Amazing educational platform! Would not use exclusively, but in tandem it's great!
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We use Blackboard Collaborate to provide students with digital spaces for online classes. Often times we pair Blackboard Collaborate with other platforms in order to provide an in-depth classroom experience for students. We started using Blackboard Collaborate early since the beginning of the pandemic, and after we entered normal classes we kept on using it for online collaborations with other schools, and for certain school meetings.
Pros
- It allows you to manage your teams very efficiently.
- The platform is very good for maintaining a well coordinated environment for workshops.
- It allows the organizer of events program a schedule for meetings, or set up a permanent meeting space.
Cons
- I think there is room for improvement when it comes to the share-screen function. While I prefer it to some other online meeting platforms, videos do have a distinct drop in video and audio quality when buffering in a different computer.
- The connection display does not always reflect an accurate image of guest's internet connection. I love the feature that allows you to see which participants are struggling with their internet, so as to avoid involving them as much until their issue is solved; yet it doesn't always reflect their status.
- I would love it if they implemented more reactions for participants in the platform.
- An area that I see with a lot of potential is related to how many users can display their video on the main event screen.
Likelihood to Recommend
I would say it is very useful for group collaborations online, as well as virtual classrooms where you wish your students/guests to collaborate in an adaptable environment; however I would advise against using the shared screen to display audio or video, nor would I encourage the use of the shared board with a group of people with disciplinary issues (as there is no accountability for who wrote/drew what).
