Blackboard Frustrations
During the last academic year, many of my fellow teaching assistants (and full-time faculty) struggled with Blackboard. The primary issue was the desire of most users to type in another application, then paste the results into discussion boards. The results tend to be a mess. High-ASCII and Unicode characters become question marks, formats are lost, and everyone gripes.
I tended to prefer using Nvu, which works pretty well on my PowerBook. I'd paste the resulting HTML into Blackboard, and all was good. However, this is not a practical solution when dealing with 84 instructors and more than 6,000 English 1 students.
No training is provided to TAs, or faculty, unless they decide to attend an hour-long orientation to PeopleSoft and Blackboard the week after courses begin. Not much help when the CSU system wants course documents online and forums established before courses start.
Anyone here have a nice, easy solution? We can't ask people to disable all the "SmartQuotes" and typographer's symbols because many of us use them for publications, or on Web pages that are in UTF-8 encoding. The IT department isn't going to listen to us... we're just one Cal State, in a huge system of 20 universities.
Blackboard has timed-out while composing responses to students, or simply failed to save posts. I notice it supports a limited number of HTML commands, at least in my experimentation and pasting some HTML causes problems.
English 1 is only 16 weeks, twice a week for 70 minutes. I don't think I can do much Blackboard orientation for my students, much less my fellow instructors. As it stands, I'm planning a freebie hour on my own time before the semester. A lot of the TAs are completely lost in the system.
Ideas? Suggestions? I already know most TAs will simply ignore Blackboard, after last year's experiences. I'm hoping for 30 or 40 percent usage.
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Blackbeard
Well, I've always held that a discussion board that couldn't handle BBCODE wasn't worthy of the name. ;-) But, seriously, it shouldn't be too hard for the Blackbeard folks to whip up a client-side application that could "sync" to the board and then let them compose everything off-line. I know there are at least a few discussion boards that give you the option to access the board via email, and plenty others do RSS.
A few ideas
While I don't have a silver bullet solution, a few ideas come to mind.
First, if everyone's finding Blackboard that difficult to use, then training needs to be provided. As you note, if instructors need training before courses start, then they ought to be given it or you shouldn't ask them to use the technology. Likewise for the students.
As for there not being enough time in class, while that's a personal choice, I've always been of the opinion that if I think a tool/technology/application is important enough to use, I will spend the time to my students to use it and use it well, be that tool/technology/application WebCT discussion boards, MOO, chat, Bedford/St. Martin's Comment, HTML and Web page design, wiki, scanners, the library, etc. If you and your colleagues don't feel you have the time to teach students how to use Blackboard, then you all should really consider not using it. The issue here is spending some upfront time to teach everyone how to use the tool so use of that tool runs more or less smoothly vs. spending time over and over again throughout the term dealing with the same problems and frustrations. You will always spend some time on problems, (I also try to teach my students some basic troubleshooting and how to use help files -- lessons in self reliance), but everyone will spend far less time and effort if you build in hands-on work at the beginning.
If you've got techcom or other appropriate classes on your campus, talk to the instructors about having their students write and test documentation for the processes you all need everyone to know. The students doing the documentation will have the chance to interview, work with, and write for real users who have real needs. Good experience.
Students May Already Know it
Something else, too--the students may already know Blackboard. My USF students were almost always familiar with it from other classes they had taken. I was under the impression that they were taught BB during Freshman Orientation, or some kind of "Freshman Experience" type course. If English isn't the only department using BB, maybe the U could require training as part of its orientation process.
Really, though, BB isn't a difficult program to use. The students who have big problems navigating BB will probably also have difficulties navigating the web, or computers in general. That might be a problem much bigger than using BB nowadays.
CSU Reality
I come from private industry, so this is all a shock to my system. I could understand my high school not having computers in the early, early 1980s. I even understood my university professors typing everything. But it's 2005, now!
(I learned to program sitting at a VT102, submitting batch jobs. What does that tell you?)
I think this situation reflects a problem at the CSU sites. We have 30,000 students on our campus, in Central California, but are managed by the president and board, located in Long Beach.
We are required to use Blackboard and PeopleSoft, but last year I actually had several students without computer access. We have a grand total of three systems in the Student Union, no lab for the English department, and the library is being closed this year for "upgrades." (They plan to install Ethernet and 802 networks in the library!)
Since we must use the software, I agree that there should be training. I agree there should be support. Heck, I had a lot more support as a high school instructor and at a community college than I see at the CSU level. (I hope the UC system is much, much better.) The argument is that we are a commuter school and don't need labs on campus.
Regardless, we're on our own here. I've managed to get an hour or so in one of the rare "semi-smart" classrooms to show new and returning TAs how PeopleSoft and Blackboard work. The state system will be verifying usage, in theory, but I doubt it is necessary to do more than post a syllabus online.
