Wikipedia Article Challenges Blackboard Patent Claims

History of virtual learning environments – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Word that I have stopped blogging because I’ve been curled up in the fetal position in response to Ted Stevens tubes speech and the moronic decision by the US Patent office to give BlackBoard a patent on virtual learning environments is not quite true. I’ve been working on a number of other projects that are nearing completion and that will be making up a little space for playing around in the blogosphere. (I seldom spend more than a couple of hours a day in the fetal position regardless of any particular day’s insanity.)

One bright spot in the BlackBoard fiasco has been watching the growth of the this Wikipedia site on the “prior art” of the LMS’s and other virtual learning tools. In just a couple of weeks the site has gone from this to a fully blown chronicle of the history of virtual learning tools. Hard too imagine collecting this much data using Microsoft Word’s track changes feature!