Rants, Raves, and Rhetoric v4

Tag: Chronicle

  • Cheating

    In yesterday’s Underground Back Channel post, I wrote: Because students are engaging in forbidden activity these conversations are underground. Well, the smart ones. Some are having these conversations on Twitter where one party of the conversation is not private and anyone (like a nosy DBA like myself) can see it. If they are used to…

  • Dorm, Major, or Race

    “College freshmen are more likely to make friends with peers they share a dorm room or major with than they are to befriend those from similar racial backgrounds…” I barely remember my roommate from living in the dorm freshman year. He was as much a stranger to me as the person you routinely run into…

  • Failure to Improve Online Retention

    A former coworker, Cat Finnegan, worked on retention of online students. Recent articles about online students having higher drop out rates than face-to-face caught my eye. Especially the rationales. The recent articles all are about the work done at KSU (whose online class system we host, well one of them: Blackboard) which will be published…

  • Email Harvesters

    I missed the story about brothers convicted of harvesting emails the first time. Well, I noticed a followup. Back around 2001, the CIO received complaints about performance for the web server. So, I went log trolling to see what the web server was doing. A single IP dominated the HTTP requests. This one IP passed…

  • No Hiding From Blackboard

    Some former WebCT (bought by Blackboard) customers switched to ANGEL rather than move to Blackboard products. PDF Apr 14, 2009 Today, Blackboard announced it is buying ANGEL. You can run, but you cannot hide from Blackboard. Some light reading for you… Learning, Together ANGEL Learning and Blackboard® have decided to join forces. Blackboard Plans to Buy Another Rival, Angel Learning…

  • Blackboard iPhone App

    People have been contacting me all day about the Blackboard iPhone App. Both Blackboard and the Chronicle of Higher Education posted blogs about its release. Blackboard + iPhone = Learning on the Go (Blackboard) Blackboard Releases iPhone Application (Chronicle.com) I find it interesting Jessica mentioned a Georgia student is the inspiration in the Bb blog…

  • Most Wired Teacher

    “Who is the most wired teacher at your college?” (A Wired Way to Rate Professors—and to Connect Teachers) Although the university runs workshops on how to use Blackboard, many professors are reluctant, or too busy, to sit through training sessions. Most would prefer to ask a colleague down the hall for help, said Mr. Fritz.…

  • What does a CIO do?

    I guess it depends on who you ask. Well, the CIO’s thought they were most effective as classic IT-support providers. That’s basically putting PC’s on desktops. But their managers thought that CIO’s were most effective in explaining and determining the college’s technology course into the future. Managers really want their CIO’s to be “informaticists.” Wayne…

  • Blackboard Won Suit Against D2L

    Blackboard acquired patent ‘138 and brought a lawsuit against Desire2Learn. I would say 80-90% of the commentary about this case has been from anti-Blackboard crowd with about 90% of the rest from the let’s-wait-and-see crowd. Blackboard very much has been mum on the subject. I do not recall a blog of a single Blackboard supporter…