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| Blackboard's Users Conference at the BbWorld Europe Conference Recently, representatives from more than 170 education institutions gathered to share their experiences implementing successful education technology strategies. At the BbWorld Europe conference held in Nice, Blackboard has hosted its largest users conference outside of North America in the history of the company. Throughout Europe and the Middle East, e-learning has become a vital component of learning and teaching strategies for schools, further education institutions, and universities. Demonstrative of the increased commitment that education institutions are making to e-learning, participants shared how their institutions were extending and increasing their commitment to online platforms in order to continue to provide robust, stable, scalable systems which meet the rapidly expanding expectations of users. Clients who have recently adopted or added significantly to implementations of Blackboard education solutions include: • Leiden University, one of Europe's top universities and the oldest university in the Netherlands, as part of its drive for anytime/anywhere access for the university's 17,000 students and 4,000 staff across 9 faculties, selected complex hosting services delivered by Blackboard's data center operations in Amsterdam. • Universidade do Minho and Escola Superior de Tecnologia e Gestao de Leiria of Portugal each chose the Blackboard Learning System —Enterprise Edition after comprehensive reviews of competing systems, including open source e-learning systems. • New College Durham, South Tyneside College, Westminster Kingsway College, Middlesborough College, University of Portsmouth, and National University of Ireland, Galway exemplify institutions which have recently made major upgrades to their Blackboard e-learning platforms. During the conference, clients delivered more than 90 presentations on key education issues, demonstrating the value of participating in this community. Among these presentations were: • International Collaboration: Two Nations Separated by a Common Language by Manchester Metropolitan University, U.K. and the University of West Florida USA, which told of a collaborative e-learning initiative developed by the institutions, utilizing Blackboard technology, in an international communication exchange and the resulting benefits to students, academics and the participating institutions. • Finding a Voice Online: Helping Students Develop Communication Skills by United Arab Emirates Higher Colleges of Technology, which described the use of online communication tools to develop the speaking and writing skills for "English as a Second Language" students in the Middle East. • The Benefits of Integrating Self and Peer Assessment in Blackboard by the University of Dundee, which described an important extension to the Blackboard e-learning environment developed by Dundee staff. The "Self and Peer Assessment" Building Block enables staff to create tools which students can then use to formally evaluate their own work and the work of others. • Evaluation and e-Learning from the Point of View of Students and Teachers by Escola Superior de Tecnologia e Gest?o da Guarda, which discussed the Portuguese government's efforts to reconsider the education process by introducing modern forms of teaching. The aim of this research was to develop a primary assessment of e-learning's effectiveness at the polytechnic level. write your comments about the article :: © 2007 Computing News :: home page |