I'm hoping to do free training, assuming I can get room access, throughout the semester. I'm open to any and all suggestions. I even plan a session on what free software is out there for people to try. This is pitiful.
Sorry for the rant... I'm still trying to get more computers into local high schools. The "digital divide" is very real in California's heartland counties. I'm going to keep arguing for more training and a public computing area, but I doubt anything will happen in the coming years.
At least I have a crusade...
If it requires training, ditch it?
I was just thinking...Maybe we should stiffen up our attitudes here and just say, "If you have to train people to use it, don't use it." Seriously. Now, I'm not taking into consideration the people here who have never turned a computer on before. I'm talking people who can check email, load and save files to their hard drive, navigate most websites, etc. A content management system that requires significant additional training beyond these prerequisites is poorly designed. In other words, if I don't already know how to operate a CMS, I'm not going to bother with it.
I'll offer an example of what I'm talking about. I'd never used GMAIL before a few months ago. In fact, I hadn't ever used a web-based email client, but always Outlook and then Thunderbird, both of which required an investment in my time to learn to use them. However, I didn't have to learn to use GMAIL. The first time I logged in, I already knew how to check email, compose it, forward, it, the works. There were no "tricks" to the interface, no unfamiliar icons, no baffling routines. It couldn't be simpler. Now I use GMAIL.
The same should be true for Blackbeard or whatever CMS or LMS we're required to use. If it's not immediately apparent to the casual computer user how to do X, Y, Z, then scrap the thing. Computers are here to make our routine tasks easier, not more difficult.
Ease of Use
I agree, in concept. In fact, I have spent the last week working to improve a commercial application by watching the users and documenting what steps seem too complex. I think my software background will someday contribute to my doctoral efforts.
Reality, however, is that presidents, boards, and employers tell us what we can and cannot use. I dealt with this last year when I wanted to use a non-Microsoft development tool.
Universities are requiring technology like Blackboard because some sales crew convinced a president, who will never use the system, that it would be wonderful and easy for every instructor. No training needed. Right.
So, now that I'm in this world, I have to make it work as it is. I can't exactly stage a one-person revolt and hope to migrate into a doctoral program with good reviews. I've already annoyed the establishment more than once by pointing out some of my students don't own computers or have high-speed connections.
As I search for a doctoral program, I hope to continue my crusade for access... and that access includes not only having computers but having software that can be used by students and instructors. (Software needing a shelf of books at Borders can't be easy to use, is my theory. But, then I saw a manual for iTunes!)
As I originally asked... any ideas to make what is the situation work best? I'm thinking a simple handout, live demo, and maybe creating some sample courses. I'm also considering a basic HTML 3.2 handout, which corresponds to the limits of Blackboard in my testing.
Am I thinking properly?
training for use
I'd look for some sort of healthy balance between "training" and "ditching." We face an IT dept at my U that has bought into BB fully--I can't opt to "ditch it" fully since we've passed the point of critical mass with faculty using the system. (by "use," of course, I mean putting handouts online and counting points for discussion posts primarily).
I don't use BB in my own classes, but I am working on documentation this summer for our incoming students who *will* use it; and the divide between what I'm writing for the users and what I think about for my own courses has informed the documentation toward focusing on smart use of the resources rather than training for the tool. Or at least I hope so.
I agree with Matt that interfaces and use processes must be designed to be intuitive, familiar, etc--and they can be. But knowing how to compose, read, forward, CC, etc email in general goes a long way toward how familiar GMail feels. Filtering is probably less obvious, and "labels" & "conversations" maybe even less... But GMAIL feels familiar to many of us b/c its built on a concept of taxonomies, meta-data, etc--if I don't already "get" those ideas, should I just stick with Outlook & folders & flags for my email? Maybe...
It is a different question to me, to ask is BB's procedural/interface approach to labelling "actions," "steps," (or more specifically--"uploading," "navigating"...etc) easy to master w/o training than it is to ask if BB's Gradebook, "virtual classroom," Digital Dropbox are easy *concepts* to master without training. I might master the process of using them, but not immediately see smart ways to use them to help me as a student...or teacher.
Amen to that
The one and only semester I tried to use the university's implementation of BB for anything besides an online gradebook, it failed miserably. Even the students who did manage to acquire some kind of comfort level with all BB's pointless functionality were turned off by its propensity to eat papers and contributions to online discussions. I'm having much better luck getting the kiddies to post stuff to my Wiki.
BB Documents
I'd love to see what you end up developing. Blackboard, as another poster noted, has a desire to be fed papers and posts at random intervals.
