16th Annual Durham Blackboard Users' Conference

The theme of this year’s Blackboard Users’ Conference, held on 7^th & 8^th January at Durham University Business School, was “Learning From Failure”, which was suggested by delegates from last year’s conference. The keynote was delivered by Eric Stoller, who addressed the issues of digital identity and failure on social media.

Blackboard themselves also addressed the conference, although they called their talk “Reflections on a shared journey” rather than examining the concept of learning from failure. They examined the changes that the system has undergone over the years and the needs of Blackboard today, including a resilient server, trained staff, backups and appropriate network access. These days the system is “mission critical” and users have higher expectations.

A Sessions: Is There A Place for Blackboard Collaborate in Blended Learning Design – Matt Cornock, University of York

This session looked at whether Blackboard Collaborate could be useful in blended learning – learning that mixes face to face and distance learning. It covered the issues that can be experienced with Blackboard Collaborate including loss of sound quality, connection reliability, issues with the launcher and whiteboard interaction. MC discussed a case study in which students on a creative writing programme used Collaborate to try and replicate the face to face environment. It was found that this didn’t work as the online environment could not facilitate the spontaneity and natural atmosphere of a face to face environment. Also, remote students by this time had already formed their own social groups for mutual support so they did not need to approach these sessions in the same way.

However, Collaborate has been proved to be useful for such functions as library tutorials and support, as well as group work, some individual tuition, teleconferencing and careers workshops.

B Sessions: Designing A Pre-Induction Course: Mistakes, Issues and Success – Steve Dawes, Regent’s University London

This session examined the issues faced by staff at Regent’s University London when designing a pre-induction course for students. The course was designed to streamline the induction process for students which can often be daunting.

The course was designed to be a simple student-centric platform with a single login so that all students could access it even if they did not yet have their own personal login details. It focused on the key information that students would need when arriving at university, including information about accommodation, visas and study skills. The students were not taught how to use Blackboard – it was hoped that they would be able to pick it up through completing this simple course.

The homepage was designed to resemble the University website so that students grew familiar with the structure of the website. There was only one course link to click on to get to the information they needed. There was an element of interactivity: e.g. a checklist entitled “Are You Ready?” consisting of a series of yes or no questions checking if students had everything they would need. There was also an interactive map of the campus.

987 of the trial students completed the final survey. The most popular elements were the introduction and the “Are You Ready?” questionnaire. In general there was a good student uptake with positive feedback, and a reduction in emails to student support. This was done for the Jan rollout and will be improved for the September cohort.

Future potential improvements include polls, Collaborate sessions, media content and group inductions.

C Sessions: Growing Pains: Preparing For A Teenage VLE – Andy White, University of Cumbria

This session charted the University of Cumbria’s use of Blackboard as their VLE platform since 2003. At the time, study was mostly campus based but videos would be filmed and posted out to distance learners. Students also had to send paper-based submissions through the post.

Over time there was a move to integrate Bb usernames and passwords with University ones, and they got the licensed mobile site in 2012. In 2014, Bb was listed by the University as “mission critical” for disaster recovery.

This year it was decided that every programme should have a presence on Blackboard. A benchmarking exercise was introduced in order to check whether courses were active, if they contained any broken links, or had any hidden content. An annual review is now planned to ensure that high standards are maintained.

D Sessions: Working With Students as Partners to Help You Identify and Learn from Your Mistakes: Developing a Pre-Arrival Study Skills Course for all Undergraduates – Sam Nolan, Eleanor Loughlin, Malcolm Murray, Elaine Tan and Jacquie Scollen, Durham University

After it was suggested that students wanted more contact before arriving at university, it was decided at Durham that a pre-arrival study skills course should be developed. A short 2-week course was trialled last summer, covering topics such as preparing for academic study, independent learning and digital literacy. A videographer was employed to film staff and current students talking about relevant topics. Other areas such as library services were also explored. The course will be rolled out to all students in the next academic year.

The course contains information about coming to Durham, preparing for arrival and transitioning to independent learning.  It also contains information about classes and reading materials, as well as support services such as library services. To date, the course has received 103, 576 views. Student feedback suggests that those using the course feel more prepared for their arrival at Durham.

The presentation explored mistakes the staff felt they had made and the steps they plan to take to rectify these. For instance, they felt that they should have involved students as consultants from the start of the project, and made risk management a priority earlier on.

