Update on May 2004 Session
Someone asked about last May, so I thought I would post an update in the main body of this blog.
The session ended up being far too short for the topic -- only a 1/2 hour for "Using the Collaborative Features in Blackboard." (Remember this was part of a full day on collaborative uses of Social Software, and this was only one breakout session.) This, combined with the fact that most of the faculty members who attended were new users, meant that not very much was accomplished. By the time I got the new users signed in and to the control panel, I didn't have a lot of time left. So, I asked the attendees what they would like to learn about most: roles, the virtual classroom, or groups. Because the virtual classroom is not used at all on campus, they all chose that.
I have not really highlighted this feature at Wheaton, because I have found that it doesn't work well with the Macintosh OS (which most faculty here use) and because Wheaton, a residential college, does not teach any online courses. Chat didn't seem like necessary feature to highlight for face-to-face classes. (To tell you the truth, I don't understand how the whiteboard is really that useful even for online classes. It would be a lot better if everyone could use the space to collaboratively write something in real-time -- a la SubEthaEdit. Also, I thought that you could write on and highlight things on WebPages and import Powerpoint slides into the Whiteboard. Guess not. Anyway, the lightweight chat seems like enough for most faculty to deal with to me.)
The faculty seemed really interested in it, though. And when I suggested they use this for virtual office hours (as opposed to for classes), they liked the feature even more. I will have to try to do some follow-up on this (via email perhaps) and see if anyone actually adopted its use.
I handed out information about roles and groups -- so hopefully those will have some impact. I remain convinced that using the Course Builder role for students holds some real potential. If used thoughtfully, everyone in the class (teacher and students) could share the responsibility for creating the online learning environment. I may try to push this idea again in the future.
