BUILDING BETTER K-20 BRIDGES
Policymakers want to track student progress and hold higher ed accountable for learning and performance. School districts want to get more help for resource-starved schools, and colleges want to see students who are better prepared to do college-level work and persist until they've completed their degrees. Blackboard draws all those interests together with a new initiative it unveiled recently at the Educause conference in Seattle. It is called K-20 Connection and, using Blackboard technology, it provides a way for schools and colleges to create virtual learning communities that collaborate by forming panels, writing papers and sharing best practices. In announcing the project, Blackboard president for higher education Peter Segall cited "financial considerations for statewide approaches to learning infrastructure," according to Inside Higher Ed, an online newspaper. Another benefit: It helps set students on a path to lifelong learning.

TECHNOLOGY INTEL TO GO
For a fast update on what's hot in technology news, go to http://coursecasts.course.com. You can download weekly news reports prepared by Florida State University professor (and United Faculty of Florida/AFT member) Ken Baldauf. He culls dozens of online news sources to find the latest and most relevant technology stories, and explains what they mean and why it matters. The Web site also has a special section for instructors. Recent stories have included P2P battles, Yahoo's China troubles, IBM and cloud computing, and more.

ILLINOIS GOES GLOBAL
After a year of planning by administrators and faculty, the University of Illinois is launching the U of I Global Campus, a for-profit college that will cater to adult learners seeking professional education. Despite its international sounding name, officials say, the online school will serve mostly state residents who, for whatever reason, can't attend classes on campus but want the quality they associate with the state's flagship institution. But will they find the same quality in an institution that won't be using full-time faculty and won't award tenure to its teaching staff?