Comments on: The Economic Impact of the Blackboard Patent Suit http://mfeldstein.com/the_economic_impact_of_the_blackboard_patent_suit/ What Michael Feldstein Is Learning About Online Learning...Online Sat, 06 Sep 2008 19:04:05 +0000 By: tom abeles http://mfeldstein.com/the_economic_impact_of_the_blackboard_patent_suit/#comment-583 tom abeles Mon, 06 Nov 2006 04:46:18 +0000 1215825677#comment-583 Yes, the cycle is long. What is worse is that once these LMS's get entangled with the university's enterprise system, the cost to make shifts gets high, not counting the reluctance of the faculty to migrate their efforts onto new platforms. This plays into digital inertia and the nation's post secondary institutions. The patents become another nail in the evolution. If institutions were really progressive in the education technology arena, they would realize that systems like Blackboard are the equivalent to "comfort food" in that they are basically a brick space to click space transition. What they would realize is that second generation systems and beyond are beginning to be rolled out and are more in tune with the type of learning that industry sees as critical and that digital natives gravitate to. These are virtual worlds such as Open Croquet or the Multiverse platform and variants there of. New content and significantly changed students demands that academia as institutions and their faculty stop pouring new wine into old bottles that confine and constrain. Yes, the cycle is long. What is worse is that once these LMS’s get entangled with the university’s enterprise system, the cost to make shifts gets high, not counting the reluctance of the faculty to migrate their efforts onto new platforms. This plays into digital inertia and the nation’s post secondary institutions. The patents become another nail in the evolution.

If institutions were really progressive in the education technology arena, they would realize that systems like Blackboard are the equivalent to “comfort food” in that they are basically a brick space to click space transition.

What they would realize is that second generation systems and beyond are beginning to be rolled out and are more in tune with the type of learning that industry sees as critical and that digital natives gravitate to. These are virtual worlds such as Open Croquet or the Multiverse platform and variants there of. New content and significantly changed students demands that academia as institutions and their faculty stop pouring new wine into old bottles that confine and constrain.

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