E Sessions: The SPECTRE of Blackboard Design – James Leahy, Regent’s University London

This session looked at the syndrome of “Persistent Empty Courses” at Regent’s University – the problem of lecturers not making good use of Blackboard courses to enhance learning even though the offline course was excellent. In this example, the presenter added banners, logos and videos to the course to demonstrate the potential of online materials.

F Sessions: Establishing High Stakes Computer-Based Testing through Blackboard As A Supported Service: An Institutional Perspective On Key Challenges and Lessons Learned – Richard Walker and Andy Parkinson, University of York

This session looked at the growing use of VLEs for formal assessment and explored the ways in which staff at the University of York have coped with the challenges of implementing this. Exams on the VLE must be intuitive, flawless and fit for purpose, with a dedicated infrastructure and automated marking.

Staff were aware of possible issues that could arise, including loss of student data and multiple workstation failure. They took steps to minimize this, including creating separate exam accounts for students.

Some of the issues encountered included students being sent to the wrong rooms, and ongoing challenges with timetabling. One issue involved the randomization of questions – some students were shown the harder, essay-style questions first while others were given multiple-choice questions – this could be seen as unfair, so the issue was later rectified.

G Sessions: How I Have So Far Failed To Create A Fully Accessible VLE – Al Holloway, University of Northampton

Al Holloway’s presentation explored how he has tried to create a fully accessible VLE, but this has been difficult without the wholehearted support of all staff. Accessibility issues include Blackboard themes and layouts, video content, recorded lectures, documents and content authoring, and different browsers.  Some staff responded to his requests to look at making their material more accessible, but others made less of an effort. He emphasized the importance of gaining support from key stakeholders, and suggests implementing a method to audit accessibility.

H Sessions: Electronic Submission on Large and Complex Courses – Chris Boon, City College Norwich

This course looked at ways to manage the Grade Centre in Blackboard given the widespread use of electronic submission. These methods including splitting the class into groups, creating categories, and using Smart Views.

I found the conference really useful, and it was good to meet other people who work with VLEs. I picked up some useful pointers and learned a good deal.

London Blackboard User Group Meeting 24/04/2015

I attended my third Blackboard User Group (#LondonBUG) meeting at Bucks New University in Uxbridge on Friday. The theme was “Mobile and Multimedia” and the afternoon contained several interesting talks.

iPads to Staff Initiative (Steve Hoole, Bucks New University)

Steve spoke about the “Take a Tablet” project at the University, which trained staff to use iPads and provided an iPad to each member of FT academic staff (other staff are able to borrow an iPad from the pools at the Uxbridge and High Wycombe campuses).

Why was this done? Staff wanted to improve the quality and turnaround time of staff-student feedback, as well as increasing digital literacy – changing the disparity between staff and student abilities and knowledge. They also wanted to explore new ways of teaching, and increase the wellbeing of staff and their ability to manage their time: staff were also able to use their tablets for personal reasons.

Staff faced battles with IT over which tablets to have. IT wanted them to have Microsoft Surface tablets but Turnitin does not work on these – in addition iPad is a cooler brand and staff thought more people would be encouraged to come to the sessions if iPads were used. To be as inclusive as possible, all full-time staff were included in the scheme. Equipment issued included the 16GB WiFi enabled iPad Air and a connector for the light projector.

The aims of the training were to inspire, transform and encourage creativity. It was aimed at the lowest common denominator. The training was divided into two three-hour sessions. The first looked at how to use the iPad, connect WiFi, use email and use the calendar. It also explored the Turnitin app. The second session covered the Bb Collaborate & Learn app, as well as other apps which could be useful for teaching, such as Twitter. Staff found that as the sessions went on, the content expanded as users developed more knowledge and understanding of the iPads. The equipment was not given out until the second session, to ensure that participants returned to the training.

All tutors were added to a Bb module containing information about new and existing apps. Tutors were encouraged to “show and tell” to disseminate good practice. The Issues – There were initial problems with MAC IDs and Apple IDs, as well as issues with staff not following instructions. In addition there are ongoing costs and issues with getting the iPad back when a staff member leaves the university. However, over time most of the problems have been or will be ironed out.

Future plans include building on the iPad technology and establishing WiFi zones in IT. There are also plans to explore Swivls and lecture capture technology as well as develop a “Bucks Store” – an app store containing potentially useful apps.

Large scale multi-media based assessments (Manuel Frutos-Perez, University of the West of England)

Manuel talked about the issues arising with getting 900 students to produce video assets as assessment tasks, along with a reflective piece, in only one week. Students spend most of their time out of class and are only taught intensively, conference-style, for a week or two; most have no technical background. Any assessment has to focus on skills development.

