Best Practices from BbWorld '07
I scampered over to the Hynes Convention Center this morning to catch two seminars at BbWorld '07: "Meeting Pedagogical Goals with Blackboard Software" and "Blogs and Wikis in the Blackboard Learning System."Both sessions had a Blackboard focus (as you'd expect), but there was also plenty of useful information for folks who don't use Blackboard or WebCT. Below you'll find some of the notes/thoughts I jotted down.
Notes and Thoughts from "Meeting Pedagogical Goals with Blackboard Software":
- When developing a course through a Learning Management System (LMS), step back and consider the type of student this course is geared toward. Ask yourself: What are the essential things this student needs to know/do? What are the things he/she doesn't need to know? The answers to these questions should be used to design a straightforward, useful LMS-based course. The goal is to make the student's experience as seamless and intuitive as possible.
- Foster a culture where faculty want to learn and experiment with educational technology. One effective strategy is to give faculty a private "sandbox" area where they can experiment without the fear of failure. Developers have used this same technique for years with great results.
Notes and Thoughts from "Blogs and Wikis in the Blackboard Learning System":
- The problem with many LMS modules is that they just sit there. Discussion boards are a prime offender -- they're not inherently useful, which means students need a reason to participate (mandatory posts are one solution) and moderators must nurture the boards on a daily basis.
- The caveats attached to discussion boards also apply to wikis and blogs -- without careful integration and ongoing monitoring, these tools will be largely unused by students. (Note: To me, this entire "non-use" issue stems from the tech-first mindset: if teachers are integrating technology without clear educational goals in mind, the technology won't be adopted by students.)
- There's a big difference between a wiki engine and Wikipedia. The wiki engine can be used in a variety of ways -- everything from simple Web publishing to full-blown glossaries and reference sites. Wikipedia, however, is a site that uses a wiki engine. Audience questions posed during the "Blogs and Wikis" session suggested that some attendees were confusing the two.
- Instructional technologists and designers can straighten the wiki learning curve through brief in-class demonstrations. One idea: connect the demonstration to a specific assignment to draw connections between the wiki toolset and course goals.
- Speaking of wiki assignments ... potential uses for wikis include: lecture notes, student notes, study guides, glossaries of course terms/topics, supplemental textbook/lecture information, peer-reviewed papers, and group projects.
- Wikis often require users to link pages they create into a wiki's structure. Unfortunately, this is a tricky process that's fraught with problems. One solution is to provide students with a wiki shell to work within (i.e. give them a 5-page wiki to play with). This empowers students to publish through wikis but also protects them from broken links and dead ends.
- The "authorship paradigm" prevents some students from actively editing wiki-based content. Rather than alter content directly within a wiki, many students post editor notes. This isn't a major issue, but teachers and course designers should certainly watch out for "editor note overload."
- And now we come to my favorite point: "Don't expect beauty," proclaimed session leader Barbara Knauff. Whether you're using blogs, wikis, discussion boards or any other self-publishing tool, students and faculty will always go nutty with fonts and images. More times than not, their output will violate virtually every usability guideline ... and that's okay. Remember: the process is what matters. Expertise only comes from experience.
Comments:
Yes, I agree, teachers often introduce technology into the classroom because they are interested in the technology, not because it will help to meet an identified learning need.
However, students are becoming increasingly tech savvy and, as the momentum gathers, they to will want to keep up with technology.
The problem is wikis will only come to mind as solutions to identified learning needs, once teachers and students are familiar with their use. So I encourage teachers to keep experimenting.
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