Blackboard Learn by Anthology vs. Read&Write

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

Read&Write is a solid, long-lasting tool that I have relied on for my students for many years. It is especially strong at supporting students with reading challenges. It is less appropriate for students with more complex needs who have non-standard speech or are using head or eye control. It will continue to be a tool that I encourage many students to use.

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

• Creates vocabulary lists for students that include symbols, definitions, and space to add additional notes or images (a staff favorite)
• Intuitive word prediction that supports spelling, grammar, and reduces the number of keystrokes needed
• Text-to-speech on any digital text using the regular reader or screenshot reader, making almost any content accessible

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 use the practice reading aloud tool more, but the kids that I work with have a hard time understanding the concept. I think that, while there are a lot of tools available, sometimes they are hard for younger students to understand.
• The hover to read function is nice as well, but my students struggle with the fact that if you move the mouse once it starts reading it will start all over in a new area. It's not as smooth as I would like it to be.

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.

I'm just really impressed with the software and the access it gives to learners who are used to coming up against barriers in education. It's a quick-fix for a learner - something they can access usefully and productively with very little training. I also love that learners can access Read&Write on their devices at home - that really is a game changer.

Incentivized

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.

I am giving this an 9. Not a perfect score because working on PDFs is better but not yet as easy as I need for it to be. Working with many students who have executive function challenges, I need a smooth simplistic access method. We are not quite there yet for writing on PDFs. Overall the toolbar on Read&Write is super easy to access and I love that the suite includes several tools on the toolbar providing a solution to many accessibility challenges.

Incentivized

Seems to be available when Internet is working.

Incentivized

there are issues with the dictation not running smoothly.

Incentivized

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

The support team at Texthelp is excellent. They're all super helpful and open to feedback and new ideas. Still, more importantly, they are ultimately fully committed to aligning with us and ensuring they help us provide the best education possible. Furthermore, they're open to new features and always communicate this incredibly well.

Incentivized

It was easy to learn to use

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

It took a solid 2 weeks for R&W to work on our students chromebooks even after reaching out to tech support. The toolbar was greyed out and not accessible to students. Took a long time before tech support helped us solve this problem.

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

We are still learning how to use Equatio. I am not a mathematician and therefore I am finding understanding it a bit more difficult. Once I understand how to use it I will be able to cascade it down. My hope is that it will be as useful as Read & Write

Incentivized

The pricing is reasonable. A lower tier with just screen reading and basic functions would be nice, but not a deal-breaker.

Incentivized

The product can be used on as many devices at once as needed

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

• We are early to deploying Read&Write but hope to see increased test scores
• We are early to deploying Read&Write but hope to see decreases in student behaviors triggered by challenging ELA assignments
• We are early to deploying Read&Write but hope to see improvements in student self perception as a result of increased ELA success

Incentivized