Tag: mobilecomputing

Bb for the iPhone or iTouch

When I heard that BlackBoard was making available a free app for the iPhone and iTouch, I thought it sounded like it might prove to very useful to students to enable them to check in on their course(s) while away from their computer.

So I went to iTunes this morning to download the app, and unfortunately, didn’t read the reviews until after  the download. Here are a couple of snippets from a host of comments:

“I don’t really understand the point of this app. It doesn’t really display any real or useful data. You can use the app to browse clear down to individual grades for example , but then if you want to see the grade, it takes you to Safari where you have to go through the tedium of logging in and using the small iPhone screen to try to navigate…”

“Documentation is poor. Impossible to find PIN# or any resources to “sign up for Bbsync.” Apparently many options in the app are simply pointers to web links. As primitive and poorly conceived as the web apps. ”

In fairness, there were some positive reviews such as:
“This app has great potential and that’s why I’m giving it three stars (out of 5). I have access to both Student and Instructor accounts using Bb Server v. 8.0.375.0 While I connect and sync multiple times using the Student account, my Instructor account gives me an “unknown error every time.”

“Don’t review it like you’ve emptied your bank account to download this. It’s not bad. Make sure you go on Bb on your computer and pick up your iPhone BbSync PIN so you can login. If you can’t see your stuff, that’s your school’s fault, not BlackBoard….That said this app could be much better”

So obviously the jury is still out, and may require one to go through the process of trying it for oneself.

The Next Digital Decade

Bill Gates gave his last keynote speech as CEO of Microsoft this weekend at the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.He had some interesting things to say about the future of technology and the last “digital decade” as well as the next one.

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The last decade was about the growth and proliferation of the PC (think about the huge success of Windows 95), and the advent of the internet: “We’ve made a lot of progress. The first digital decade has been a great success. Thousands of companies have worked together… this is just the beginning. There’s nothing holding us back from going much faster and further in the second digital decade.”

The next digital decade will be defined by the fact that: “People want to share content, ideas, community and entertainment”. The future of entertainment will be software driven and he emphasized the importance of mobile computing, and connecting, getting, creating, and sharing content on the go. Continue reading “The Next Digital Decade”