If you’ve ever heard of Dropbox then you can think of Blackboard Drive as an awkward cousin. Blackboard Drive creates drive (like the C:\ drive) which allows users to easier manage files and folders that are stored online in the Content Collection.
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Click on the image or here to view a video to watch me using Blackboard Drive and WebDAV.
Institutions already using Blackboard Learn or Vista/CE could leverage their existing system to popup an easily accessible content management system for the university. Think about how you share and backup files right now? Sending emails, sharing usb drives, mapping windows or mac network shares? Try sticking a usb stick into your iPad. Using Blackboard Drive with the Content Collection could potentially simplify and standardize how users share files within the university.
There are other hidden benefits too: backups and accessibility. Any flies you put in the Content Collection is backed up so you can worry more about making files than loosing them. Your files are accessible anywhere via the Internet by just logging into Blackboard normally and browsing to the files stored on the website.
It turns out that you can use Blackboard Drive to map other (Blackboard unrelated) webdav servers to help offset the cost of storage space.
Granted you don’t get the benefit of the Blackboard CMS, but you could leverage other tools that support WebDAV, e.g HTTP Commander. This all boils down to a useful combination of tools to enhance education. The teacher spends less time on focused on technology (with questions like, how do I share my files?) and more time teaching.