Here's a link, including a preliminary list of resouces we are developing for upcoming faculty training. 

1.      Click here to access a handy Bb 9 Basics Reference Guide that will help faculty navigate Blackboard 9 with ease.

2.    Click here to access video tutorials that will walk faculty through all the steps necessary to manage their Blackboard course.  Great for visual learners.

The video tutorials were created with Camtasia.  I'm still getting used to the program so they are not as sharp as I'd like them to be but will do for now.

The Reference guide was created in PPT, which made the process very easy.

In my previous post (http://connections.blackboard.com/posts/b95f2458a7) I shared significant concerns with our installation of Bb 9.0.  We are still working through our issues and will report the status of where we are in subsequent posts later today and in the future as we learn more.

For now, I want to take a few minutes say thank you to the following people who are working diligently to turn our situation around: 

Big thanks to Michael Weber, Senior Manager ProEd, who in a matter of 24 hours assembled a phone conference with several members of the Bb team to hear and understand our concerns. 

Big thanks to John Porter, Senior Manager, Client Support, who immediately got connected with me via Twitter and got involved in the process.

Big thanks to Noelle Stephens, Bb Support Escalation Manager, for diligently working with me after our conference to find solutions to key issues.

Big thank you to Dara Millen, Senior Client Programs Manager, Product Development, for inviting our institution to be part of the 9.1 beta testing team.

And a big thank you to the entire Blackboard Technical Support staff for their very quick responses to our tickets in the last 24 hours.  I can hardly keep up with their updates and requests to mobilize solutions.

I will be actively updating the Blackboard community to return the favor from all that we have learned from other institutions.  This morning, our IT team is feeling more hopeful than we have for the last three weeks.

Stay tuned for upcoming updates.

I don't know if we can truly be called early adopters since we switched to Bb 9 at the end of Fall semester.  But it certainly feels that way when I read emails from users who are planning their roll out plan, starting 2010.

We have had high hopes for our use of new functionalities in Bb9, but now we are at a juncture considering whether we should return to Bb 8 until the system is more solid.

I am excited about this new community because I think it's important to share both the positive changes but also the challenges we face with upgrades.  As far as the positive goes, instructors love the addition of Blogs, Journals, and the new interface. The challenges, on the other hand, are outweighing the latter.  We have a long list of open tickets with a handful of them that so far look like showstoppers.

As of this morning, we are seriously considering returning to Bb 8 to start the new school year with a solid system.  In particular, three issues are driving our decision; we are waiting to hear back from Bb.  I'm posting here an excerpt of my email to Blackboard for your reference. 

If you have some insight into the questions I posed, we would appreciate your comments: