Present and Future Trends in K-12 Learning Management Systems Adam Davy Blackboard Inc.

Agenda What We Are Hearing From Clients Top Learning Challenges and Technology “Musts” Enter the Learning Management Platform Blackboard’s response to the top 5 Learning Challenges One-to-one computing tools in Blackboard Q&A

What We Are Hearing

Which Part are YOU Touching? Assessment / Outcomes Remediation School to Home AP Classes Professional Development Multi-Media Content Virtual Schools Curriculum Mapping

A confusing landscape You may want to add that blended schools as an organization is a major strategy to help schools cut through the noise and work with an effective integrated solution. Toot blended’s horn a bit!

Multiple silos of curriculum, tools and data that can: Painful Consequences Multiple silos of curriculum, tools and data that can: Undermine cohesion and consistency across the full instructional cycle Waste time for end users and those who support them Limit evaluation and analysis by creating pockets of outcomes data Curtail adoption and limit returns on investment

But Also Opportunities Somewhere in this mix, there is a path toward: Engaging “Digital Natives” Addressing diverse learners Tapping into pipeline of educators familiar w/ online learning Increasing return on infrastructure investment Doing more with less Realizing true interoperability A key pain point for many of blended’s client districts is student retention. Many are competing with cyber charter or homeschool alternatives

What We Hear from Students Can I speed up the pace of feedback? Do I know where I stand? Can I collaborate with my peers? Can I personalize the environment to fit my needs? Do I have space to create & manage my own content? Will this help me learn?

What We Hear From Teachers How does this improve my practice? Is the technology itself a challenge? Does it save me time? Does it help me focus my attention where needed? Can I draw in curriculum from a variety of sources? Is ongoing support available? You may want to take a pause here and ask the audience for questions that they often hear from teachers. Does this help my students succeed?

What We Hear from Administrators Is this boosting student achievement? Can this recapture my students? Can I use this to engage the support of the community? Can I get my teachers and building leaders to buy in? Does this support my accountability policies and mandates? Is this a safe and secure environment?

Top Learning Challenges and Technology “Musts”

The Top 5 Learning Challenges Engaging Students and Parents Enhancing Professional Development Managing Student Progress Enabling Alternatives and Opportunities Creating Learning Communities

The Technology “Must Haves” Any response to these challenges must be: Easy to use and engaging for all end users or it will be inequitable Scalable and Supported or it will have limited impact Flexible to meet unique and evolving needs across and within school systems or risk irrelevance Open to supporting innovation by clients and partners or risk obsolescence

The Evolution of the Learning Management Platform

What we are seeing… Leading institutions are harnessing the power of information networks to connect people and resources in new and powerful ways. In moving beyond classroom Web Sites, these institutions are deploying their core technologies in an effort to establish a dynamic and cohesive learning network that drives both learning and innovation. Networks are growing beyond single schools and local districts to form dynamic consortia

Creating a Networked Learning Environment A true networked learning environment exists when any student or teacher can view instructional content, collaborate with educators and peers, evaluate academic performance, and access any learning resources at any time to achieve their educational objectives.

The Networked Learning Environment As you know, this slide is often hard to see and easy to get bogged down in. But I think it is worth showing and emphasizing the broad resources made available to a learner (appealing to isolated rural districts) and the consortia node which blended is a primary example.

The Path to the Networked Learning Environment INSTITUTIONAL GROWTH EXPLORATORY SUPPORTED STRATEGIC MISSION CRITICAL TRANSFORMATIVE: THE NETWORKED LEARNING ENVIRONMENT Class web sites and pilot online classes Enterprise course and learning management system Online courses, organizations, and district services integrated with back-office systems A full online district with learning communities and shared digital content resources When any student or teacher can view instructional content, collaborate with educators, evaluate academic performance, and access learning resources at any time to achieve their educational objectives. Blended certainly would consider itself mission critical, whereas many of its client districts are getting started with e-learning for the first time. Phase I Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4 Phase 5 TIME

The Benefits of a Networked Learning Environment INSTITUTIONAL BENEFITS EXPLORATORY SUPPORTED STRATEGIC MISSION CRITICAL TRANSFORMATIVE: THE NETWORKED LEARNING ENVIRONMENT Create Learning Communities Enable Alternatives Manage Student Progress Enhance Professional Development Engage Students and Parents Phase I Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4 Phase 5 TIME

