Monday, December 18, 2006
Day 2 - Fourth Session
The fourth session was by Bart from Univ. Maastricht around a new Euro-masters website they are forming, and a course they want to develop for incoming masters students who are from weaker institutions, so they can take an online summer course to catch up before the masters.
Seemed intent that universities across Europe would want to give their information about failure rates for international students. I tend to think competition edge could be lost with too much transparency. Not sure university leaderships would agree with this plan.
We also looked at Richard Parsons from Dundee's model for planning a course, and figuring out what to do online, what offline. Didn't really help me much though. I think the only summer course we run is for international students with poor English.
The highlight of the second day was talking with Craig Chanoff, VP of client support at Blackboard during lunch. I did like the idea of using audio to give borderline students support too.
Seemed intent that universities across Europe would want to give their information about failure rates for international students. I tend to think competition edge could be lost with too much transparency. Not sure university leaderships would agree with this plan.
We also looked at Richard Parsons from Dundee's model for planning a course, and figuring out what to do online, what offline. Didn't really help me much though. I think the only summer course we run is for international students with poor English.
The highlight of the second day was talking with Craig Chanoff, VP of client support at Blackboard during lunch. I did like the idea of using audio to give borderline students support too.
Day 2 - Third Session
Teeside did this one, on growing use of Blackboard at their institution. They did a good job of developing a branding and buzz, by giving out bookmarks to students, candy with their e@t logo (e-learning @ teeside), and wearing t-shirts.
Teeside has 20,000 students, many living a ways from campus.
Many scary animated smilies on presentation.
One lecturer using audio files to give assignment feedback to each student. Sounded time consuming, but I guess you can talk as fast as you can write?
Another interesting use of podcasts was with student retention. They had problems with student retention as particular points. So they created a podcast series around those topics. For instance, "your first day of classes" then "writing an essay" "finding your way around the learning centre"
They had some for prospective students to listen to as well. (life at uni, work/life balance) Seemed like a good idea. It's a way of giving pseudo-personal support to students.
Teeside has 20,000 students, many living a ways from campus.
Many scary animated smilies on presentation.
One lecturer using audio files to give assignment feedback to each student. Sounded time consuming, but I guess you can talk as fast as you can write?
Another interesting use of podcasts was with student retention. They had problems with student retention as particular points. So they created a podcast series around those topics. For instance, "your first day of classes" then "writing an essay" "finding your way around the learning centre"
They had some for prospective students to listen to as well. (life at uni, work/life balance) Seemed like a good idea. It's a way of giving pseudo-personal support to students.
Day 2 - Second Session
This session was about using discussion groups, and was Alan Cann, an academic from Leicester.
Said that most web 2.0 stuff won't work in education because few people will participate if it is not assessed. I would argue that assessment is not as importance as relevance: if students understand how it will help their learning.
He wanted to get more people to participate, so he had groups of 8-15 in each discussion group (optimum size).
Discussion contributions were assessed (15% of mark), replacing an essay.
-Had an explicit definition of a contribution (not just yes, I agree)
Did an icebreaker activity to build a community.
Had 87,000 hits in 10 weeks. Groups were 66% of the hits.
Number of hits dropped as things went on, saw this as a sign that students were not engaging anymore with activity. Will try with switching to wiki half-way through to get more novelty.
Said females had more hits, but same number of posts as males. Guy from University Maastricht next to me said his research said no gender difference, so not sure how reliable that conclusion was.
Recommends:
Integration into face-to-face
Ice Breaker 'e-tivity'
Proportion of marks (10-15%)
Balance assessment load
Group size 8-15
Use VLE: feedback and marks via VLE
staff trained in emoderating skills
Run all work through TurnItIn
Hadn't thought of using peer assessment of contributions.
All in all, it seemed like he was aiming for a model of successful discussion board interaction. This model probably works, but doesn't seem like the end all and be all of discussion boards. The requirement of a proportion of marks and an e-tivity seemed a bit fixed.
Said that most web 2.0 stuff won't work in education because few people will participate if it is not assessed. I would argue that assessment is not as importance as relevance: if students understand how it will help their learning.
He wanted to get more people to participate, so he had groups of 8-15 in each discussion group (optimum size).
Discussion contributions were assessed (15% of mark), replacing an essay.
-Had an explicit definition of a contribution (not just yes, I agree)
Did an icebreaker activity to build a community.
Had 87,000 hits in 10 weeks. Groups were 66% of the hits.
Number of hits dropped as things went on, saw this as a sign that students were not engaging anymore with activity. Will try with switching to wiki half-way through to get more novelty.
Said females had more hits, but same number of posts as males. Guy from University Maastricht next to me said his research said no gender difference, so not sure how reliable that conclusion was.
