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About Blackboard™
Blackboard is generally regarded as a friendly and versatile platform, which offers staff and students means to use a wealth of online resources (e.g. message-boards, web-pages, CAL applications, notes, visual and audio clips, communication facilities). It is viewed as highly accessible even for those with limited C&IT experience; and, for enthusiasts (prepared to give it some time) course-building can accelerate rapidly from basic information to setting up online activities, or even assessment and virtual seminars. At
Durham, introduced by the Learning Technologies Team, it spread
quickly throughout departments; and the university has been held
up as a flag-ship user. (See case-study here and LTT team pages
for more. 1. It requires no expert knowledge or competence in web-design. Anyone who can use a word-processor or send an email with an attachment, we were told, can put material on duo. 2. Individual 'instructors' (as Blackboard labels us) can use as few or as many of the facilities as desired. The view to the left is what the student sees. The instructor also has access to a 'Control Panel', a behind-the-scenes area, from which to change the headings and appearance of the main buttons; and, best of all, to switch off those which he or she does not yet want to use. 3. The 'time-release' facilities. Unlike a web-page, you can hide your efforts until you feel they are presentable; or you can add material when you have a chance and tick date boxes for the system to release it to students at the appropriate point in the module. 4. The module-specific access --only students, tutors and specified observers can view material on each site (some also saw this as a disadvantage).
'Potential' What follows is a more detailed description of what we saw as Blackboard's potential when we were first shaping our project. It speaks well of the system that it has lived up to its promise, and enabled us to carry out most of what we hoped for here. The VLE has potential for enhancing teaching and learning in many areas. Examples include:
i. Staff: Duo greatly facilitates communication between staff and all their students, and between members of staff supporting large modules. E.g. enabling easy sharing of resources between mentors and new or part-time colleagues, or between subject-convenors and support teachers (an especial advantage on our newly split-site accommodation); offering support and a professional community to postgraduate and post-doctoral assistants; providing a way for colleagues on leave or fellowships to keep in touch with the department and to contribute resources while away from the university. ii. Students: To be part of an on-line community would have immense benefits for new students, helping to involve them more quickly in the larger life of the department and the subject; similarly, categories of student 'outside' the resident undergraduate community (e.g. distance-learners, research postgraduates, students with long-term difficulties or illness, students spending time away on Erasmus schemes) would find this an invaluable way of participating and remaining integrated with the department and the student body; students seeking to share books or otherwise track down resources would find a powerful ready-made and secure 'self-help' group on this system. For the less well organised, duo also offers a personal 'time-management' and reminder system. Above all, the VLE is a powerful tool in developing students' responsibility for their own learning. 2. Information, resources and activities. The scheme makes all course materials widely available and allows staff to build up resources, to be 'time-released' when needed. 'External links' enable local materials to be enriched by the world of the web, made readily accessible to staff and students through their own customised portal. The system makes it particularly easy to set up and activate learning projects based on the web (e.g. on searchable texts, shared writing, e-journals). 3. Debate. Interactive elements are a major feature. The discussion room and live 'chat-room' areas offer exciting possibilities for involving students in learning from each other. Duo allows a module convenor to enable anonymous contributions: this option might positively help more diffident students begin to find a voice in debate, as well as erasing the differences of gender, age, assurance, social codings etc. which may also obstruct face-to-face seminar discussion, especially in the early days of a module. The web-forum also encourages students themselves to initiate new 'strands' of debate, perhaps beyond those manageable in a seminar. The facilities for sharing work in the 'groups' and 'whiteboard' sections offer innovative ways of preparation, beyond the conventional individual 'student presentation', and, again, allow students work co-operatively, even from a distance. Once the system is being fully used, staff or students might find the confidence to use the 'chat room', to arrange 'live' guest interviews, e.g. with writers or critics, or with English Studies students elsewhere. Former students, now working in subject-related areas (e.g. publishing, journalism, teaching, research), might also be willing to share their long-term experiences of English, as a guest in the discussion group. 4. Assessment. The project does not anticipate venturing far into web-based assessment at present, but module convenors may well wish to use the site for support materials, guidelines, etc. and to exploit the 'drop-in' facilities for easy sharing of essay plans, supervision comments etc. Duo has great potential as a starting-point for 'alternative' forms of assessment, e.g. take-away papers, or group projects; and in the time-span of the project, would be a useful focus for our continuing TLC discussions of such topics. |
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