A new approach is required To achieve true Networked Learning Environment will require a comprehensive new approach that: Eliminates “silos” of data/curriculum and pockets of learning Meets multiple learning challenges of diverse institutions Embraces interoperability: administration, data and curriculum Unifies and engages the entire learning community And ultimately drives student achievement A central online hub that unifies and enhances the key ingredients of K-12 instruction: Instructional Delivery and Curriculum Management Professional Development Communication and Collaboration Evaluation and Assessment This is the bridge into the LMP

Blackboard’s response to the top 5 Learning Challenges

Learning Challenge 1: Engaging Students and Parents How to engage today’s digital natives? How do we address diverse learning styles? How do we channel and support parental involvement?

Challenge 1: Engaging Students and Parents - Course Authoring/Multi-Media Visual Text Box Editor WYSIWYG Spell Check Equation Editor QuickEdit Use external authoring tools including: Macromedia Dreamweaver MS FrontPage any SCORM-compliant authoring tool Making it easier for teachers to incorporate engaging multimedia – from a variety of sources - without programming skills

Challenge 1: Engaging Students and Parents - Blackboard Messages Facilitates communication between Blackboard users Enables sending and receiving of messages without use of email addresses Many districts are reluctant to give students e-mail for security reasons but want the functionality of e-mail for communication. Messages meets that need.

Challenge 1: Engaging Students and Parents - Group Projects Groups work can work together to support peer collaboration Each group can be given its own: File exchange area Discussion Board Virtual Classroom Group Email Bb creates a great environment for student group and project work. Progress can be monitored by the teacher while students have a safe environment to use a broad range of communication and content sharing tools to build knowledge together.

Challenge 1: Engaging Students and Parents - Observer/Parent Role Enables parents and others not officially enrolled in a course to view course work and course activities of a particular student Observer has access to specific areas within the course such as content areas and grades. Important to provide parents insight not only into their child’s grades, but also he curriculum and activities driving those grades. School can set guidelines within Bb as to what parents can actually see (e.g. assignments yes, discussions no)

Learning Challenge 2: Enhancing Professional Development How do we maximize the impact of face to face in-services? Can we increase capacity and options via online professional development? Is there a more efficient way to share and collaborate on curriculum? Are there online approaches to mentoring and supervision?

Challenge 2: Enhancing Professional Development - Learning Object Catalog Search high-quality content Browse by category Keyword searches Find targeted content with metadata tags Full-text search Enables districts and states to create rich catalogs of homegrown and commercial content that can be searched and accessed by subject, grade, state standard etc. Full workflow so curriculum teams can collaborate on populating and monitoring the catalog

Challenge 2: Enhancing Professional Development - e-Portfolios Create a record of achievement Create a website Share with users and courses Send to users outside Blackboard Great feature for teachers to manage their body of work for re-certification. Students can use for assessment of project based work or for college admissions.

Challenge 2: Enhancing Professional Development - Discussion Board Enables threaded, asynchronous discussions Teachers can set up multiple forums around different topics Forums can be sorted/viewed by thread, author, date, or subject Enables teachers to stay connected beyond face to face training that may only last an hour or a day. Breaks down the isolation of the classroom. Mention NECC Blackboard Forum where thousands of NECC participants have been connecting with presenters and each other prior, during and after NECC.

Challenge 2: Enhancing Professional Development - Workflow Send files for approval Review content to ensure quality Route files to other users and allow the sender to track the progress on completion Great way for teams to co-develop and share lesson plans. Administrators are using this to share policy documents across various committees and school boards.

Learning Challenge 3: Managing Student Progress How can I provide students with timely feedback? Can I manage ongoing assignments more efficiently? Can I assess and assign resources according to state and local standards? Can I create learning paths for students based upon their mastery?

