Ask Dr. C's > ADC Blog

Nine Things to Like About Blackboard 9 (3 Comments)

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 06:08:05 +0000

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There was a recent thread on the BBADMIN ASU listserv entitled "Advantages of BB9" and there were several posts related to it. This is timely as well for our college as we are getting ready to begin a pilot, and to begin to plan for our upgrade timeline from Blackboard version 8. A couple of posts from Gene Kleppinger, Eastern Kentucky University, and Donna Wicks from Kettering University contained a good set of noteworthy features.

In addition, there was a good discussion too on the BLKBRD ASU listserv entitled "Blackboard Upgrade- new questions", where Corrie Bergeron from Lakeland Community College compiled a wide array of Blackboard 9 Resources...

Building off from the ASU lists, I've attempted to summarize nine of my favorite Bb 9 features here:

1. Edit in Place

The ability to easily edit the course menu and switch back and forth between student and instructor view saves time. Instructors also no longer need to switch to a separate control panel to perform course editing functions.

2. New User Interface

Inline receipts replace the "OK" and click through workflow thereby significantly reducing clicks. In addition, there is drag and drop functionality providing a more natural editing process. CSS can be also heavily customized for more flexibility in design and colors.

3. Multiple Attempt and Group Assignments

Assignments can be created to allow students to re-submit an assignment without the instructor having to "reset" their attempt. What's more, faculty can also create a group assignment with a single group grade.

4. Group Tool

A new group tool provides a suite of enhanced features to better create, manage, and track group work. Students can even create their own groups and access group assignments, journals, or blogs.

5. Journal/Blog

These new built-in tools provide a way for students to record private communications and reflections with their instructor through the Journal tool, and a public view of work through the new Blog tool.

6. My Places

My Places provides a landing page for faculty and students with a qiuck way of accessing courses, organizations, and other settings. Users can also add an avatar that appears in certain areas such as blogs.

7. Notification Dashboards

Notifications allow faculty and students to see what is new, what is due, to do, alerts and when new assignments or tests are needing grading and more. These notifications can also be sent via email.

8. Course Portal and Home Page

Courses can have a start page that provides a portal like environment with various modules, instead of the typical announcements list. Items such as announcements, what's new, calendar, and tasks as well as other modules can appear on the course home page.

9. Community System Tab Groups

As more and more content is brought into the learning system from other sources, more organization is needed. Tab groups allow additional organization option by grouping a set of tabs together.

What are your favorites? What am I missing? Please comment below!

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Blackboard Release 9

Twitter away in your Blackboard course (2 Comments)

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 03:11:59 +0000

Blog Post by Bob Boufford

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Everyone recognizes Twitter as a valuable means of communication and social networking. The 140 character microblog format of Twitter is being adapted to many educational uses as can be seen in “50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Education”, other blogs and tweets. A “google” of “twitter educational use” will bring up scores of other articles and blog posts.

In a Blackboard course, Twitter can be used as another form of announcements, mini-blogs as companions to the Blog and Journal tools, for priming discussions, short writing assignments, commentaries on presentations (“backchannels”) and instant polls or surveys.

Of course, the next step, is how does one get a Twitter feed into a Blackboard course. Fortunately, there are a few different techniques ranging from posting a Web Link URL to using some of the widgets that are available for other social networking sites. There are also some limitations that we need to be aware of when incorporating Twitter feeds into a course.

First, all the Twitter feeds and widgets require an account to be on the public timeline. A recommendation from educational Twitterati is to create a separate Twitter account for your course or educational activities and reserve your personal Twitter account for “outside the classroom”. Many instructors create a Twitter account based on the course code and school name initials.

There are several ways to add Twitter to your course. It will depend on the version of Blackboard as to where you can place the Twitter link or widget and how you would like Twitter viewed by the students.

Twitter web links

One of the easiest ways to add Twitter to a course is by posting a web link. All Twitter accounts can be viewed with the web link URL: http://twitter.com/<twitter_username>. All Blackboard versions support web links with some minor adjustments. With Blackboard Vista/Campus Edition, students can even add web links to their own Twitter accounts.

