Image by cromulent2k via Flickr

Blackboard is one more online operation that has successfully sold itself very well, but tends to function poorly in all but the most idealized circumstances. While it has improved over time and has a great idea behind it, often far better functionality can be achieved on an instructor’s own website. When an individual person can produce something superior to a large, nationwide network, it gives one pause to wonder how it can be publicly traded.

The Internet is a place where a lot of education goes on. Right now people all over the world are learning all sorts of things. A person can learn how to parallel park, how to disable an attacker in three easy steps, or even how to make a really mean quiche. The educational opportunities online are limited only by what you’re searching for. From that point onward, it really is all about how ambitious you are and what you want to find. Unfortunately, Blackboard has tried to take universities and align them with resources it has trouble delivering.

While the Internet has grown into a lush garden of knowledge, sites like Blackboard try to keep things contained. Instead of trying to have a tightly confined network, a site like Blackboard would do better to make more efficient use of the existing cloud. From there, it could even link into a teacher’s own website, and make use of materials it doesn’t have to maintain. Once a site adapts to using the Internet as the massive stockpile of information it is, there are typically a lot less problems with keeping it all together and properly functioning.