Challenge 3: Managing Student Progress- Assessments and Surveys Online assessments and surveys. Question types include: Calculated Formula Calculated Numeric True/False Hotspot Likert/Opinion Scale Multiple Choice Multiple Answer Ordering Matching Fill-in-the-Blank Short Answer Essay File Upload Jumbled Sentence Either/Or Expanding options well beyond typical standardized test responses. K-12 students love hot spot

Challenge 3: Managing Student Progress- Adaptive Release Ability for a teacher to create custom learning paths through a course Content can be released to students based on a set of criteria including: Date / time Username Group membership Institution role Grade on a test Assignment grade Whether the user has previously reviewed another piece of content A huge feature for K-12 Breaks the “whole class” mode of content delivery and now allows teachers to individualize instruction. AR makes it easier for teachers to path their students based on ability and performance and focus attention and resources where they are mos appropriate.

Challenge 3: Managing Student Progress- Reporting and Performance Dashboard Run reports on individual pieces of content Provides usage data for an entire course Indicates whether students have reviewed specific content items Advanced System Reporting allows System Administrators to run comprehensive reports Providing k-12 teachers a quick and clear way to monitor “where their students are” at any point in time – this enables them to focus their attention where it is needed most. This is a major area of focus for Bb, which we will be talking about a bit later (Caliper)

Learning Challenge 4: Enabling Alternatives and Opportunities Can we expand options for students of all abilities? Can we draw upon resources across and outside of our district?

Challenge 4: Enabling Alternatives and Opportunities - Virtual Classroom / Collaboration Tool Enables live synchronous interaction Text-based Chat environment Collaborative whiteboard Group web browsing (web touring) Private question-and-answer Breakout room capability Users can “raise their hand” to be called on Learn About Fish This often forms the heart of online office hours or synchronous sessions of virtual school classes. Highlight breakout room capability, participation management (teachers fear the potential chaos of live online discussions) and ability to archive (great for going back and measuring student participation)

Challenge 4: Enabling Alternatives and Opportunities - Assignments Students can submit their assignments online Teachers can grade the assignments and provide feedback for each student Supports the heavy workflow of assignment submission and return that many teachers, especially online teachers face. Highlight automated tie-in with Bb gradebook.

Learning Challenge 5: Creating Learning Communities How can we create a one-stop destination for our school community? How can students and teachers personalize their learning experience? How do we nurture (and monitor) extra- and co-curricular activities online? Can we create broader networks beyond our district? Sycamore Community Schools

Sycamore Public Schools

Minnetonka Public Schools

Challenge 5: Create Learning Communities - Multi-Institution Branding and Management Each school or group can be given their own domain and look-and-feel Delegated Administration allows System Admins to assign administrative tasks to various individuals or groups Allows districts or consortia to give each institution a local look and feel. (this enhances the stickiness of the site) It also reduces the bottleneck of one webmaster since responsibility for various areas of the portal can be delegated to the building level (small central staff love this)

Challenge 5: Create Learning Communities - Channels / Modules Deliver regularly updated headlines and content to users Individual users can customize their personal web pages Availability of modules is role-based Deliver over 100 modules and channels Build an unlimited number of additional ones Enables content to be fresh and personalized, this is what students are drawn to outside of school.

Challenge 5: Create Learning Communities - Multi-Language Support Enables institutions to run multiple languages on the same system Supports foreign language courses and students Supports most European Languages as well as multi-byte character sets such as Japanese and Chinese Fantastic for language instruction, English as a Second Language (ESL) students and for distributing information to non-native parents (a big issue for administrators since they need to reach very diverse parent communities).

Challenge 5: Create Learning Communities - Building Blocks (Open APIs) Free software development kit (SDK) Documented application programming interfaces (APIs) Create new functionality or integrate external systems with Blackboard products Enables interoperability with other systems Fundamentally Blackboard plays well with other technologies, enabling you to weave in other best of bread technologies, or create them yourself, to further enhance and personalize Blackboard. This has created dozens of choices for our community…. May want to hit the open source question here….e.g. flexible, but also supported.

One-to-one Computing tools in Blackboard

A Brief Overview of Blackboard Backpack

What is Backpack? Access Organize Interact Blackboard Backpack provides students with a personal study and learning tool to: Access Organize Interact with educational resources, anytime, anywhere

Annotate Course Materials Using their laptops, students can personalize course and research materials in real time by: Adding notes during lectures Highlighting key research findings For students with Tablet PCs, Blackboard Backpack as native digital ink support – making annotation even easier.

Questions? Adam Davy adavy@blackboard.com I definitely recommend that you leave time for Q and A