Recommends:
Integration into face-to-face
Ice Breaker 'e-tivity'
Proportion of marks (10-15%)
Balance assessment load
Group size 8-15
Use VLE: feedback and marks via VLE
staff trained in emoderating skills
Run all work through TurnItIn
Hadn't thought of using peer assessment of contributions.
All in all, it seemed like he was aiming for a model of successful discussion board interaction. This model probably works, but doesn't seem like the end all and be all of discussion boards. The requirement of a proportion of marks and an e-tivity seemed a bit fixed.
Day 2 - First Session
My first session was Andy Ramsden from Bristol, giving reflections on the use of web 2.0 in developing lecturer Blackboard skills.
Has an RSS feed from blog which feeds to staff portal view, support blackboard site, and other places automatically.
Open workshops were not working: staff weren't coming anymore. So he wanted to embrace web 2.0 principles.
Only has the learning system, different portal.
140 system administrators for Blackboard - all full sys admins.
-Very devolved system administration, but seems dangerous (no big problems yet though).
-Allows a fast response time to problems.
Does a podcast for staff (Andy's Fireside Chat). Helps make staff aware of the issues. Lets the academics see the potential of podcasting as a learning tool.
Has done quick polls about what do staff want to learn about.
Set up a knowledge base in a wiki format. Not a single staff member took the time to edit the knowledge base. Are going to relaunch it with a more pedagogical slant. I think time will limit participation again though.
Said the blog/podcast was more of a success, but I would like to see how many people actually listened to the podcast and read the blog, as I got the impression last year from him that it wasn't many back then.
Has an RSS feed from blog which feeds to staff portal view, support blackboard site, and other places automatically.
Open workshops were not working: staff weren't coming anymore. So he wanted to embrace web 2.0 principles.
Only has the learning system, different portal.
140 system administrators for Blackboard - all full sys admins.
-Very devolved system administration, but seems dangerous (no big problems yet though).
-Allows a fast response time to problems.
Does a podcast for staff (Andy's Fireside Chat). Helps make staff aware of the issues. Lets the academics see the potential of podcasting as a learning tool.
Has done quick polls about what do staff want to learn about.
Set up a knowledge base in a wiki format. Not a single staff member took the time to edit the knowledge base. Are going to relaunch it with a more pedagogical slant. I think time will limit participation again though.
Said the blog/podcast was more of a success, but I would like to see how many people actually listened to the podcast and read the blog, as I got the impression last year from him that it wasn't many back then.
Day 2 - Blackboard Update
Early on Friday morning was an update from the Blackboard team. They spoke for an hour, but I didn't leave with much more of an idea of what would be happening with the product.
Gave us some stats:
3000 institutions use Blackboard
1000 software developers
millions of users
They want to integrate the Building Blocks and Power Links communities together.
Said stuff about e-learning 2.0, which had already been said mostly.
Are hoping to address country-specific needs and situations by have a dedicated product internationalisation development team.
Audience members said they might like a UK internationalisation pack for language and dates. Blackboard seemed to say they might do that then.
I found out an interesting thing. We are the only UK institution at the conference using Backpack (Brighton apparently used to use it). And I gather another institution may do it if it can connect to the content system, which apparently the next version will probably be able to do.
They mentioned App Pack 2 coming out, though no date.
It should contain:
Early warning system (could send out emails/notifications based on item due date, item score, and something else they wizzed too quickly through)
Advanced observer roles - sounded useless for higher ed
E-portfolios - more flexibility and control (uhh...) (idea of personal portfolio and personal artefacts)
Content System - usability improved (passes for folders, settings management, users specify their start page in the content system)
Not much with the learning system though.
The rest of the session was people asking why there was no wiki/blog tool, and Blackboard saying they wanted to be the platform, not the ultimate in all tools.
Gave us some stats:
3000 institutions use Blackboard
1000 software developers
millions of users
They want to integrate the Building Blocks and Power Links communities together.
Said stuff about e-learning 2.0, which had already been said mostly.
Are hoping to address country-specific needs and situations by have a dedicated product internationalisation development team.
Audience members said they might like a UK internationalisation pack for language and dates. Blackboard seemed to say they might do that then.
I found out an interesting thing. We are the only UK institution at the conference using Backpack (Brighton apparently used to use it). And I gather another institution may do it if it can connect to the content system, which apparently the next version will probably be able to do.
They mentioned App Pack 2 coming out, though no date.
It should contain:
Early warning system (could send out emails/notifications based on item due date, item score, and something else they wizzed too quickly through)
Advanced observer roles - sounded useless for higher ed
E-portfolios - more flexibility and control (uhh...) (idea of personal portfolio and personal artefacts)
Content System - usability improved (passes for folders, settings management, users specify their start page in the content system)
Not much with the learning system though.
The rest of the session was people asking why there was no wiki/blog tool, and Blackboard saying they wanted to be the platform, not the ultimate in all tools.
