Hi All,
I take Dr. Godsall at his word that his faculty use intensively and extensively all (or most) of the options available in the Blackboard System. That is a persuasive argument in favor of keeping the Blackboard as it is now. So, I am in favor of keeping it is as it is now. By that I mean, I hope that any additional changes will be made in such a way that the elements of the BB that the rest of us use will not change in the future. That way we can use what we want and we will not have to struggle with a new system.
One reply I received to my earlier e-mail about this subject asked if I had attended the learning sessions that Bill Villberg’s office runs. There are a lot of these and I simply am too busy to attend them all, but I did attend one about 3 years ago. And I don’t want to have attend a new one each year to learn a new system. By the time I got done with that session I attended 3 years ago, I had spent a total of 3 hours (including travel time). That person must have more time than I do. This system should be intuitive enough so a person who wants to use it for basic communication (e.g. adding documents, sending e-mails to students, listing reading assignments, and posting and calculating grades) should be able to do that once they have learned it once.
In fact, I can use the basics because I just relearned them again. So, I suggest that BB’s basic operations be left as they are now, with any future add-ons being added in such a way that they don’t disrupt or change what most of us already know and do. If we learn how to use the basic operations of this system once, that should be enough to continue effectively using it. If some of us are interested in the more advanced options, we can attend Bill’s seminars to learn more about them as they become available.
Thomas D. Boswell
Department of Geography & Regional Studies
University of Miami
Coral Gables, Florida 33124-2221
(786) 417-6003
TBoswell@Miami.edu
From: UM Blackboard Announcements [mailto:BB@LISTSERV.MIAMI.EDU] On Behalf Of Godsall, Lyndon Peter
Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2012 11:00 AM
To: BB@LISTSERV.MIAMI.EDU
Subject: [BB] Blackboard
At the School of Nursing and Health Studies (SONHS) we use Blackboard extensively for all courses. Our faculty so far have had no issues with the transfer to the latest upgrade and have really embraced the new features such as setting your own theme. One amazing new feature is the ability to neutralize a question in a quiz once it has been deployed. This saves a lot of time as we give multiple quizzes through Blackboard each week. From my perspective the whole look and feel of the software has improved greatly.
Another tool we use extensively in BB is the WIKI feature which actively promotes collaborative learning. Our students have produced some excellent examples of WIKIs and faculty enjoyed breaking away from the PowerPoint trap. Students have enjoyed the ability to collaborate easily and faculty have noted that they were able to see the process and evolution of student work and participation.
The SONHS runs an "online" certificate for Nurse Educators. The program is a series of four courses designed to be delivered totally online. All courses use most features of BB including WIKIS, BLOGS, JOURNALS. We embed video and include other multimedia features and learning objects. We also use BB's Collaborate video conferencing tool to hold weekly seminars where the whole lesson is delivered "live" online. One of the courses, NUR551 won a national award for exemplary design. This was a great honor as only a few courses from various universities are chosen each year. Additionally the faculty member teaching that course won the Sloan award for exemplary online teaching. There is only one winner each year.
Here at the SONHS we use BB extensively for all our programs and orientations. For example we have Pre-Immersion Orientations that are given to our students totally online before they arrive on campus to prepare them for our fast pace traditional courses. All this is done in BB and when the students arrive on campus they are already familiar with the BB software and have also made a connection with us. We have online orientations for our Masters and Doctor of Nursing Practice programs and we make extensive use of the ORGANIZATION feature within BB. We have organizations that serve as resource centers for all our programs and more…
If you have read down this far you are probably thinking WOW! Someone asked if anyone uses all the features and I can answer yes we do! When we see something that does not make sense or a feature that is not working we either call over to our wonderful BB team at UM or sometimes send a suggestion to BB who do listen to ideas from their customers.
Here are some questions you may wish to ponder:
How do you do all of that?
How come your faculty are not experiencing the same issues?
Is it BB's fault?
Is the upgrade to a really sophisticated piece of software that bad?
No matter what your views on teaching and learning, the whole experience is changing and academic technology is here to stay. Students entering grade schools could not imagine a time without the Internet and being five steps away from a computer that is online. Everyone is connected through computers, smart phones and other devices…
My suggestion would be to look around your school and determine if you have the support needed to maximize the technology you have available. With a good support team you probably would be much further ahead with your use of academic technology and would be utilizing the services and equipment we have available at UM. We have some incredible academic technology resources at UM and nothing much is going to happen unless you have support to use it. If someone suddenly put a bassoon in your office would you be likely to have mastered it by the end of the month with no instruction? The SONHS decided to put a support structure in place and students and faculty have reaped the rewards.
Lyndon Godsall Ed.D, Ed.S, M.Ed, B.Ed
Instructional Designer
305-284-2710 Office
954-647-4634 Cell
