Blackboard Learn by Anthology vs. Equatio

A school with a well-established technology imprint with their students (for example, ours is a BYOB school where every student has their own laptop and must bring it to school every day and where over 99% of our families have reliable broadband at home) is a reasonable scenario for using The arrogance and intransigence of the sales force is quite disconcerting… They are no longer the only game in town and don't yet realize it. Less well-off schools/families may find it a challenge if students must be on campus or at a public library in order to use the technology. Obviously, during the pandemic, this became problematic for some districts.

Incentivized

If I have a student doing higher-level math, Equatio would be my recommended tool for digital access. However, it has too many options and would be confusing for younger students. Kami, Google Docs, or Kiwi Write math would be better for those students. It is also very pricey, so we would choose a cheaper tool to do the job.

Incentivized

• Blackboard Learn makes submitting assignments electronically simple and provides a variety of built-in Web-based tools like e-portfolios, wikis, and blogs that our students use to create their own content.
• Blackboard Learn is intuitive and easy to navigate from a students perspective
• Blackboard Learn has many integrations available for connecting this LMS to other tools we use at our institution.

Incentivized

• Edit tool. I am able to add formulas to my google slides very easily.
• I am able to use Mathspace to create for example math manipulatives.
• I am able to have a graphing (desmos) tool easily accesible for when working with systems of linear equations.

Incentivized

• Blackboard Learn has some limitations when it comes to submissions
• It is not that user friendly, I had to spend some time to get a hang of it in the beginning
• I have been struggling a bit with deletion of manually added courses

Incentivized

• I would like to try voice typing of math equations.
• I would like to type math equations in multiple colors.
• I want to be sent an infographic in my email detailing all the ways I should use Equation, but I don't yet know about it.

Incentivized

There are several aspects of Desire2Learn that outweigh the benefits of using Blackboard. I find that the Desire2Learn system is a bit more user friendly and looks more up-to-date. However, the decision to renew systems is not up to me because the entire University uses the same system. Regardless, I think I would choose Desire2Learn over Blackboard because of its improved user interface.

It is very usable for both faculty and students. The interface is pretty intuitive and most students can use it without a lot of additional training. Faculty do need some training to effectively use the interface, but they usually get it pretty quickly. We have had to create some additional programming to give faculty a way to delve deeper into the content.

My Blackboard support comes from the university I work with. They are responsive--eventually... but it takes them sometimes a week to respond to a reported issue. For example, I reported 2 issues last week and one was resolved and I was contacted about one still open option today. That is too long for a tech issue. I have not contacted any support offered directly by Blackboard, which may be a completely different experience altogether.

Incentivized

Anytime I have had an issue with text help software, the support team is always very helpful. When necessary, we have phone conversations or video meetings to troubleshoot the situation. This means that the solution happens very quickly. Often, they ask me for a screenshot or video to help them replicate the issue.

Incentivized

Blackboard's Managed Hosting was top-notch in getting us up and running quickly.

Incentivized

Coursera offers a variety of modules in which a team is able to work on then, but [Blackboard Learn] offers more options to understand how are the team members developing and which tasks have offered a harder challenger for them. [Blackboard Learn] also offers a variety of reports that can be generate by a team lead.

Incentivized

Each product has benefits over the other. MathType's older versions had their head and shoulders above their competition. Their new version removed a lot of features, integration, and capabilities. Equatio is starting to take the lead over MathType and is evolving constantly.

Incentivized

• At one of the institutions that I worked for, the ROI was excellent for the number of users we were serving; however, I could not speak to other instances as I was not aware of the overall cost of the contract.

Incentivized

• Saved me lots of time looking for what I ultimately was able to create myself with Equatio
• Mathspace is an invaluable. I wish We could assign things to the students and have them work and then send the assignment back to us. Right now we can only assign things to them.
• Being able to talk to write equations is also a huge timesaver.

Incentivized