Schoology is a startup that seeks to address many of the pain points of the LMS: Schoology is easy to use. It's free. It offers data portability. It encourages communication and collaboration with look and feel of contemporary social networking sites rather than the bulletin boards of circa 1996. But it isn't simply a social networking tool. Schoology provides the functionality of its big name competitors - Blackboard, Moodle.
The recently released ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology gives some excellent insights into trends in college students' technology ownership, perceptions, skills, and habits.
There aren’t many things in life that are more fun than using the Blackboard discussion board system. But if we find any, they’ll be dutifully documented here.
"Revenue grew by 18% to $98.4 million... This over performance was driven largely by strong professional service and continued strengthen demand for managed hosting."
"Despite the attractions of security (behind the wall solutions) and cost effectiveness (on someone elses’s yard), I conclude that there is no one best solution from the three I discuss above. Perhaps only dancing among the compleixty and simultaeously hosting all three solutions in every fromal education program creates the necessary blend of security, innovation and public presence that defines quality education in networked era."
"actual student centredness not the ’students get to talk’ model we’ve been sold for years, involves the student's creating their own knowledge in their own space…"