Client Stories

 We'd like to see increased enrollment and a lot of that will be through online programs – and Blackboard Collaborate will be a big part of that. I see Blackboard Collaborate as an integral part of our growth. If we didn't have Blackboard Collaborate, as a department chair I don't see how that program could grow. 

— Ray McCandless
Director of the Center for Teaching Excellence
University of Findlay

 Blackboard Collaborate came off the bench and hit a home run for North Dakota in 2009, when spring flooding forced Valley City State University to close down and send students home with just weeks remaining in the semester. We relied on Blackboard Collaborate, in addition to other technologies, to connect with the scattered students and complete their coursework, salvaging the semester. 

— Jerry Rostad
Director, Advanced Learning Technologies
North Dakota University System

 We initially created CCC Confer to save time by holding meetings online but we expanded courses, too. One of our instructors conducted a two-year survey and found that courses that were taught online with a synchronous component had a higher retention rate, success rate, persistence rate, and students earned more A’s and B’s. 

— Blaine Morrow
Project Director
CCC Conference

 Central Texas College renewed its Blackboard Collaborate license because it has proven to be a cost effective and efficient means of providing communication and collaboration within our online and blended courses. Because our students, faculty, and staff are worldwide, we also use Blackboard Collaborate for faculty and staff training and professional development, student orientations and workshops, and for tech support. 

— Sharon Davis
Distance Education and Educational Technology
Central Texas College

 At Red Deer College, teaching and learning would not be the same without our Blackboard Collaborate products. Our learners, which include students, faculty and staff, use its products daily to communicate, collaborate and grow together. They’ve become core to our business. 

— Janet Welch
Chairperson, Centre for Teaching and Learning
Red Deer College

 Blackboard Collaborate is unquestionably a “game-changer,” a disruptive technology, if you will, when it comes to e-learning. The ability for faculty and students to collaborate in real-time breathes new life into the online classroom by giving aural and kinesthetic learners what they have needed for years—a synchronous learning experience. What has surprised me the most is that faculty who teach in a traditional classroom are discovering that they can better leverage its asynchronous tools to extend learning beyond the time-and-space limits of the traditional classroom. Through the archive and file download features, students are able to benefit exponentially from repeated interaction with content and collaborative experiences. Blackboard Collaborate is a perfect blend of synchronous and asynchronous learning environments in a user friendly package. I would not want to develop an online program without it. 

— Mark Burris
Director of Scholarly Technology and Resources
University of Arkansas at Little Rock

 We can conduct the trainings basically same way we did them face-to-face. A lot of other offices are using Blackboard Collaborate in similar ways. So instead of conducting a training in which state trainers went to into a school to meet with the principals or teachers, now, because we’re unable to provide reimbursements, we simply offer online sessions with administrators from the school districts rather than travel. 

— Bradley Mitchell
Office of eLearning LMS Technical Support
Training Manager
South Carolina State Department of Education

 An instructor came to me wanting to use Second Life for virtual office hours. I asked him what his goals were and he said he wanted to be accessible to students and have it be more personal than text on a screen. As soon as I was done showing the video and screen sharing in Blackboard Collaborate’s enterprise instant messenger, he was SOLD. 

— Jane Himmel
Associate Director of the Center for Distributed Learning
University of North Texas

 We wanted to reduce costs for our districts but also expand offerings. We’re a large state and the center is mostly wilderness, so we saw a big need for a learning space for meetings and for professional development. I’ve never seen a technology adopted so quickly. 

— Dr. Cheryl Charlton, CEO
Idaho Digital Learning Academy

 We have seen astounding results in student achievement as a direct result of using Blackboard Collaborate. The first principals’ online conference was a “Eureka” experience as all participants experienced being able to meet and exchange what they were doing and learning without leaving their buildings! I thought you might appreciate how much Blackboard Collaborate has meant to the principals and teachers. 

— Bryan Setser
North Carolina Virtual Public School