Blackboard Inc. is an enterprise learning management systems vendor. Blackboard was founded in 1997 and became a public company in 2004. The company provides education, mobile, communication, and commerce software and related services to clients including education providers, corporations and government organizations. As of December 2010, Blackboard software and services are used by over 9,300 institutions in more than 60 countries. Blackboard Learn is the company's flagship LMS, supporting…
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Unique Learning System
Score 8.1 out of 10
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Unique Learning System (ULS) is a special education solution that supports students with disabilities from Pre-K through transition. It provides differentiated, standards-aligned lessons in ELA, math, science, social studies, and life skills with built-in assessments, progress tracking, and automated differentiation.
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.
Unique Learning System is extremely good at covering math and reading, language arts components and providing differentiated materials and lessons for all types of learners. However, at times there is a lack of the same sort of lessons for very basic concepts of social studies and science that are not being covered in the overall thematic units. For example when teaching a unit on Science and Science experiments a lesson on the basic rules for a laboratory or units of measurement used in science specific activities such as units of temperature or metric and standard lessons would be beneficial during those units.
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.
I would like the print options to be easier to use. I wish I could create a file of the pages I want to print instead of downloading the entire PDF across multiple levels and picking and choosing. My students do not all have digital access due to a variety of reasons and print is a better option for many.
I would like Unique Learning System to offer shared licensing. We have classrooms of 6 students where there may be 1 teacher, 5 paraprofessionals, 1 BCBA, 1 SLP, 1 OT, etc. It is a group effort to prepare learning materials for the students and deliver the instruction. I would prefer the licensing to be by student instead of by teacher, it takes a village.
I dislike how complicated materials have become with courses, the library, the units, etc. I wish there was a way it could all be organized a little better. I would also love small graphics to be paired with the materials so I don't need to open everything to find what I am looking for. Such as in the Transition Portfolio section.
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.
I think the features are fairly easy to use, but not always easy to find. I can see how a new user may become overwhelmed. Once you get used to it, it’s fine. I think there could also be more professional development sessions to help with this.
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.
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.
I have previously used other visual support software. Some required a subscription through a CD, and it wasn’t very seamless. I like that. The visuals are also used in the lessons, which helps the students generalize those skills and supports their communication efforts. with this consistency, students are able to learn grade level vocabulary, as well as practice every day language in order to achieve and make progress
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.
There has been nearly 100% improvement in data collection for teachers who began implementing Benchmark assessments and Unit Checkpoints. Many teachers don't have the time or capacity to create their own data tracking tools - if it's not provided, it falls through the cracks.
When content is applicable, Unique Learning System saves on planning time immensely. It is a grab and go resource, but also customizable based on student needs.
I like how the checkpoints are modeled in a similar fashion to our Florida Alternate Assessment. This helps students practice how to test take throughout the year.