We are required to have students use it for discussions and group work. In theory, this allows the tenured faculty to observe our work as teachers. (The irony of having been a teacher and administrator in a past life is haunting me.) In reality, I think the CSU lords in Long Beach check the volume of usage instead of the quality. This is a matter of public perceptions.
I'll likely lead students to other online experiences, and many with computers probably belong to communities already. Unfortunately, even the experienced users don't seem to like Blackboard.
I wish it had an external editor, as many blog servers accept. Darn it, we preach standards and then use a non-standard system. You'd think universities would favor open source CMS -- things that work.
Anyone encourage the use of HTML or another rich format for postings by students? I was going to encourage experimenting by students. This will be interesting.
Ease is not the answer
There are applications and systems worth learning how to use which are of necessity more difficult than webmail. And as Jeff wrote, the analogy to Gmail is questionable, since webmail interfaces are based on the interfaces for standalone email applications. You knew what "forward" meant and what icons might look logical for that action, etc.
But this is off the larger topic. Three suggestions: (1) Use Notepad to type text for pasting. (2) Ask Blackboard to fix their broken software. It certainly costs enough. (3) Find a cast-off computer, install Moodle on it, and use that for your classes instead.
I wrote a dissertation about this :)
not training but tutorials
Sounds like realistically, you can't expect to do training/workshops for even a majority of the students and teachers. So why not enable them to help themselves? Use Camtasia or Macromedia Captivate to produce some tutorials to assist them. You could even show them how to download, configure, and use Nvu for this particular purpose.
Once you've completed a tutorial or two, then it might be time to hit up the university for support to create more.
Tutorials - Great Idea
I like the tutorial idea. Using the tools I have, I could capture screens on the Mac or Print to PDF. Once I do that, I could create a Keynote / PowerPoint presentation. That would work for most of the Mac and PC users. As a backup, since everyone seems to have Acrobat Reader by now, I can save the outline and slides to a PDF for anyone to read.
I don't know why I didn't think of this. Good idea.
TextEdit saves as HTML that does seem to work with Blackboard. At least the Mac users are certain to already have a decent editor with spell-check and formatting.
Notepad won't give PC users the same pleasures, so I'll explain using Nvu for them. Word's HTML (if you can call it that) breaks Blackboard a good percentage of the time.
For the students without PCs or Macs, I'm pondering how we can encourage PC "recycling" for students. The university disposes of a lot of working equipment. What a waste. I'm sure many of us also toss equipment into storage or pawn it off on friends.
Blackboard is just another way to isolate 25 percent of my students, usually Hispanic or Hmong, without access to computers. That's what really gets me angry. We might as well tell every student you need to budget for a computer... and include that cost in financial aid in the Cal-Grant program.
We did an access survery last year. I should find the results and post them here as a new topic. It's really shameful, but we are an extremely rural area, for those unfamiliar with the vast majority of California. (The joke is: Our 3 million cows should count on the census.)
Yes, there are people who have never used a PC. I know it is hard to remember. LOL.
For those students, Blackboard will be a struggle no matter what I do. I am going to offer them 90 minutes of by-appointment office time. I think the only way to reach them is tutoring.
The saddest lesson I have learned... 20 percent don't even have a bank account, so my ATM analogies don't work, either. No one is addressing this side of immigration. Last year, I had two students in English who were illegal, four on cards, and of those six none had computers, cell phones, or other goodies.
Blackboard is several steps away for these students.
Anyone tried Moodle?
Lane Here at my large CC we have open source Moodle as an alternative to Bb. I much prefer it, though it's not perfect either. But at least it isn't a "black box" like Bb so our IT folks can modify it or fix it. Plus, because it's open source, changes and fixes occur much more rapidly than in Bb, as perhaps hundreds of volunteers worldwide are contributing to the effort. FYI check out http://moodle.org
I was reading the pans on Bb for discussion. Moodle is known to be Constructivist-based and IMO a much richer discussion environment, offering customizable discussion posting rating scales, either by instructor onlyr or also by students. So this lends itself wonderfully to learning by sharing/teaching/doing.
We're just getting off the ground, but I like it and hope to do my bit to encourage its use among more of our faculty. And every time Bb s**ts on somebody, we get another Moodle convert.
Glad I'm not you!
One option is to use BB as a gateway to Moodle, drupal or whatever you think will work better. If the prime reason for using BB is so they can count the number of posts, though, I can see how that isn't an option. What really baffles me, when you talk access, is how admins can think that a commuter school doesn't need computers for students. We, like just about every CC, are a commuter school, and are labs are full for just about the whole day with folks milling about looking for an available machine. Plus we have an English lab, foreign language labs, and so on. Good luck!