Blackboard Vista 4-8/Campus Edition 6-8 – Add the Twitter URL as a web link in the Web Link tool with “Open in a new browser window” due to refresh issues when displaying in a browser frame.

Blackboard Learn 9.0 – Add the Twitter URL as a “Create External Link” under the Content Build when in the Edit Mode. Set the “Open in New Window” option due to refresh issues when displaying in a browser frame.

Blackboard LS/AS 6.3-8.0 “Classic” – Add the Twitter URL as an “External Link” while in “Edit View” of any content area. Set the “Open in New Window” option due to refresh issues when displaying in a browser frame.

Twitter web links can also be added to any web pages or other content pages such as discussions, and blog or journal entries. As with posting web links in other content areas, set any “Open in New Window” option to display the Twitter feed correctly.

Twitter widgets

Even though it takes a little more work to set up, Twitter widgets provide a dynamic display unlike web links that are static unless the page is constantly refreshed.

There are currently two widgets that will be of use in a Blackboard course. The first is a Profile Widget that is a dynamic Flash or HTML version for displaying a Twitter feed. After choosing some simple settings, you can grab the source code for pasting into various places in a Blackboard course. The basic HTML-based profile widget can be found at http://twitter.com/goodies/widget_profile while another Flash-based or HTML-based profile widget is available at http://twitter.com/widgets.

The second is a Search widget that allows you to enter any query to bring up all tweets that match the query. A good example is using “#bbworld09” to see all the tweets posted during and after the recent BbWorld09 conference in Washington DC. By encouraging your students to add a tag or keyword in their tweets such as “#<coursename>”, their tweets can be included in the widget. The search widget can be found at http://twitter.com/goodies/widget_search

Blackboard Vista 4-8/Campus Edition 6-8 – The easiest place to add a widget is in the home page or folder organizer page footer. Here’s a YouTube video from Manchester Community College, USA on how to add a Twitter widget to the page footer of a Blackboard Vista course: Add a Twitter Widget in Blackboard Vista. The other option is to build a quick content web page and insert the code into the page.

Blackboard LS/AS 6.3-8.0 “Classic” and Blackboard Learn 9.0 – There is no page footers to insert the widget so it appears in the Home page at this time. The best option is to create an Announcement and paste the code right into announcement message body with the Visual Editor turned off. The other place is to create a content item in a content area, pasting the code into the Text field with the Visual Editor turned off.

Update: Some Blackboard administrators found the Twitter widget causes resources issues with their Blackboard servers. As an alternative, use the Twitter web link instead of the Twitter widget.

Enjoy tweeting in your Blackboard course…

Building a Better Blackboard... the value of the BIE

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 23:21:20 +0000

Blog Post by Eric Kunnen

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It's a rewarding experience to be part of the Blackboard Idea Exchange (BIE). In short, the BIE is a community of Blackboard clients that share input and feedback with Blackboard. The BIE provides individuals and institutions with a unique channel of communication with Blackboard as well as the ability to:

share best practices with with peers around the world,
provide feature and functionality requests directly to Blackboard,
participate in product development partnerships and focus groups,
engage in the testing of new capabilities,
join early release and beta programs,
and to discuss strategic direction and current issues facing education.

This week, I had the honor and the amazing opportunity to be involved in the BIE Steering Committee Meeting. This was an outstanding experience that enabled several institutions to come together and participate in a wide array discussions and dialogue around how to improve Blackboard, expand elearning initiatives, improve adoption, and overall share with each other how to leverage Blackboard in a way that contributes to improved faculty effeciency, effectiveness and student success.

Some of the highlights from our meeting this week centered around:

Discussing Current Issues and Trends in Education
Reviewing Project NG and the best of Angel, WebCT, and Blackboard Classic
Sharing Suggestions for New Tools and Features
Improving Support and Maintenance
Expanding Client Programs
Reviewing Best Practices for Change Management
Discovering Innovations in Community Open Source Projects and Blackboard Building Blocks

The Blackboard Idea Exchange is a powerful opportunity to engage directly and work closely with Blackboard on focused topics. The BIE allows clients to better communicate their institution’s needs and build a better relationship with Blackboard.

