Changes to Wikis, Blogs and Podcasts Coming Summer 2010/Blackboard Goes Mobile!

Changes to Wikis, Blogs and Podcasts Coming Summer 2010

Between the Spring and Summer I semesters, we will be upgrading our version of Learning Objects Campus Pack, which includes the Blog, Wiki and Podcast tools in Blackboard, to Campus Pack 4. All of your old info will still be contained in old courses, but full of major new features and enhancements from the current version. This new version makes use of social media tools like tag clouds, bookmarking, subscription and a Personalized Learning Space which is essentially a social media-like profile for everyone on campus.

(If you currently teach internet classes in SHSU Online, Campus Pack 4 is available now for SHSU Online courses ONLY)

For a quick demo of new features, please view this video by Learning Objects:

(click video icon to view)

A little more about new features:

Personalized Learning Spaces

Campus Pack 4 gives every user at your institution a personal learning space, enabling students, instructors, and staff to share their work and co-curricular interests with classmates and colleagues, both inside and outside the campus community.

Using the Web 2.0-based tools, users can create wikis, blogs, and podcasts to develop scholarly research, publish interactive academic presentations, and showcase personal interests and achievements.

The owner of a personal learning space has control over the content, look-and-feel, and sharing privileges for their space and its component sites. With course assignments, group memberships, and browsing and tagging all close at hand, a personal learning space serves as the hub for the user's academic and co-curricular activities.

• Create wikis, blogs, and podcasts around academic and co-curricular interests
• Collaborate online with self-organized study groups
• Build a collection of work across time
• Continue developing academic projects after the course has ended
• Selectively share resumes, projects, and work samples, both within the institution and beyond
• Access course work, other personal learning sites, and community group sites from a single vantage point

Community Areas

Campus Pack 4 enables departments, organizations, and ad hoc groups to build online communities.

With a central space for the group and the ability to create wiki, blog, and podcast sites, groups can collaborate on work, build and publish knowledgebases, and document events. Campus Pack's robust sharing features give site managers powerful options for sharing sites within the institution and beyond.

• Give academic departments spaces to collaborate on curriculum and research
• Provide clubs, teams, and other groups a forum to coordinate activities
• Enable administrative departments to easily share information with a broad audience
• Enable users to collaborate easily and securely with participants outside of the institution

Just to name a few. To learn more about Campus Pack Fusion, visit the Learning Objects website at http://www.learningobjects.com/campuspackfusion.jsp.

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Blackboard Goes Mobile!

Last week we implemented Blackboard Mobile Learn, an application for the Apple iPad that brings Blackboard to your mobile device. Access course documents on the go by visiting the Apple iTunes App Store and downloading Blackboard Mobile Learn, it's free!

This application will be available for iPhone, iPod Touch, Android and Blackberry phones over Wi-Fi for free beginning in June.

View the demo here:


If you have any questions or would like to learn more, please contact the Blackboard Team at blackboard@shsu.edu or by calling 936-294-1851.