Fortnightly Mailing

The future of learning and technology

Here is a candid, authoritative and reflective 25 minute talk by BP's Nick Shackleton-Jones, with plenty of memorable lines that will stick in your mind. The focus is on "corporate learning", but Nick's views are relevant much more widely.

Blackboard agrees to be acquired by an investor group led by Providence Equity Partners

In April 2011 announced that it was considering proposals from would-be buyers, appointing Barclays Capital to help it decide what to do. I was away on holiday for two weeks from late in June, and have been reading some of the commentary about Blackboard's decision to be acquired i.e. to move from being a publicly quoted company to a privately held one. Providence Equity Partners have wide interests in education, media and telecommunications businesses. Some are complementary, for example Sungard and Ascend Learning; others are rather less so, for example Warner Music Group, AutoTrader, and the World Triathlon Corporation.

Here are three informative posts commenting on the change, which, if it goes through, will take effect later this year:

2 July 2011 - Investment bankers and Blackboard's Future - by Jim Farmer;

7 July 2011 - Blackboard's Next Chapter - by Ray Henderson, president of the company's teaching and learning division, Blackboard Learn;

14 July 2011 - The Blackboard acquisition - two views - by Michael Feldstein.