Are you a BIE member? If not, I would encourage you and your college to join in on the conversation by completing the BIE Application Form. There are multitude benefits, including a unique opportunity to build a better relationship with Blackboard and with other peer institutions from around the world.

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Blackboard Idea Exchange

Reporting: Blackboard and Google Analytics (1 Comment)

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:15:11 +0000

Blog Post by Eric Kunnen

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"How much is Blackboard actually used?" This question is being asked more frequently as college administrators begin to review budgets and work to limit expenditures as the economic downturn is causing everyone to look more closely at software and hardware systems in place on college campuses today.

Blackboard powers the teaching and learning environment and is used for the core business of an institution. A requirement therein is - if this is the case, then how much is the system actually being used?

Since the native reporting tools in Blackboard are limited, one of the tools we have been using on our campus to track usage is Google Analytics. I first came across this idea from Paul Erickson who works at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. He has blogged about his use of Google Analytics on his pheWork blog.

Google Analytics provides a great set of capabilities that allow to measure the visits to your servers, the geographical location of your visitors, their browser, their OS version, their network speed, and all sorts of other interesting information. Best of all, this service is FREE!

So how do you get started measuring your system with Google Analytics?

1. The first step is to setup a Google Analytics account.

2. The next step is to create a profile for your Bb system using the "+ Add new profile" link.

3. When adding your profile, the Google setup wizard will guide you through adding your domain and then present you with a "tracking code".

4. Using the tracking code provided, you will need to place this code on your Blackboard system. It varies as to where you place this code. Some colleges place the code in the header of Blackboard's frameset. I have our system setup with the code in a footer on our Blackboard Community System.

5. Once the Google Analytics application can connect to your site, the system will begin to aggregate data. Reports can be viewed from then Website profiles area.

This data can then be shared with others at your institution as one metric that can help you share with your administrators and colleagues at your campus as to how valuable Blackboard is from a "hits" standpoint. Here are some sample reports that I have assembled from our usage on our campus. While these reports don't tell you what exactly is happening inside of your Blackboard environment from a teaching and learning perspective, these data do demonstrate how frequently your server is being accessed on a day to day basis.

How do you measure "hits" to your Blackboard system on your campus?

Course Section/Server Backups

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 22:01:37 +0000

Blog Post by Brian Morgan

Creating backups of Blackboard course sections and all data on a server are two very distinct operations. Even though each may be handled by different individuals, both can be just as important in maintaining the integrity of the educational process when using Blackboard products. Many schools allow instructors to create backups of their own course sections for archival purposes while others’ IT staffs will perform this action for the course instructors. Complete server backups are typically the purview of the IT staff on a campus, but in a shared hosting environment, it may be up the responsibility of the host to do the backup.

For example, at Marshall University, archives and removes sections from their production server 18 months after the term’s completion. Instructors, however, can make a backup of their section and download it for archiving purposes at any time.

The Utah Education Network (UEN), which hosts Vista for most of the higher education institutions in Utah allows institutions to create 2 online of each section. At the end of each semester, they work with each institution to create batch backups of sections and make them available for download via SFTP. They also coordinate mass deletion of sections by institutions to not overwhelm database garbage collection.

Because each school/installation offers varying options and policies regarding backups, take some time to share with us your campus’ backup plans/policies.

27 second web page scans- is your content ready? (1 Comment)

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 03:11:52 +0000

Blog Post by Kevin Reeve

For an upcoming website redesign project I have been reading "Letting Go of the Words - Writing Web Content that Works, by Janice (Ginny) Redish.

One of the first statistics that stuck out to me was this. In a 2006 study, Nielsen and Loranger found that people spend an average of 27 seconds on each web page.

Think about it, only 27 seconds. Wow, that does not seem like very long, but think about it in todays terms of the internet. If you are like me you get very impatient if a web page takes 10 seconds to load.

Lets apply that to e-learning.

