The Mobile Garage

Blackboard Mobile Learn and The Stevies

Mobile Learn: People’s Choice Award

It's the 9th year of the Annual American Business Awards, aka "The Stevies".  The American Business Awards are given out once a year and there are dozens of categories.  They honor individuals, companies, new products, web sites, advertising, and other forms of media.  Here at Blackboard Mobile, we eat, breathe and sleep mobile, and we're always exceedingly proud to have our products recognized.  We're not surprised that mobile learning continues to be a hot topic, given that access to the internet via mobile devices will surpass access on PCs in 2013!  Perhaps to drive this point home, 43% of people would give up beer for a Smartphone!  Are you one of those people?  

"Students attending Georgia Southern never knew a world without cell phones"

Earlier this month, Georgia Southern University launched Georgia Southern Mobile, providing mobile access to essential campus resources including the campus directory, map, news, sports, the course catalog, library catalogs, social networks and more.

In a press release issued by the University on May 5th, Steve Burrell, Vice President for Information Technology and CIO said, “We want to offer our students and other members of the University community the best in technology and access, and that means making Georgia Southern Mobile services and information available to mobile users. The students attending Georgia Southern today never knew a world without cell phones or the Internet. Our goal is to take Georgia Southern to them and Georgia Southern Mobile is the foundation for future applications and technology.”

He continues, "With enrollment expected to reach more than 20,000 this fall, we’ll not only have record numbers of students on campus and we expect a record number of smartphones on campus as well. This is just the start and we will be expanding the type and number of apps that we offer our students, alumni, faculty, and staff in the near future.”

The enthusiasm for the app is clear and showcased by the University's multi-touch marketing campaign, shown here. Read the full press release and learn more about Georgia Southern Mobile.

As If It Didn’t Do Enough Cool Stuff Already: Android gets Events, Images and Videos

When we launched Blackboard Mobile Central on Android in October of last year, we were ecstatic. We had built a stable platform from the ground up, that was immediately useful to the dozens of schools that quickly adopted it in time for the Spring semester. That said, we didn’t rest on our laurels: there were more modules to build. And today, I’m happy to announce that we’ve finished the next three: Events, Images, and Videos. (See an interactive demo)

These three modules were complicated, challenging, and extremely satisfying to integrate into our maturing Android platform. One of the great things about our “go native” approach to app development is that we get to fully express the core ideals of Blackboard Mobile Central on a particular platform: each of these three modules has a particular Android “flavor” to it. Several features are built as Menu options (rather than on-screen buttons) which maximizes the user’s ability to view content on-screen. In addition, the physical search button is used in all three of the new modules: rather than waste screen real-estate with search buttons, users can press the search button to easily discover institution content through their Android devices.

Blackboard Mobile Central in Action

David Small, our Mobile Evangelist, takes you through all of the features and functionality of Blackboard Mobile Central as implemented at Stanford.

 

Follow David on Twitter at @mblevangelist for mobile insights, news, and adventures with Bb Mobile in San Francisco.

Abu Dhabi University Wins Mobility Project of the Year 2011!

Abu Dhabi University's implementation of the Blackboard Mobile Learn application won the Mobility Project of the Year 2011 at the 2nd Network World Middle East Awards last week. ADU wants their students to benefit from the convenience and flexibility that the application provides, thanks to anytime/anywhere access to course content. Check out the full article for information on the ADU/Etisalat pilot and award win!

 

 

iStanford Insights from Tim Flood

Catch this replay of last week's webinar featuring Tim Flood, Senior Technology Consultant and Program Manager, Stanford Mobile Program. Tim shares the history of iStanford and Stanford's approach to mobile, as well as gives insights into their innovative (and super cool) future plans. Watch it here.