OK, I promise, this won’t really be a Blackboard rant. But at our college, the most supported system is Bb. We’re piloting one or two others (Moodle!), but the support folks are accustomed to Bb. Each semester everyone’s classes, both onsite and online, are automatically assigned a Bb course, whether or not they’re used.
Students taking online classes have become used to Blackboard. They don’t realize it’s just a shell, a system inside the internet. Last semester, I “erased” all the buttons on my Bb classes and left only one, with only one page attached: the page redirecting them to the Moodle class, which opened in a new browser window. Nevertheless, many students continued to use Bb as a portal, only entering my Moodle class through Bb’s interface.
I thus encouraged our Moodle users to do as I did: make all but one of Bb’s buttons unavailable, but keep the class there with a redirecting link. A pair of respected colleagues, David and Don Megill, resisted this idea of continuing with Bb as a kind of portal. But we all acknowledged that students use it that way. Gradually it began to annoy me.
So last week (today is the first day of spring semester), I simply didn’t make my Bb classes available at all. It is printed in the Schedule of Classes (and its online version) that students must email me before the first day of class. I have directions to the classes on web pages, linked from both my home page and the Cybercosta page. These pages give the URL for the Moodle classes. Then I watched enrollment.
This morning, the first day, 96 of 160 students had gotten in on their own. I sent the others an email (using the email they used to register at MiraCosta) with the URL. As I write this (the evening of the first day), all but about 6 students per class have found their way. Without Blackboard. Perhaps they will learn that not all learning experiences are based in that monopolistic system. It’s a good day.
It is so gauche to comment on ones own post, but I had to update. In an effort to be helpful, our Blackboard person opened all my Bb classes yesterday without consulting me. As a result, my experiment became tainted, as students began trying to access the Moodle class through Bb. No doubt some of them now think that is the entrance to the class. Ugh.
While it isn’t mandated by my department, I currently use Bb for classroom. Although one, if something better to come alone and if it served myself and my students better I would most certainly entertain using that in my virtual classroom. That said, it would behoove me to use Bb (as the college pays annual service fees to subscribe to it) and using it does help to validate its introduction by administration. So, what I’m saying is that abandoning (or curtailing use of) Bb may require some courage on the part of someone who doesn’t have tenure.
stumbled on your blog post. i have this to say,
as a graduate student in an online program: i applaud the lone teacher who built his own course website outside of Bb. However, it is unfortunate that I cannot work within one interface for all my needs – when taking two classes, when wanting to review my grades; when wanting to email my classmates. The external location of the course becomes a nuisance.
as an instructional designer, i know the limitations of Blackboard. and I recognize the habitual nature of adult learners. my faculty and their students are creatures of habit because they have to be – juggling FT careers and family and learning (i work at a med school) means not having any time to pause and say, ‘now, is that a Bb course or is it a Moodle course?’