A discussion or email. Should a discussion post be short enough to be read in 27 seconds, or perhaps 27 seconds is all a student would spend on an entire thread?

Content pages and instructions - I have not figured out how many lines of text 27 seconds is, but I do no that from my days of audio voice over work that we figured that a page of text double spaced was about 2 minutes per page. I find in my own class that students are not reading the instructions. They keep asking me questions that are in the syllabus. Now the graduate students seem to have this all figured out, but the undergraduate students (at least many of them) do not read, or pay attention.

Another study shows that most people scan web pages, and do not read them. If that is the case, having text contained in small paragraphs of two or three sentences with good headings or topics might be a good way to approach this.

I guess what I am saying is based on what I am reading I am not sure I know the best way to apply this to e-learning just yet.

I would appreciate your ideas on this? What do you think?

Please post your ideas and thoughts.

No student left behind: Academic continuity for your face-to-face courses.

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:20:33 +0000

Blog Post by Bob Boufford

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While preparing for the anticipated flu season is moving forward for many faculty, academic continuity is important at anytime, whether it is for one student or many students. As a former horticulture instructor at a community college where 100% of my students were already working in the landscaping and turf management industries, there were countless times one or more students could not attend class due to work. Academic continuity was important long before the current concerns for the anticipated flu crisis.

First, for those instructors with fully online courses, academic continuity is already there providing students with the opportunity to learn. For those instructors with face-to-face courses, a Blackboard course can provide academic continuity when students do not have the opportunity to attend your face-to-face lectures or labs. This is regardless of the cause of their absence from a lecture or lab.

The first big step is "Plan Ahead". While it may be too late to change much for this term or semester, you can start planning for next term.

1. Learn how to use Blackboard now!

Probably the biggest first step is learn how to use the version of Blackboard at your institution. Even if you do not use Blackboard as part of your face-to-face course right now, at least have some experience navigating in a Blackboard course and adding files to the course. It's better to learn now instead of trying to learn later with "fever, aches, sneezes and wheezes".

This is also a good time to learn how to use some of the other e-learning technologies that are also a component of the on-line course environment. A key one is the supported web conferencing system at the institution such as Elluminate, Wimba, Connect and WebEx, so the instructor can continue to conduct real-time face-to-face lectures.

2. Provide digitial versions of all course materials.

Use a Blackboard course for all course materials and handouts. Since most course materials are now produced on a computer and then printed for distribution to the students in the lecture hall, post a digital copy of the materials in PDF or HTML format in the course.

PDF or HTML formats are recommended as they are the most "web friendly" on almost any device, ranging from standard desktops to web-enabled mobile phones. Avoid putting any materials up in the course in word processor (Word, Pages, Writer, etc) or presentation (PowerPoint, KeyNote, Impress, etc) file formats. If you do need to post an "Office" file, also include an additional version in PDF or HTML format.

3. Provide detailed course learning goals and objectives.

Develop detailed learning goals and objects not only on a course wide level but also on a topic or weekly level. Look at revising your course to follow a modular approach based on topics in a subject area instead of the course as one big unit.

Also, consider providing rubrics or checklists of the detailed learning objectives so students can track their learning progress if they are not able to attend class. The rubrics/checklists can foster self and peer learning through a variety of communication avenues.

4. Create "stand-alone" lectures

Often in lecture, the instructor will talk for about an hour and when the "bell rings" say "Ah, time is up, we will continue at the next lecture". However, the student may not be able to make the "next lecture".

With the detailed learning goals and objectives as a guide, look at developing each lecture as a "stand alone" presentation. Think of each lecture session more like a "conference presentation" with a definite beginning, middle and end.

5. Record all your lectures.

There is no need to do full "taking head" video recordings of the lectures. It can be as simple as an audio recording to a well-developed narrated presentation. Audio recordings or narrated presentations can be done either in the lecture or after lecture. (See Don’t be a Talking Head: Presentation capture not lecture capture") If the instructor cannot or is unable to do full lecture recordings, at least provide short summaries of the lecture such as a five minute wrap-up recording in the office after the lecture.

