It's About Learning

Source: http://listedtech.com/lms-providers-market-share-implementation-year/

Keep in mind that Blackboard (BB) growth has been through acquisitions. This has proven to be an effective strategy for BB because changing from one LMS to another is one of the most challenging IT task an institution can take on. The chart above points to % of LMS implementation and shows just how quickly Canvas has grown and continues to grow.

The chart below reveals the total market share and provides a better perspective the dominant players in this space. While BB is still the market leader their growth has almost stopped and ask Moodle and Canvas continue to grow it will more than likely be at the expense of BB market share.

Source: http://listedtech.com/lms-providers-market-share-implementation-year/

If I were D2L I would be very concerned about Canvas and Moodle because D2L no longer is a compelling alternative to BB. Having worked with all these LMS at a variety of institutions I am not surprised to see Canvas grow. It really does provide a genuine alternative to the traditional LMSs BB, Moodle and D2L.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/blackboard-announces-collaboration-with-major-textbook-publishers/32228?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

Blackboard Announces Collaboration With Major Textbook Publishers – Wired Campus – The Chronicle of Higher Education via kwout

If you hold to the notion that learning is all about pushing content to students then you will be excited to hear about Blackboard’s recently announced collaboration with the text book publishers: Cenage, Macmillan, Pearson and John Wiley & Sons.

In contrast if you believe that education needs to move from the passive educational environment of main lecture points, content dumping, rubrics, individual competition and standardized testing to an active educational environment of interactive presentations, critical and analytical thinking, collaboration and meaningful projects then this announcement will actually be viewed as an example of a market leader taking potentially disruptive innovations like online learning and electronic content and deploying them in sustaining ways. History has shown that educational institutions at all levels are too quick to jump on the band wagon and simply accept a sustaining innovation that does little to improve learning.

While companies like Blackboard attempt to hide behing labels like Learning Management Systems (LMS) their products have very little to do with learning and everything to do with course and content management. While there are exceptions on how they are used, CMS like Blackboard, Moodle and the like are primarily used for content delivery, assessment and grades assignment and general course administration. As Jeff Young points out:

For professors, the new links will make it easier to push students’ grades on online quizzes from the publishers’ e-textbook systems to the gradebook they use on the Blackboard system.

Automating testing and grade assignment is not going to do anything to improve learning and the easier we make it to use automated testing and grading the less progress we are making toward truly reforming education. Technology today offeres education so much potential, yet we struggle to move beyond 19th and 20th century thinking and methodologies.