NIU’s cross-platform strategy, practices, and lessons learned that can be applied to any online professional development initiative. Bring your own questions and experiences to join in the discussion! Date/Time/Location: Tue, 7/9/13, 2:00PM-2:55PM, Venetian IPresenter(s): Jason Rhode, Stephanie Richter Enterprise Surveys and Course Evaluations: Features and Considerations for Institutional Adoption With the release of Blackboard Learn 9.1 Service Pack 10, the new "Enterprise Surveys and Course Evaluations" tool adds a robust and flexible set of new capabilities tightly integrated within Blackboard for conducting surveys and course evaluations on a wide scale. This session will share Northern Illinois University’s recent experiences exploring the new features and developing a roadmap for institution-wide implementation. Date/Time/Location: Wed, 7/10/13, 2:00PM-2:55PM, Venetian IPresenter: Jason Rhode Lessons from Tacos and Pizza: The Importance of 24/7 Access for Students Forget the famous saying about Las Vegas; what happens inside your classroom should NOT stay inside your classroom. For students, the learning experience beyond lecture hour is just as important as what happens during class. Thanks to modern technology, it is now easier than ever to make academic resources available 24/7, and use them to enhance teaching practices and the learning experience. Date/Time/Location: Wed, 7/10/13, 3:10PM-4:05PM, Titian 2303Presenter(s): Jason Rhode, Stephanie Richter It will be a busy week, but one in which I am looking forward to! Let the presentation preparation begin. If you’ll be at BbWorld, look me up! I’ll be tweeting @jrhode and will share my presentation slides and other resources here on my blog. I will try to also blog my experiences at BbWorld. Looking for Presentations Slides/Handouts? I will be posting the slides and accompanying resources from my BbWorld presenters here on my blog along with any other BbWorld-related reflections. Enjoy!

MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses offered through outfits like Coursera, Udacity, and EdX) have raised the profile of online education and sparked important conversations about educational access and the meaning of academic credentials. But MOOCs have also done a disservice to online teaching in several key respects. Among other things, they’ve raised the status of the rock star lecturer to the point where normal teaching looks shabby in comparison. And they’ve produced the impression that online courses have to look like TED-talks to pass muster. This is unfortunate. Working in faculty development for a decade, I’ve been struck by how difficult it is to typecast good teachers. At every university, there are dynamic, exciting lecturers: big personalities whose students cluster around them like groupies at the end of class. But there are also quiet teachers who are just as effective for other reasons: their love for the subject, the clarity of their explanations, their ability to render complex ideas in simple language, the time they’re willing to spend helping students outside of class. These are not the personalities or teaching styles that necessarily lend themselves to splashy, MOOC-style teaching, but many of them are truly excellent teachers, the kind students remember long after they graduate. It’s important to me that we not leave these teachers behind. We need to find ways to help all faculty who want to create online courses translate their teaching styles effectively into that environment. Then there’s MOOC production quality. Admittedly, not all MOOCs have documentary-style pizazz, but those that do create unrealistic expectations about what online courses should look like. Are teams of instructional designers, graphic designers, videographers, and editors really required to create an online course? Who has those kinds of resources? And is it even desirable to produce course materials that are so finished, so polished when teaching, by its very nature, needs to be iterative — especially in fast-changing technical fields? Wouldn’t it be better to keep production simpler and more nimble, so that it’s easier for faculty to make changes and create new courses with minimal dependence on outside resources? Just as we need to develop ways to translate a wider range of teaching styles into online courses, we need to do it in a way that is not reliant on big studio production teams. So here’s a plug for quieter, more modest, forms of teaching and simpler varieties of course production. Online education is here to stay, so let’s figure out ways to make it sustainable and within the grasp of all faculty — not just the rock stars. Picture License  Some rights reserved by Stephane Rossignol

For the very first time, Northern Illinois University offered a fully-online teaching effectiveness institute in January 2013 utilizing a combination of Blackboard Learn, Blackboard Collaborate, and Blackboard Mobile platforms. This cross-platform approach has proven to be very successful and provides a model for faculty to incorporate an integrated approach for implementing all three platforms in their teaching. In this session offered at BbWorld 2013, Stephanie Richter and I shared NIU’s cross-platform strategy, practices, and lessons learned that can be applied to any online professional development initiative. Slides are available here. The online course developed for this initiative, initially only available for NIU faculty and teaching staff, is now available on CourseSites here for anyone to self-enroll and view. The course is also shared as an open educational resource and may be downloaded as a Blackboard Package or Common Cartridge 1.1 Package. Additional resources shared during the session include: 2013 Teaching Effectiveness Institute Tour on iPad [YouTube] Best Practices for Mobile-Friendly Blackboard Courses [PDF] 2013 Teaching Effectiveness Institute Tour on iPhone [YouTube] Designing a Mobile-Friendly Blackboard Course [YouTube] Offering Mobile-Friendly Online Lectures Using Blackboard Collaborate [YouTube]

