The verdict, announced this afternoon, allows Blackboard Inc. to demand a ban on sales of Desire2Learn’s products in the United States.

[From TheRecord.com - News - Local: Jury rules against Desire2Learn in patent case ]

—-

I cannot help but wonder why this patent has not been invalidated. There has to be innumerable examples of this actually occurring in universities before blackboad, and beyond that, the patent does not seem to be particularly innovative in context, it seems to me to be mapping practices, but hey that’s my opinion, and the court disagrees.

A colleague brought up the recent inquiry on technology in the classroom here which led to my general use of high technology in the classroom as found below:

me:

10:33 way back when i started teaching

10:34 my colleagues introduced me to the most handy bit of kit

10:34 it’s called a codex

10:34 it is a collection of paper bound at the edge with glue or other means

10:34 now quite amazingly… you’d think that this bit of technical kit, well, it’s useless.

10:35 but people have appropriated it and filled it with all kinds of things, pictures, drawings, and words

10:35 some people have even taken the explicit step of ordering these things, pictures and words in a way that apparently is intended to convey meaning

interlocutor:

10:36 well that’s crazy

me:

10:36 and i’m like ‘holy cow!’

10:36 you mean someone

10:36 has gathered all their knowledge on a topic

10:36 and put it in a codex

10:36 and students can get hold of this thing

10:36 isn’t that dangerous?

interlocutor:

10:36 HORRIBLY DANGEROUS

me:

10:36 i mean what if it tells them how to skip class

10:37 or worse, how to fold their graded assignments in to lewd origami?

interlocutor:

10:37 I’m shocked and apalled

me:

10:37 but then i saw one of these things, and tried to use it in class

10:37 and OMG

10:37 the students that could read and spent time reading it…

10:37 their performance improved dramatically

10:37 no more did they just have to reiterate what i said before

10:38 though that is always appreciated, and some still strive for that

10:38 they could actually ‘interpret the meanings’ in the codex and occasionally you find one or two that will combine those meanings with other meanings and actually teach me something

10:38 man… that’s scary

10:39 but it adds a new exciting edge to the classroom

10:39 so… technology in the classroom, it’s great!

interlocutor:

10:41 I dunno

10:41 it sounds…dangerous

me:

10:42 well, I have to admit that it is actually slightly less dangerous than having the students re-enact the lessons of history with pointed sticks and rocks, though that was all in all very learning intensive on many levels