- Two-way SMS Building Block is now available for customers using Learn 9.1 SP6 or higher—enabling instructors to quickly and easily send and receive text messages to one or many students in their courses.
- Course Notifications let students opt-in for automated text and text-to-speech alerts when course content, such as grade, exam or assignment updates are available. Currently, this feature is free in the U.S. if you are using Learn 9.1 SP9 or higher.
- Share tutoring information with at-risk students
- Provide extended office hours for a select group of students
- Remind your class to be on their best behavior for a guest lecturer
- Inform your class you will be late
- Let everyone know grades have been posted
- Update the class that there is homework
- Share review session information for an exam
- Notify your class about an event they could attend
- Cancel class and make sure everyone knows
- Send a relevant article to your class
- Share a good student solution to a problem set with the whole class
- Send an additional assignment
99.8% of students today have mobile phones and they expect to receive updates and communications from their institution and instructors. Other institutions have found that students are enthusiastic about receiving targeted, relevant communications via text from their faculty.
Colleges, universities and community college systems worldwide are using Blackboard Connect for Learn. For an example of how JSU is enabling their faculty with Connect for Learn, visit their website.
In the United States, carriers allow text message delivery via SMTP, a gateway – that, like email – costs nothing for those who send messages. Thanks to that infrastructure, Blackboard can deliver SMS from the Course Notification tool without incremental cost. Carriers outside the US do not offer similar capabilities, so Blackboard incurs a cost for every text we send. US and International customers alike must buy message packs for the Two-way messaging building block.
The implementation process for the Two-way SMS capability uses building blocks, and it is fast and straightforward. Your Blackboard Connect client care representative can help guide your Learn administrator through this process, so you can begin improving faculty-student communication quickly.