This is also a good time to start taking advantage of podcasting and the benefits podcasting provides in distributing the recorded presentations to students for listening and viewing on a variety of devices from desktop computers to mobile players. All versions of Blackboard will support placing RSS feeds in a course or provide links to RSS feeds so students can view or download the recorded presentations.

6. Use the Assignment tools in Blackboard

Instead of having students submit all their assignments in print format, use the Assignment Dropbox found in the various versions of Blackboard LS, Learn, Vista and Campus Edition. All the Assignment dropbox tools allow the student to submit digital copies of their work.

If the assignment requires physical works such as a student painting in fine arts course, allow the student to submit digital photos of their work with a requirement to submit the physical works when they can return to campus.

7. Provide online quizzes, tests and exams

If the student cannot take a quiz, test or exam in the face-to-face lecture hall, provide digital versions through a Blackboard course. If there are concerns of academic dishonesty, there are methods for maintaining academic integrity through secure browsers such as Respondus LockDown Browser and SecureSoft Secure Exam along with requiring the student to take the exam in a proctored environment.

Also consider providing several smaller tests on a weekly basis instead of a larger mid-term or final exam. Smaller, weekly tests fit very well when developing detailed learning goals and objectives that follow a modular approach. You might find student learning actually improves while stress levels, which can contribute to getting the flu, will go down.

Engaging Students - Ideas for Doctorate and Masters level courses

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 04:11:50 +0000

Blog Post by Kevin Reeve

Several years ago I was approached by a very experienced and excellent faculty member. He was spearheading a doctoral program that had a mix of online and broadcast type courses. He wanted to brainstorm ideas for changing the way his course worked. You see, it was a once a week 2+ hour course. It was using Blackboard and Adobe Connect to deliver content to the students. He was worried his course had too much of him, and not enough of the students. He was looking for something to spice it up and take it too the next level.

I asked to see the syllabus and we discussed the topics and nature of the course, the type of students who are in the course, and their background. I soon realized that students in this course were experienced working professionals. There were chapters in the book, and case studies to discuss. All kinds of things. "How about letting the students teach the class," I inquired. I received a bit of a surprised facial reaction. Not fully teach the class, but with their experience why not let them take turns leading the discussion, both in the live Adobe Connect, and online in the discussion forums. Soon an idea was formalized and a plan put into place. This faculty member was eager to give it a try.

Students were broken into teams of two and each team was assigned a chapter. They were to present the material from the chapter, present their take on it, entertain comments and thoughts from the other students live, and lead/moderate the online discussion in Blackboard. The faculty member gave his experiences, and insight as well.

Together everyone was engaged in the content, discussion, and had a chance to take the lead.

Success. The real measure of success and capstone was the student course evaluations. They went up over previous semesters. This faculty member was excited, and really enjoyed the class. So did the students.

I had forgotten about this class, until the instructor contacted me about updating it and receiving some training in the new live classroom tool we implemented called Wimba.

One evening I logged into the Bb course to join in and observe one of the live sessions. Wow was I impressed. I saw this model in action. Students were leading the presentation of chapter content, and asking other students for input and comments, and obviously the students were engaged. Not only were they learning the material from their instructor, they were teaching each other, being able to relate the material to real work examples from their own current and past work experience.

I was amazed at how really well it worked.

Kevin

Sys Admins and Designers - Time to pause and reflect

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 20:45:00 +0000

Blog Post by Kevin Reeve

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Here on our campus the official first week of the semester has come to an end. When I was the Blackboard Administrator for our campus, it was often times the first chance I had to take a breath.

Many of you will probably be putting a few hours in over the weekend solving problems with registration, course bugs, and upgrade issues now starting to show.

May I suggest that when you get a chance to take your breadth you gather interested parties together for a debriefing or reflection.

First of all, review reports of what kind of support issues you are having? Are you using some sort of help desk or other tracking software that allows you to track the kind and issue calls you are getting from your faculty and staff? We use a tool called footprints and all calls to our help desk are tracked there. We can run reports at any time to look for trends with our Blackboard Course Management system.

