Hacker News Reader

Comment by seabee | Hacker News Reader

Not sure how true that really is in Blackboard's market, given their use of software patents to attack competition.

As far as getting good software into education, you're fighting both your competition and the establishment. Not an enviable position. Most of my experiences with how UK schools procure their IT equipment and software have reminded me of 'enterprisey' corporations and the disconnect between purchasers and buyers. (At least their excuse is they have neither enough time or money to do a good job.)

View on HN

I feel a similar way. My other half is a teacher, and every time I've looked at the software systems she uses (in the UK) I'm appalled. I've identified a few software tools which would make teachers lives much better and easier, based on problems she actually has. Are they hard to build? Not that hard. Could I get them in to schools? Not a chance.

Approved bidders, closed lists, hugely expensive bidding processes, it's calculated to keep the market sewn up by the education IT vendors (usual suspects, Capita, Fujitsu, etc.)

At a time when the UK is looking to save money, the state of school software provisioning is shameful on multiple levels.

Also we have to keep in mind sometimes incompetent IT people are in charge. We had a grad who came back and designed a software for the entire school (potentially district) to use.

Although it's in place, it's been severely restricted due to irrational concerns over security and other illogical arguments. In order for the buying to even occur (keep in mind this was free for the school), there must be knowledgeable IT people in charge.

This is a much smaller scale here since it was for a high school instead of a college, but you'd be surprised at how incompetent people can be.

Right now in the IT people I work under at the university are smart, but lightyears behind when it comes to good user interfaces and the latest technologies.

This seems to be why people don't go into educational software. Educational software doesn't win because it's the best, it wins because a bureaucrat mandates it for use.

I am in education during the day and we write software for our campus using cutting edge tools and technology, but only for "non administrative" things.

It was decided well above my pay grade that grade checking, admissions, financial aid, registration, and online courses would use Oracle, PeopleSoft and Desire2Learn.

Your assessment is 100% accurate.

Wow. That patent that they use: 6,988,138 - "Internet Based Education Support System and Methods" reads like "If anyone uses a web app using industry standard design patterns in the sphere of education they owe us money."

It seems like you can use that patent as a template and just replace 'education' with the human interaction of your choice and have just as 'valid' a patent.

Ditto. Having been on a team that developed a CMS for a school (tmedweb.tulane.edu), I have never met a group so intrenched in the status quo as a curriculum committee.

> Current e-learning platforms ... are riddled with unattractive and unusable interfaces that are counterintuitive. This presents a problem to the teachers who are less likely to create content for students, but also for the students themselves.

Yes, yes, yes. Somebody, please weather the Blackboard onslaught and fix this.

But who would do that? The risk is too high. People with the right approach lack the money and lawyers to weather the storm. For example, I really doubt that you and I, working together, could get investors to back a project to rival BB because of the risk involved.

That's why I don't bother with my idea. Nobody would be dumb enough to fund it and I can't scrounge up the cash I'd need to fortify the defenses.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com