Monday, June 4, 2012

Idaho Digital Learning Wins Blackboard Catalyst Award


Idaho Digital Learning was named a winner of the Blackboard Catalyst Award for Staff Development, which honors those members of the community who use Blackboard solutions to create, support and enhance faculty and staff development skills, providing a better organization-wide learning experience.

The Staff Development Award is part of the annual Blackboard Catalyst Awards program. Recognized at both the program and individual level, winners are acknowledged for implementing effective and creative ways to support faculty that went beyond a help desk. Several of the highlighted programs shared and created course content for entire program usage, leveraged tools effectively to internally support their programs and provided innovative training methods for faculty and staff.

The Blackboard Catalyst Awards program annually recognizes and honors innovation and excellence in the Blackboard global community of practice, where teachers and learners work every day to redefine what is possible when leveraging technology.

"I am excited that we have been able to develop a program that allows teachers at various levels of experience and skill to improve upon their craft. Our goal was to create a program that would meet each teacher at their level with content focused on technology, pedagogy, best practices, and institution updates. This award recognizes our attempt to do so and reaffirms our motivation to continue to enhance our professional development program. I most humbly and graciously accept this award on behalf of IDLA," said Jeff Simmons, Idaho Digital Learning’s Instructional Manager.

“We applaud the Blackboard Catalyst Award winners and their accomplishments,” said Ray Henderson, Chief Technology Officer and President of Academic Platforms for Blackboard.  “Their work represents some of the most innovative thinking in education today, and offers great models for how technology can help shape an improved education experience. We congratulate the award winners for their leadership, creativity and passion that is clearly evident in their work.”

Idaho Digital Learning will be honored alongside other Blackboard Catalyst Award winners during BbWorld®, Blackboard’s annual user conference to be held in July in New Orleans, La.  

Blackboard is a global leader in enterprise technology and innovative solutions that improve the experience of millions of students and learners around the world every day. Blackboard’s solutions allow thousands of higher education, K-12, professional, corporate and government organizations to extend teaching and learning online.

For a complete list of Blackboard Catalyst Award winners please visit: http://blackboard.com/catalyst.

Idaho Digital Learning was established as Idaho's state virtual school by the Idaho Legislature in 2002.  The state virtual school serves 100% of Idaho School districts at over 17,500 enrollments in 2011-2012. Idaho Digital Learning is a nationally recognized program that was ranked 3rd in the U.S. for Online Learning Policy and Practice (Center for Digital Education, 2008) and is currently the fourth largest State Virtual School in the United States based on statewide per capita online enrollments (Keeping Pace, 2011)

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