openAdmin
11-02-2009, 08:23 PM
Blackboard Inc (http://www.blackboard.com/) says that it has partnered with Northwestern University on an integration to make Google Apps Education Edition available to students within the Blackboard Learn platform with a single sign on. Developed by Northwestern's Information Technology (http://www.rttnews.com/Content/QuickFacts.aspx?Node=B1&Id=1113173##) development team, the Blackboard Building Block has been released as open source to let other institutions use or build on the technology at no cost.
This fall over 30 Northwestern faculty members and 1 thousand students are using the integration, which automatically enrolls individuals in courses as collaborators on Google's documents, calendars and spreadsheets. As a result, instructors can now leverage Google Apps to enhance their ability to give collaborative assignments and students can more easily organize group meetings, interactions and presentations.
The integration for Google Apps is made possible by technology that allows institutions and third parties to create and share enhancements to the Blackboard learning environment. It joins more than 150 free or open source Blackboard Building Blocks(TM) available to the Blackboard community at the Open Source Community for Educational Learning Objects and Tools (OSCELOT) Web site. OSCELOT is an independent volunteer community working to explore, develop and share open source solutions and tools for the educational community.
For more information about the Google Apps Building Block, please visit http://projects.oscelot.org/gf/project/bboogle/ (http://projects.oscelot.org/gf/project/bboogle/), and the new Blackboard Extensions(TM) Web site at http://blackboard.com/Support/Extensions.aspx (http://blackboard.com/Support/Extensions.aspx).
Source:Blackboard.com
This fall over 30 Northwestern faculty members and 1 thousand students are using the integration, which automatically enrolls individuals in courses as collaborators on Google's documents, calendars and spreadsheets. As a result, instructors can now leverage Google Apps to enhance their ability to give collaborative assignments and students can more easily organize group meetings, interactions and presentations.
The integration for Google Apps is made possible by technology that allows institutions and third parties to create and share enhancements to the Blackboard learning environment. It joins more than 150 free or open source Blackboard Building Blocks(TM) available to the Blackboard community at the Open Source Community for Educational Learning Objects and Tools (OSCELOT) Web site. OSCELOT is an independent volunteer community working to explore, develop and share open source solutions and tools for the educational community.
For more information about the Google Apps Building Block, please visit http://projects.oscelot.org/gf/project/bboogle/ (http://projects.oscelot.org/gf/project/bboogle/), and the new Blackboard Extensions(TM) Web site at http://blackboard.com/Support/Extensions.aspx (http://blackboard.com/Support/Extensions.aspx).
Source:Blackboard.com