| Blackboard Inc. and LAMS announced the availability of the LAMS Blackboard Building Block, a unique software application for designing, managing and delivering online collaborative learning activities. This new Building Block provides instructors with an intuitive drag and drop authoring tool for creating learning activities for students. Using the LAMS Building Block instructors can design individual tasks, small group activities and whole class activities then organize them in sequence for students to collaborate and learn.
The LAMS Building Block seamlessly integrates with Blackboard and is available for download, free of charge in the Blackboard Building Blocks catalogue at http://www.blackboard.com/extend/b2/. Blackboard Building Blocks are third party applications which enable academic institutions to extend and customize their Blackboard(R) application.
"The LAMS Building Block is a prime example of open source and Blackboard working together towards the common goal of enhancing education," said Matthew Pittinsky, Chairman of Blackboard. "This new tool clearly demonstrates that open source and corporate developed/supported software do not and should not be mutually exclusive of each other; but instead can work side by side to create an end result greater than the sum of the individual parts. It is tremendously exciting to work with LAMS to facilitate this kind of cutting edge functionality."
Nanyang Technological University in Singapore is the first academic institution to utilize this new tool.
"Our LAMS integration within Blackboard has enabled us to package our distance education offerings and provide more stimulating and engaging interaction," said Paul Gagnon, Senior Deputy Director of the Centre for Educational Development at Nanyang Techological University. "Lectures are videotaped, chunked, inserted within a LAMS activity and surrounded with a variety of interactive strategies. We are still in our infancy with this technology but are very excited about the vistas it opens."
Blackboard provides the e-Learning platform used by colleges and universities across the country and abroad. LAMS provides open source software for the education market across all sectors to design and deliver collaborative lessons over the Internet. Blackboard and LAMS together will provide greater convenience and easier access to educational resources to the members of academic institutions around the world.
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