This is an edited selection from a longer post about my experiences using the Digital Dropbox this semester that is over on my blog, Techsophist. I have been using it for about six years with no significant problems, but each campus has its own culture when it comes to technology in the classroom and some differences are to be expected. Since Blackboard is not a default choice at my new location, it's possible that students see it as fragile, a technology that can conveniently not work. Some say they simply can't "get on to" Blackboard in order to access the class materials or to submit papers. When it works fine in class, then access in the dorm or at home is seen as different somehow. Other students blame the Digital Dropbox alone for their late drafts and ignore the time/date aspect of it.
On the other hand, now that I've had a chance to think about it a little, the fact that Blackboard isn't a default system here does give me the opportunity to try other storage or course management methods. Anyone with an open source solution that will fit in my available space on the web, please comment. I'm not crazy about Blackboard, but lack alternatives for places to put my materials that my students can access, but others can't. And I do use the gradebook and of course they like having that kind of access. Finally, even though the Digital Dropbox was a fiasco this semester, it is a great way for students to have free server space to store their files. It takes away the failed disk/ lost USB drive problem and can be accessed anywhere there is web-access. Any ideas?
have you checked Moodle?
I don't know if it has a digital dropbox equivalent, but it does have grading. Probably worth checking out.
oh well
now i see from reading techsophists that your students really like drupal. probably don't want to run drupal and moodle. i've promoting the idea of a digital drop box type module for drupal, but no go as of yet.
if you find something simpler than moodle (just some kind of file sharing space) let me know.
Yea Drupal!
It's true--Drupal just gets better each year I use it. I could use the Book module for my course materials, but it would still be nice to have something like the Digital Drop Box. If a module does get developed, that would be fabulous.
nope, not yet
I don't see it happening anytime soon. Perhaps at some point all of us Drupal education users could get together and find a grant to have it written. That would probably be the easy way.
Meanwhile, I did offer another suggestion over at Techsophist in your thread. Somehow, it posted twice though (I got some kind of error when posting the comment).
Bill Gates ate my homework
I didn't like Blackboard's dropbox tool very much and didn't use it. There is a much better way to use BB to collect student documents--the assignment tool. You can set that up so that it automatically appears in your gradebook, and sending back feedback is a snap. It's actually quite a nice system. It's been awhile since I've used it (we have a system called "Desire 2 Learn" here which only has a dropbox with folders).
On the other hand, it'd be great if more U's would drop their proprietary CMS and go with Moodle. My theory is that if we all start using their proprietary CMS *extensively*, and make frequent public comments about how darn useful and absolutely essential it is, THEY will slash funding for it and thus "force" us to use a free alternative. :-)
As for the "Blackboard didn't work" excuse, I never put up with it. I just made sure students had opportunities to submit work early (in class with my assistance) or could drop by my office if they couldn't figure something out. Once they learned that excuse wouldn't work, I had no more problems. Of course, I did have to make some exceptions when the U server actually did go down a few times. It was down for nearly three weeks at one university where I adjuncted.
of course Bill Gates eats your homework
Everytime you open MS Office to work on your docs (troll).
;-)
Yahoo
I feel I have to defend this post before I even start, LOL! But I'll wait for the backlash and address concerns individually.
I've been using Yahoo Groups for my classes for four years now.
Groups allow 20 MBs total of posted info (admittedly, a size that bit into my class this semester, as they were using visuals); they offer an archived mailing list (archived emails do NOT hold attachments, note), links posting, a chat space, database options (great for class contact or interest info), and the option to make polls, which I've used in research classes.
Best of all, the students frequently create their own groups as we go. I like promoting access to something that the students can use for free outside of class.
For assignments, my students put their work into subject-specific folders in the group; I open the document in MS Word, then use the Track Changes function to respond to their work intertextually. I then attach my document to a personal email to them, saving a copy in my own mailbox.
Don't forget that students can save their own work in their email -- have them create a folder for drafts, possibly even using a filter, and then send the drafts to themselves email. RTF documents make great attachments; they can then be opened anywhere the student can check her email.
don't much like MS, but OO ate my article!
Or was it MS Windows? Hmmm, don't know for sure. But here's what happened. I was working on an article, and had been saving it to my desktop repeatedly, for days and days and weeks and weeks. My son decided he needed my computer to play games, and I left the document open. When he was done, I went to close the article so I could attach it to an email and send it to my office so I could work. The OO Writer (or whatever it's called) froze up. I did cntrl-alt-dlt and shut down OO Writer and when I went to open the document from the destktop, it was, yes, gone. When I went to "recent documents," the article title was listed, but the stupid flashlight couldn't find it, and neither could I. :(. This is when I learned that OO doens't have the recovery capability that MS Word has. I'm still using OO, but have found a few other shortcomings, or things I can't do that I could do in Word. I wish I had space on my hard-drive for both of them. All is well in the end though. I was having trouble focusing the article, and having to rewrite pretty much from scratch led to something much better. But it sure sucked at the time!
No wonder he has such a big gym in his house
(Bill Gates, that is.) Matt, I don't tolerate the excuses either--it just seems that there were more of them this semester than I'm used to. I think next semester will be better for several reasons, one of them being that my course lines say right on them that the class is in a computer classroom. This semester's students had no warning, and it is very far from the norm here.
Thanks for the input
There were some very good ideas given here. I never tried the assignment part of Blackboard, and Deanya's idea for using Yahoo groups is definitely worth considering.
For now I think I'm going to stick to only one large chunk of software for the students to learn and keep that Drupal. The going back and forth between the two was part of the problem, I think. All my students adjusted very well to Drupal, so I plan to try out some of Charlie's ideas and let that be my only CMS.(Thanks, Charlie! I may have more questions for you later!)
what version?
OO does have some backup and recovery capabilities. I think I have mine set to make a backup every ten minutes. And I have had OO crash a couple of times, but it always recovers the file.
Are you using 2.0?
Blackboard Problems
I did track down a number of Blackboard issues this semester:
1) I had more problems with Safari than with Firefox, though I do prefer Safari for most things. (I had issues with Safari and my bank, too.)
2) Students with AOL accounts had real and serious issues with Blackboard, even with the "AOL Users Click Here" options of the university.
3) Students really, really dislike the muck of "high-ascii" characters in Blackboard. When they paste from Word or another word processor, the results are mixed -- with "?" appearing in place of any apostrophe, quote, tick, bullet, etc.
4) About a third of my students are on dial-up and three had no home access. Our library is closed for the next two years, so finding access is a new challenge.
My own feeling is that I would give anything to dump BB, but the university has a policy and that's the way it is. Oh, well. I would migrate, but they have privacy and tech concerns with instructors using any other forum. Makes legal sense, I suppose.
- CSW
character set problems
They still haven't fixed that cutting and pasting problem? That's been around for at least a couple of years now.