Started with a funny spoof ad of old Bb talking to NG, like the PC versus Mac type ads. They pointed out there were 2,200+ people at the conference, which is massive I think.
New NG stuff I liked the most:
- students can change the design, layout, and colour of the portal
- adding in more external portal channels
- drag and drop in the portal (and everywhere)
- announcements aggregates in a way that makes sense
- ability at portal level to zoom in on what's new in a course or organisation with student or instructor dashboard
- can now get email or SMS alerts when grades released, assignments submitted and ready to grade, and other options
- can add page breaks, sections and dividers for tests
- Highlights your groups first, not all groups you are not part of
- Control panel below the left hand menu, not a separate screen, consists of menus
- Students can create groups at portal level
- Bb Sync will work on mobile, iPhone, MyYahoo, iGoogle soon
- MyPlaces link at the top allows for easy jumping to other sites you are enrolled on
- Easier to embed YouTube videos, google maps, etc.
- Can change the look inside a course with themes (so looks like older Blackboard style if you want)
- Blogs and journals (private blogs) built-in
- Groups get a summary of what is for their group, including content or assignments
Anyway, I'm quite happy about it really. It looks good and seems quite similar to what was there, but way better. I don't think staff will struggle too much with the changes, though we will have to figure out what options we want on, what language pack settings, etc.
4 comments:
Any idea how much of this would be in 9, and how much for later? For example, I'm pretty sure they said portal level groups would be later.
think you're right Mary
I think the portal groups, mobile synch and in-built blogs are scheduled for Bb10 - poss also email/sms alerts but that might have accelerated with connect.
have you heard any different brian?
I got the impression talking to Bb folks at dinner last night that the new groups tool and blogs were for 9, though what they are able to deliver is obviously another question. Last year they were doing focus groups on those two features, along with calendar (which we didn't see) - so that does give me some promise.
I got the impression that the extra Bb Sync features like iPhones, mobiles, iGoogle, etc. will be coming outside of the traditional release cycle as they are done by the Beyond team right now. I think that means we could start to see some of it before 9, like we have with Facebook already. If they have the thing that extracts the data and sends it elsewhere (which they do with Facebook), then I imagine they just have to worry about adapting it for any platform, which is less of a big deal than making something completely new to extract the data. I do imagine mobiles that work first will be Blackberry and iPhone, because of the more advanced display options.
Oh yeah, I was unclear about how much of the alerts was linked to 9 or 10, or Connect - as we didn't actually see those features in action (but we did with blogs and groups, or at least a good mock-up of them). He did show Connect though, which lets you send the same message via email, text, and voice phone call to lots of different groups on campus (like all students, etc). He even sent us a test message, so there's probably a call on my phone (I got an email too).
And Louise, Stephanie ditched last night so I asked a solutions engineer about a possible community system beta, and he said there would be a Bb-hosted one starting in the autumn, so if we were interested, look for a call in Aug/Sept on the BIE.
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