If you do not have a tracking system, bring interested parties together to discuss issues that popped up, and make plans to deal with them. Is there a particular issue that plagues you over and over each semester?

Perhaps student registrations are not working properly, or that you are doing batch loads and it takes 12 - 24 hours for registrations to get there. Students and Faculty are frustrated.

Perhaps you consistently get a call from faculty about a particular tool in Blackboard.

Find the key issues that keep you up at night, or swamp you, the ones your institution could possibly take care of. Then make a plan to fix those. After a few weeks into the semester, the calls taper off. That is the time to update your training, introduce new training, and implement code or systems that will make a difference next semester.

There may be things you have no control over. Come up with solutions you can implement, and continue to fight for the ones that need some administrative backing and funding.

You can make a difference, and your debriefing and reflection will make the next semester go easier.

Don’t be a Talking Head: Presentation capture not lecture capture

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 18:21:39 +0000

Blog Post by Bob Boufford

Many instructors are now posting recordings of lectures in their Blackboard courses for later listening or viewing by the students. Some have extended recorded lectures into podcasts with each recorded lecture an episode in the podcast complete with RSS feeds in a Blackboard course so the recordings are kept up-to-date and available for download to a student's mobile device.

Instructors in face-to-face classrooms often ask about capturing their lectures and seek advice on the best video camera to use. “Talking head” video lecture capture is probably one of the worst types of podcasting one can deliver to students. For all the resources and equipment required for a talking head video, a simple audio recording will probably work just as well.

Podcasting is about delivering information without extraneous content. Seeing someone’s mouth move while listening to the audio is just extra noise. Let’s take advantage of using video including enhanced audio to provide value added content to the podcast by recording the text, images and other visual information not the talking head!

Lectures also tend to be an ongoing linear event with breaks in the stream of delivery, “The hour is up, we will continue tomorrow”. While “cliffhangers” are fine for serialized stories and televisions shows, leaving students hanging until the next podcast episode that may never come, is not the best for learning.

A much better approach is to treat a lecture like a seminar or conference presentation where each session has a definite beginning, middle and ending. Treating each lecture as a standalone presentation better fits the model of podcasts as a series of episodes.

Tools are readily available for recording narrated Microsoft PowerPoint or Apple Keynote presentations as enhanced audio or video podcast episodes. The real challenge is for faculty to reorganize lectures from long linear streams of content into discrete chunks of information, where each lecture can “stand alone” on it’s own as a presentation.

On iTunes U, there are many great examples of lecture podcasts where each lecture is a standalone topic in the subject area. Students can pick which topic interests them or supports their learning. Faculty at other institutions can incorporate these standalone lectures into their own courses without having to chunk or edit several strung out lecture captures.

There are also some not-so-good examples of lecture podcasts where the instructor obviously just turned on a recorder for each session. Faculty should put themselves in the place of a student and ask “Would I want to listen to or watch this?”

A good lecture podcast actually starts before the term when the instructor is creating the course outline. This is an opportune time to establish discrete topics for each face-to-face lecture session, so that once the session is recorded, it can stand on it’s own without any dependency on the previous or next lecture session.

By organizing the course outline where each lecture is a discrete recording on a topic, the instructor can record the lecture outside of a live classroom for delivery through an online course at a later time.

When planning to podcast lectures, always remember “presentation capture” not “talking head lecture capture”.

Ask Dr. C's > ADC Blog

Nine Things to Like About Blackboard 9 (3 Comments)

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Twitter away in your Blackboard course (2 Comments)

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Twitter web links

Twitter widgets

Building a Better Blackboard... the value of the BIE

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Main post

More

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Reporting: Blackboard and Google Analytics (1 Comment)

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Course Section/Server Backups

27 second web page scans- is your content ready? (1 Comment)

No student left behind: Academic continuity for your face-to-face courses.

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More

Engaging Students - Ideas for Doctorate and Masters level courses

Sys Admins and Designers - Time to pause and reflect

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Don’t be a Talking Head: Presentation capture not lecture capture