It’s March—Time to Build Your Blackboard Bracket

It’s March, and that means one thing—time for college basketball! As March rolls into North America, the higher education community and basketball fans everywhere prepare for the frenzy of the NCAA college basketball tournament. This nail-biting, jaw-dropping basketball tournament takes place every spring and is known for its high energy and excitement. With all the new innovations and features in Blackboard®, your product marketing friends here at Anthology thought it would be fun to bring that level of excitement to our Blackboard community, inspired by one of our customers—Schoolcraft College. They came up with a fun and creative idea: creating a basketball tournament-style bracket, but with a twist—this bracket is all about showcasing to faculty and staff the latest Blackboard innovations.




We liked this idea so much that we decided to share it with all of you, our Blackboard community. We hope you think of it as a fun way to promote awareness of the latest Blackboard innovations. Every new innovative feature is a winner—let’s make sure everyone is taking advantage of all the latest and greatest technology available at their fingertips.

A big thank you to Adam Authier, Director of Academic Innovation at Schoolcraft College, and Carly Byrne, Instructional Technologist at Schoolcraft College, for sharing their idea with the Blackboard team.



Make Your Own Blackboard Bracket


A Blackboard Bracket is a perfect way to make learning about Blackboard’s newest tools a fun and interactive experience this tournament season. Here's how it works:

• Select your features: There are so many great teams in college basketball, but only the top teams make the playoffs. Blackboard innovation is no different. There are so many great innovations to select from—you can use the What’s New in Blackboard blogs to pick your top features.
• Build your bracket: Find a great, free online bracket-making tool. You can use polltab.com, challonge.com, battlefy.com, or others. Remember, every jaw-dropping Blackboard feature is a winner; this is simply for fun.
• Share the bracket: Write a short email to faculty and staff about the Blackboard Bracket with a description of each Blackboard feature and how to play.

Ensuring your faculty and staff are aware of the latest Blackboard features and innovations ensures that you and your team are providing the best possible experience to students. If you want a quick way to get started, check out our Blackboard Bracket Quick-Start Guide with email templates, suggested features, and more. Ready to Play?

Let’s bring the March basketball energy to Blackboard and see which features win the crown of innovation!

We hope you have an amazing March, and good luck to all the NCAA Basketball Tournament teams!

Visit the What’s New in Blackboard blogs to explore product updates and enhancements.




Carisa Stringer
Vice President of Product Marketing
Anthology