As it is Back 2 School for many students and teachers that also means it’s Back to Blackboard for some. What better way to go Back to School with the new and improved Blackboard Mobile Learn app available in the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store.
So what is new in the Blackboard Mobile Learn 4.0 App you may ask? Other than a completely redesigned UI, the Blackboard Mobile Team has put the power of customization in our hands. You maybe thinking “In the old app I had been able to favorite courses and organizations and organize them the way I wanted. What more could there be?” Blackboard has just taken it to a whole new level. If your institution uses the Blackboard course name to provide the Course Time, Location and Teacher information it may seem very disorganized and very overwhelming to see all that information when you launch the app, problem solved. You can now rename the course name, you don’t even have to use any words in the course name, it could be anything you want. It could even be “My Favorite Class.” That is pretty cool, but wait, if you are a person that loves to color code things you can assign a unique color to up to ten courses. The one downside is that there is no “Sync” feature available, so if you have multiple devices you will have to update the customizations on each of your devices. Favorites has a whole new meaning, instead of favoring a course you can now favorite course items so they appear at the top of the course menu.
Never miss a thing: A feature already available in Mobile Learn is Push Notifications. Students can opt-in to receive automatic notifications straight to their device when new content is available. A student can be notified when a Test is Available, Due or Overdue, an Announcement is Available, Class/Organization is Available, an Item has been graded and when new content is available. All seven notification options are turned on by default, but can be adjusted within the App Settings.
Information at your fingertips, everywhere you go: Not only can you view content within the app, you can import that content straight to your personal Dropbox account. The Dropbox integration is embedded directly into the app, you can upload and download content without even leaving the app.