My colleagues and I from Northern Illinois University Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center are honored to have been selected to receive two Blackboard Catalyst Awards this year, one for staff development and the other for teaching and learning. Both awards are in recognition of NIU’s first online teaching effectiveness institute that our center offered in 2013, the first of what we hope will be many such online professional development opportunities offered for NIU faculty and teaching staff in the future. The poster below was shared during the welcome reception poster session at BbWorld 2013. Click here to enlarge. The online course developed for this initiative, initially only available for NIU faculty and teaching staff, is now available on CourseSites here for anyone to self-enroll and view. The course is also shared as an open educational resource and may be downloaded as a Blackboard Package or Common Cartridge 1.1 Package. Additional related resources shared regarding mobile teaching using Blackboard include: 2013 Teaching Effectiveness Institute Tour on iPad [YouTube] Best Practices for Mobile-Friendly Blackboard Courses [PDF] 2013 Teaching Effectiveness Institute Tour on iPhone [YouTube] Designing a Mobile-Friendly Blackboard Course [YouTube] Offering Mobile-Friendly Online Lectures Using Blackboard Collaborate [YouTube]

According to an email obtained by MacRumors, Apple plans to overhaul its iPad in Education Program in order to ease the distribution process and classroom adoption of its tablets for schools and entire districts. Apple plans to reduce the number of steps needed to set up an iPad by tweaking the Apple ID for Students program and unifying deployment programs, among other modifications. The changes are planned to roll out next year. The streamlining of the iPad in Education program is surely driven by the huge success of Google’s Chromebooks in the education sector. In December, Chromebooks leapfrogged iPads in US classrooms for the first time. And thanks to its new inexpensive software licensing model allowing hardware companies to offer affordable PCs and laptops, Microsoft might also re-emerge as a power player in education this year. Further Reading Apple Overhauling iPad in Education Program to Simplify Sharing Devices and Apps | MacRumors Why Chromebooks are schooling iPads in education | PCWorld Chromebooks taking iPads to school in education market | ZDNet Chromebooks leapfrog iPads in US education market for first time, here's why | TechRepublic Affordable laptops will help Microsoft recapture education market | techradar.pro Links apple.com/education/ipad

With the release of Blackboard Learn 9.1 Service Pack 10, the "Enterprise Surveys and Course Evaluations" tool adds a robust and flexible set of new capabilities tightly integrated within Blackboard for conducting surveys and course evaluations on a wide scale. This session at BbWorld13 shared Northern Illinois University’s recent experiences exploring the new features and developing a roadmap for institution-wide implementation. Slides are available here.

