The Blackboard Collaborate™ Hall of Fame for Excellence in Collaboration celebrates educators around the world who have shown exemplary innovation and creativity in their use of the Blackboard Collaborate platform.
The 2013 Blackboard Collaborate Hall of Fame Award is now a part of the Blackboard Catalyst Awards Program. Visit the Blackboard Catalyst Awards Program page to learn more and to submit your entry.
For more than a decade, blendedschools.net has used Blackboard Collaborate for supplemental instructional opportunities in nearly 200 school districts in Pennsylvania and three other states. In addition to supporting a full K-12 curriculum, the company has expanded language offerings, including Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, and Russian, in numerous rural school districts with few resources, while maintaining an unheard of attrition rate of not more than 10%. In fact, 87% of students report that they want to continue learning the target language they are studying.
One of the largest in the country, Broward County School District not only educates K-12 students, it also reaches out to the local adult population. Since 2007, this school district's Sheridan Technical Center has conducted countless workshops via Blackboard Collaborate to help educate thousands of adult students in and out of its home state of Florida. These virtual sessions enable adult students to improve their academic skills, prepare for tests such as the TEAS and GED, and broaden their awareness of post-secondary educational opportunities and career choices. Evidence of results is seen with improved scores on all tests and in many classes. In fact, most GED graduates cite their online workshops as a key reason they were able to pass their tests and earn their high school diplomas.
At FLVS, the quality and diversity of student products has consistantly improved by using Blackboard Collaborate for extracurricular activities,like author chats, book discussions, cultural events, history fairs, science fairs, writing workshops, and Shakespeare festivals, FLVS has seen a significant increase in student participation. And just last year, more than 125,000 students attended a series of live new student orientation sessions. Thousands of volunteer hours have been logged by students using Blackboard Collaborate, and surveys show over 90% satisfaction, as students feel activities enhance their experience and contribute to their successful completion of coursework.
Holmes Community College has demonstrated outstanding success implementing all capabilities of the Blackboard Collaborate platform. From Blackboard Collaborate enterprise instant messaging (used by 72% of all faculty and staff), the school expanded to Blackboard Collaborate voice authoring capabilities for voice announcements, explanations of assignments, and emails for courses, customer service role playing, pronunciation tests, and oral presentations. The college also relies heavily on web conferencing for virtual classes and office hours, live department and faculty meetings, live and recorded review study and training sessions, and to record its newly coined "gold nugget" moments. Plus, the school holds countless meetings across 3 campuses and 9 county districts, saving up to $1,600 and 50 man-hours per meeting.
Pennsylvania Virtual Charter School is responsible for one the nation’s most aggressive STEM – science, technology, engineering, and math – programs for K-12 students. Using Blackboard Collaborate, the school has created an array of innovative programs including a partnership with NASA’s BEST (Beginning Engineering Science and Technology) program to bring actual NASA scientists and enineers into its online classrooms for monthly virtual field trips. Despite having more than 100 6th graders in the program, 100% of the students participated and gave the program 100% in overall satisfaction. Blackboard Collaborate has been instrumental in bridging the geographic gap” between faculty and students who live throughout the state.
University of Idaho students can be found in all corners of this primarily rural state, with faculty spread across as many as five locations. In the past, the university relied on telephone conferencing and compressed video for staff meetings. However, after budget cuts in 2008, the university became even more reliant on Blackboard Collaborate to connect in and out-of-state faculty and staff. As a result, the Department of Curriculum and Instruction saved roughly $65,000, while the Department of Leadership and Counseling saved $43,000, for a total estimated savings to the university of $111,000 over 3 years. And with more faculty participating in discussions and meetings, there is increased communication of issues and ownership of decisions, as well as improved morale in the departments and improved services to students.
Serving K-12 students, adult learners, parents, and teachers throughout British Columbia, the Virtual School Society operates the LearnNowBC web portal, which is bursting at its virtual seams with resources from online courses and tutoring to homework help and career counseling. Since 2006, the virtual school has created a jaw-dropping 232,000 virtual rooms to reach more than 700,000 participants for instruction, administrative meetings, and parent advisory councils.