Tag: blackboard

more fun than blackboard

The Blackboard discussion board system is really quite amazing, in that it couldn’t have been designed any worse. It is easily the most awkward, clumsy, and deliberately obtuse discussion board software I’ve ever used.

There aren’t many things in life that are more fun than using the Blackboard discussion board system. But if we find any, they’ll be dutifully documented here.

Blackboard Learn on iPod Touch

p-480-320-08b3cccb-cc22-4b27-984d-e26bca93816c.jpegI tried the promising new iPhone / iPod Touch app “Blackboard Learning” hoping to have a cool and efficient way to connect to Blackboard from my pocket computer. No such luck. There’s always something in the way of making the LMS experience fun…

Error

Your institution is blocking Sync for the iPhone.

Doh.

I don’t know if this is a version mismatch – are we running the wrong version of Blackboard? – or if it’s just a new building block that needs to get rolled out on campus. Either way, frustration.

Is MyDropBox.com Vaporware?

We’ve been looking at MyDropBox.com, trying to gather more info about their “Peer Re:Mark” peer review building block for Blackboard. It sounds rather interesting, and we’d love to try it out to evaluate for use on campus. The technology has become secondary, though, because the company has been completely unresponsive through the communication channels they provide on their website. I can only assume that the company is no longer viable, and/or that the product is vapour.

Patti tried contacting them 2 weeks ago for more information. She patiently filled out the form on their website, hoping to get some additional information about the product, maybe a demo, and perhaps a quote for deploying it on campus. No response.

So, I decided to see if maybe they were just blowing off peons, and only responding to “important” sounding people. So, I promoted myself to “Vice President, Educational Technology” here at UCalgary, and filled in the form myself. Several days later… No response. I guess I need to demote myself back down to “Lowly EdTech Geek”, but I kinda like the ring of VP-EdTech…

Anyway, here’s a clue for MyDropBox, who apparently don’t respond to the only communication channel they provide on their own website. When people are contacting you, asking for more information, probably trying to give you money, it’s a Good Idea™ to at least send an autoresponse email. It’s an Even Better Idea™ to actually, oh, I don’t know… RESPOND to the people who are most likely to give your company money.

Blackboard Patent in Plain English

I tried to take some time yesterday to distill the patent into plain english. Michael Feldstein did a much better job than I did, which should make it really easy to find relevant and defensible bits of prior art. Of course, the fun part will be finding prior art that hasn’t been purchased by Blackboard…

I tried to take some time yesterday to distill the patent into plain english. Michael Feldstein did a much better job than I did, which should make it really easy to find relevant and defensible bits of prior art. Of course, the fun part will be finding prior art that hasn’t been purchased by Blackboard…

Software Patents and Legally Required Greed

I’ve been biting my tongue on this whole Blackboard-patents-the-LMS brouhaha that’s going around. I did add my 2 cents to the Wikipedia VLE Prior Art page, with a link to one of the two LMSes I’ve been involved in building before Blackboard applied for this patent.

What follows is a largely stream-of-consciousness rant about some of the issues involved.

I find it completely unfathomable that such a basic and well established classification of software could be summarily handed to a single company. I’m planning on taking some time to actually read the patent, to see if it’s as general as everyone says, or is it really (hopefully) a vaguely worded description of their particular implementation. A cursory glance at it suggests that they’ve managed to throw in utilities ranging from online storage of user data, to storing files on a server…

However, the greater problem isn’t this particular case, but rather the more general issue of software patents as a whole. These intentionally vaguely worded litigation factories only benefit one group of people – shareholders in the patent holding company.

Here’s what’s driving the whole patent engine – public companies are held legally responsible to maximize profit for their shareholders. To the extent that if they fail to generate profit (or acceptably sufficient profit) they can be sued by shareholders. The board of directors is liable. Which drives public companies to squeeze every possible gram of cash out of any possible revenue stream. If they failed to get the patent for a product, and someone else managed to get it – and then came after the company – shareholders would be pissed. So, software patents are conceptually an arms race. Companies are filing patent applications for anything they can think of in order to both protect themselves from others doing the same thing, and to maximize profit by handing the patent to their lawyers and owning a market segment as a result.

But – the patent office should be acting as a filter, preventing these blatant patent grabs as being invalid before getting rubber-stamped. If the patent office can’t properly vet applications, the office should be closed as ineffective or worse.

If Blackboard wants to recoup some karma, they should sign the patent(s) over to an impartial body, ensuring that the patent is used only as a first strike protection to prevent evildoers from obtaining said patent and obliterating an entire marketplace.

So… Who’s the best candidate to be handed the patent? IMS? IEEE? Creative Commons? UN?

I’ve been biting my tongue on this whole Blackboard-patents-the-LMS brouhaha that’s going around. I did add my 2 cents to the Wikipedia VLE Prior Art page, with a link to one of the two LMSes I’ve been involved in building before Blackboard applied for this patent.

What follows is a largely stream-of-consciousness rant about some of the issues involved.

I find it completely unfathomable that such a basic and well established classification of software could be summarily handed to a single company. I’m planning on taking some time to actually read the patent, to see if it’s as general as everyone says, or is it really (hopefully) a vaguely worded description of their particular implementation. A cursory glance at it suggests that they’ve managed to throw in utilities ranging from online storage of user data, to storing files on a server…

However, the greater problem isn’t this particular case, but rather the more general issue of software patents as a whole. These intentionally vaguely worded litigation factories only benefit one group of people – shareholders in the patent holding company.

Here’s what’s driving the whole patent engine – public companies are held legally responsible to maximize profit for their shareholders. To the extent that if they fail to generate profit (or acceptably sufficient profit) they can be sued by shareholders. The board of directors is liable. Which drives public companies to squeeze every possible gram of cash out of any possible revenue stream. If they failed to get the patent for a product, and someone else managed to get it – and then came after the company – shareholders would be pissed. So, software patents are conceptually an arms race. Companies are filing patent applications for anything they can think of in order to both protect themselves from others doing the same thing, and to maximize profit by handing the patent to their lawyers and owning a market segment as a result.

But – the patent office should be acting as a filter, preventing these blatant patent grabs as being invalid before getting rubber-stamped. If the patent office can’t properly vet applications, the office should be closed as ineffective or worse.

If Blackboard wants to recoup some karma, they should sign the patent(s) over to an impartial body, ensuring that the patent is used only as a first strike protection to prevent evildoers from obtaining said patent and obliterating an entire marketplace.

So… Who’s the best candidate to be handed the patent? IMS? IEEE? Creative Commons? UN?

Greg Ritter Returns!

This is welcome news indeed! Greg Ritter has returned from his long, long silence, and has begun blogging again! I’m guessing Greg found it easier to go underwater during the whole Bb IPO and WebCT shindigs, but now that those things have been dealt with maybe he’ll be able to blog more often.

Excellent news, Greg. I’d been keeping your old blog in my subscriptions Just In Case™ and have already subscribed to your new one.

Thanks to Scott and James for the heads-up on Ritter’s Return. Greg’s already hit the ground running with some great comments from Blackboard users about weblogs, wikis and podcasting.

This is welcome news indeed! Greg Ritter has returned from his long, long silence, and has begun blogging again! I’m guessing Greg found it easier to go underwater during the whole Bb IPO and WebCT shindigs, but now that those things have been dealt with maybe he’ll be able to blog more often.

Excellent news, Greg. I’d been keeping your old blog in my subscriptions Just In Case™ and have already subscribed to your new one.

Thanks to Scott and James for the heads-up on Ritter’s Return. Greg’s already hit the ground running with some great comments from Blackboard users about weblogs, wikis and podcasting.