Trainers, coaches and tutors across the globe are increasingly interested in expanding their local audience by creating and selling online courses. Marketplaces like Udemy offer the advantage of a global audience of potential customers, but can also be quite competitive and costly when it comes to commission. Bangalore-based Learnyst offers educators all the tools they need to set up a storefront to sell their online courses, assess and manage their students, host their content and receive payments. Introduce your startup and give a short description of what you are doing. Learnyst helps educators build their branded online school and sell courses. In short we are building the Shopify for educators. Our Goal is to make teaching online very simple, secured and cost effective. Ultimately, our vision is to see our educational resources in every student’s hand. Learnyst provides the following features to educators to build & maintain their online school : Do-It-Yourself website builder for creating a beautiful school front Easy to use Course Builder, Assessment Builder, Student Manager and Analytics Tools Integrated Payment gateway and content hosting solution Content encryption service to prevent piracy Who are the founders, how did you meet, what are your different roles in the startup. We are two founders Shankar Mahesh & Ranjan. Both of us are school & college mates. We have known each other for the past 20 years and loved developing new apps since our college days. Eventually our passion for developing new apps made us quit our corporate jobs and start our entrepreneurial journey in July, 2012. Shankar takes care of product development and Ranjan heads marketing and sales. How was the idea for your startup born? We started Learnyst in Jan 2014. We wanted to expand our previous start-up karaokegarage.com as a music learning app, and so we started exploring market opportunities. We surveyed around 50 music schools in Bangalore, and found that a lot of music institutes were interested in a video based learning solution rather than algorithmic based pitch analysis for learning music. Since a video based learning solution was considered beneficial to most educational institutes we extended our market research with other diversified test preparation and training institutes. From our survey with educators we found the following requirements and pain points: Content Security - To prevent piracy & loss of revenue Websites to showcase and sell course contents Mobile apps - Many students are mobile first Offline content accessibility - internet infrastructure is poor in India Marketing tool support We analysed the above requirements with existing products in the market but could not find any compelling solution that addressed this problem. We prepared some simple mock up screens and presented to potential customers. We got appreciation and commitment from some of the reputed test preparation institutes in India. From this point Learnyst has evolved through market requirements and feedback from teachers/students. What is the main problem in education that you aim to solve. There are millions of good teachers who teach exceptionally well and are willing to teach online. By teaching online, educators can reach more students which is otherwise difficult due to physical/geographical limitation. Similarly, there are tens of millions of students who want to learn from quality educators. Having an independent online school provides complete control to educators and helps establish their brand as digital edupreneurs. However, building a branded online school to teach is tough, expensive and time consuming. It requires knowledge such as hosting, video streaming, payment setup, analytics, etc. which deviates educators from focusing on teaching and content building. Who are your main competitors? What sets you apart from them? usefedora.com patience.io schoolkeep.com are our main competitors. Here are some unique features that sets us apart: Content security - With encrypted streaming the educator’s content is safe from piracy. This is a most desirable feature for educators as it ensures security against their course content. Adaptive video streaming technology which ensures continuous video streaming even at low internet connectivity Offline secure mobile apps where educators can distribute their encrypted course content on pen drive or SD Cards and students can access course content using Learnyst powered mobile apps. Helpful to reach students in remote places where internet connectivity is bad or unavailable. Pricing - We do not take any percentage cut on course fee or restrict on student enrollments. This is a great motivating factor for educators to scale their school as they get to keep 100% of course revenue. Ready to use assessment templates for standardized exams like GRE, GMAT, SAT and other competitive international and Indian exams. In which markets / regions are you active. What markets / regions are next. Currently, we have more than 200+ educators signed up on learnyst. About 50% of our customers are from India followed by the US, Europe and Africa. With our Do-It-Yourself (DIY) school builder we expect more global reach. However, our primary target, apart from India, will be the US & Europe as we can find more content ready educators. Who is your target audience. Primarily independent educators. They could be independent tutors, test prep institutes, vocational training institutes, or anyone who would like to teach online. How do you engage with your target audience. How do you convert them into users of your product. About 25% of our new customers come through referrals from existing clients. Apart from this we are reaching our target audience through social media, content marketing, SEO and PR. For effective conversion we offer a 30 day free trial to users upon sign-up. We also help educators with content loading and provide customization support. We have a dedicated sales person who engages with prospective leads and help them launch their online school. What is your business model. How much does your product / service cost. Learnyst is a SaaS product. Our pricing is purely based on bandwidth usage. We do not charge any transaction fee or take a percentage cut on course fees. Our initial plan starts with $39/- per month which includes 30 GB storage and 15 GB bandwidth. The biggest benefit for educators is that they get to keep 100% of course revenue and have complete control over student data. Learnyst has proved its value proposition for educators by providing them an opportunity to generate at least 30X revenue over investment. Our complete pricing plan can be found at - learnyst.com/pricing If you raised funding, how much did you raise. Who are your investors. If not, are you planning to raise funding. We have raised INR 10 Lakhs from Times Internet Limited (Delhi, India) for our previous product Karaokegarage.com However we have pivoted and currently focused on Learnyst. We are looking to raise $200K for taking Learnyst to the next level. Are there milestones you are especially proud of and would like to share. Learnyst has evolved through market requirements and feedback from teachers/students. Every feature developed on Learnyst has been derived through requirements from prospective customers. This has helped Learnyst find its niche and market fit in a very short time. Our features and product road map are inline with competing products which validates our findings. We have partnered with reputed test prep institutes like Career Launcher and 2IIM as technology partners. At present we have more than 200 signups with 10 paying customers. What are the next steps in growing your startup. We are targeting to achieve the following milestones within the next 12 months: Target to have 10,000 signups with 1000 paid customers Provide marketing tools for educators like emails, blogs, social integration, SMS, coupons, partnerships with marketplace vendors etc Focus on implementing a standardized marketing and sales process Develop features to automatically create mobile apps from web version Improve upon customization tools & plug-ins There are millions of educators who are not able to expand their business online due to the unavailability of affordable solutions and high maintenance cost. Learnyst helps educators unleash the power of online education and reach a wider global audience. Our mission is to empower educators with an affordable, high quality secure learning solution so that they can take their courses online and become online Edupreneurs without much investment. Ultimately our vision is to see our school solution in every student’s hand’. We achieve this by providing a robust technology platform that reduces setup cost to launch an online school by 90% and by providing powerful marketing tools to educators. How can people get in touch with you. You can reach me at Name: Ranjan Email: ranjan@learnyst.com Mob: +91 994-556-3021 Twitter - https://twitter.com/ShivaranjanVK Linkedin - in.linkedin.com/in/shivaranjankumar skype - shivaranjan.kumar

For students, the learning experience beyond lecture hour is just as important as what happens during class. Thanks to modern technology, it is now easier than ever to make academic resources available 24/7, and use them to enhance teaching practices and the learning experience. This presentation at BbWorld13 shared NIU’s current use of Blackboard Learn, Collaborate, and Mobile to provide 24/7 access to learning for students. Slides are available here.