RPP #133: Blackboard Ultra: Interview with Mark Strassman

• Interview with Mark Strassman, Senior Vice President, Industry and Product Management, Blackboard Inc.
• Mark Strassman oversees the company's product and integrated
  
  portfolio strategy to ensure Blackboard continues to build solutions that serve institutions, administrators, educators and students. 
• We discuss the new Blackboard Ultra:
• What are Core, Essentials, Insight, Student Retention?
• What is the update roadmap for hosted systems?
• Versions of Ultra SaaS, multi-tenant, single-tenant
• New web REST API
• Is Ultra completely adaptive/responsive? 
• New Bb Student app
• Ultra workflows subset for Community
• Mobile compatibility; adaptive design
• Future of Mosaic
• "Persona Apps" 
• New Collaborate Ultra
• Links
• Blackboard Inc.
• Bb Student App
• What's the Ultra Experience for Bb Collaborate?
• EdTech Connection
• Podsafe Music Selection
• Concerto No. 2 in G Minor (Summer) by the American Baroque Orchestra. Purchase the full CD: The Four Seasons by Vivaldi 
• Duration: 35:26

RPP #132: D2L Brightspace - Interview with John Baker, CEO, D2L

• Interview with John Baker, CEO, D2L
  D2L (formerly Desire2Learn) announced the next generation of its learning platform, Brightspace. By featuring a new faculty user experience and bringing adaptive learning to the masses, D2L says that Brightspace is more flexible, smarter, and easier to use.

• We discuss D2L and their next generation LMS, Brightspace
• We answer the questions:
  
• Does it replace "legacy" D2L?
• What is adaptive learning and LeaP?
• What features can be used in-class?
• What about student retention support and e-portfolios?
• What's the new faculty UI?
• How is it delivered? Multi-tenant Cloud? Hosted? On premise?

• Links
• D2L Launches Next Generation of Learning Platform Brightspace

• Podsafe music selection from Music Alley
• "Fly Fly Fly" by singer/song writer Adrina Thorpe - Influenced by Sarah Mclachlan, Tori Amos, and Coldplay

Duration: 27:12

RPP #131: Echo360 Active Learning Platform - Interview with Greg Golkin

• Interview with Greg Golkin, Head of Platform Innovation, Echo360, Inc. This is not your father's lecture capture system!
• We answer the questions:



Learn more about Echo360 ALP

• What is an Active Learning Platform?
• Lecture Capture:
• software or hardware?
• live streaming?
• cloud?
• Instructional Content Managment:
• content & assignments?
• replaces LMS?
• integration or just SSO?
• Student Engagement:
• discussions, polls and quizzes?
• audience response?
• polls within videos?
• Analytics and Dashboards:
• engagement scores?
• success metrics?
• Links
• RPP #71: Blackboard World Interview: Mark Jones of Echo 360
• RPP #27 Educause Interview: Apreso CourseCaster Interview: Geoff Allen, Chairman and Founder of Anystream Inc.
• RPP #6 Bb World Interview: Wes Barnes, Systems Engineer, Anystream Inc.
  
• Podsafe music selection from Music Alley
• Kiss This! (Hey IRS)" by Robert Lund of the Funny Music Project, a parody of Faith Hill's "This Kiss"

Duration: 29:55

RPP #130: Learn to Code

• Rod discusses why he thinks everyone should learn to code. 
• I think everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer because it teaches you how to think. - Steve Jobs
• Learning to write programs stretches your mind, and helps you think better, creates a way of thinking about things that I think is helpful in all domains. - Bill Gates
• Don’t just play on your phone - program it. - President Obama
• We answer the questions:

  

  Rod with his TRS-80 circa 1977

• Why am I interested in coding?
• Why do I think that everyone should learn how to code?
• What's the best approach to start learning how to code?

• Learn the Basics
• How to Design Programs, 2nd Edition - Good programming requires thought, but everyone can do it and everyone can experience the extreme satisfaction that comes with it. 
• Google CE First - K-8 Computer Science Club program from Google.
• Google Computer Science for High School - Google grant program to teach K-12 science teachers how to program and bring it to their students.
• Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, and Lately, Coding

• Should All Majors, Not Just Computer Science Majors, Learn to Code?
• Why You Should Learn To Code (And How To Actually Do It!) 
• 9 coding schools higher ed should keep an eye on
• 10 Places where anyone can learn to code

• Learn Coding
• Bento - A guided tour through curated, free coding tutorials on the web.
• Code.org - Offers a number of excellent free beginner’s tutorials for learning how to code.
• Code Academy - Learn to code in HTML/CSS, Javascript, PHP, Python and Ruby on Rails for free.
• Code School - Learn By Doing. No setup. No hassle. Just learning.
• Girls Who Code - To inspire, educate, and equip girls with computing skills.
• Khan Academy - Program drawings, animations, games and web pages.
• SkillCrush - Become a Ruby-on-Rails developer.
• Thinkful - With 1-on-1 mentorship from industry experts.
• Udemy - Your place to learn real world skills online.
• w3Schools - Teach yourself for free.

• Build Mobile Apps
• Appcelerator
• BuzzTouch
• MIT App Inventor
• Xamarin
  
• Links
• www.PharmPCS.com - The author's pharmacology calculation software. 

• Podsafe Music Selection 
• There's nothing impossible by Deus, a techno-classical musician from the Ivory Coast.

Duration: 20:58