The project involved creating videos, and the students would be assessed not on their performance, but on their reflection. It was hoped that the students would actively participate and learn about different perspectives. The project has proven to be manageable, sustainable and academically challenging.

Video assignments via Blackboard and Helix (James Leahy, Regent's University London)

James spoke about a scheme allowing students to submit video assignments via Blackboard. This has proven largely successful, so long as the students follow the steps correctly, and the scheme has allowed files to be shared with external examiners. However, there have been a few technical issues with some students not understanding the process, and the file size of some assignments, which can take a while to upload.

Top 3 updates from the Blackboard Teaching and Learning Conference (Anne Cross, Blackboard)

The key themes from the conference were: embedding libraries, anon assignments, the flipped classroom, Digital Olympics, tabs and accessibility. There was lots of interest in core features that not everyone has implemented.

Blackboard Collaborate Latest Updates (Alex Ball, Blackboard)

Alex demonstrated the latest version of Collaborate, which appears fairly intuitive.

Blackboard Enhancement Requests (Workshop session facilitated by Chris Boon, City College Norwich and Danny Ball, Canterbury Christ Church University)

The top-voted choices for enhancement requests were looked at and discussed. It was decided that many “enhancement requests” were actually bug fixes:
• Issue with uploading assignments – special character in filename means that tutors cannot download
• Tighter control of grade centre
• Retention centre does not register/log mobile users

These items were set aside to be submitted separately. The following Enhancement Requests were submitted: the ability to extend or amend assignment due dates for individual students or groups; the ability to drag and drop items into folders; the possibility of using sign-ups to allow students to choose time slots for tutorials.

Overall, I found the meeting to be useful and informative.

London Blackboard User Group Meeting 26/07/2013

On the afternoon of Friday 26th July I attended the London Blackboard User Group meeting (with the brilliant hashtag #LondonBUG) at Regent’s University London. Though I’ve been in my current role, which is primarily concerned with the use of Blackboard, for over two years, this was the first User Group meeting I had attended, and I was looking forward to it.

The theme of the meeting was Using Video in Blackboard. I wasn’t sure if it would be directly relevant to me or my job, as where I work there is a multimedia department responsible for creating and hosting videos. However, I hoped that I would pick up some tips and get to know other Blackboard users in London and around. After an introduction and welcome by Bryony Bramer of Regent’s University, the course proper began. The lectures covered different topics, including the integration of a streaming video server with Blackboard, the rollout of lecture capture, and flipped classrooms. The most interesting to me was the presentation on training videos, which looked at the use of Twitter’s new Vine app for creating short videos telling users how to do particular things on Blackboard. This looks like a brilliant use of the service and it’s definitely something I’d like to take a closer look at.

Thanks to everyone at the BUG for a great session – not to mention the amazing cake!

Adobe Connect Training Session

Last week I took part in my first online training session. To say that I was nervous would be an understatement. I’m not a natural when it comes to speaking in front of an audience, and though I had experience of face-to-face teaching and training before, I had no formal experience of delivering training online. Luckily I had experience of using an online lecture tool at Sheffield, so at least I had some idea of what to expect.

Background

At work I help to manage the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE): we use the Blackboard system. My workplace has eight different sites across the country, including – for example – York, Bristol and two in London. When students access the VLE they get access to a tab specific to the centre they are studying at, which contains information like student events, staff details and opening hours for their centre.

In the last few months I’ve been involved in a project to standardise the information contained on these centre tabs, so that the headings are the same for all centres and different kinds of information can be found in the same place for each centre. Subsequently we have handed back editing responsibilities to members of staff (usually Student Services or Careers) at each Centre, but since we have also upgraded to a new version of Blackboard during this period, they and we felt that training was necessary. We also wanted to ensure that the information policy and guidelines were followed as it would be a shame to standardise the tabs only to find a few months down the line that everything had been moved around again.

Because of the need to train several people, all in different locations across the country, it was thought it would be easier, cheaper and less time-consuming to run the training online. In addition, three different members of staff were delivering different aspects of the training, all of whom work in different locations. It was much simpler to use an online system rather than try and arrange for all of us to be in the same location.

The training was to be formed of three parts. The Head of Libraries and Information would begin by discussing the information policy, the marketing manager would advise on branding guidelines, and I would conclude by explaining how to actually make the changes on the system.

Adobe Connect Pro

To deliver the training we used Adobe Connect Pro, a ‘virtual meeting room’. My manager organised and facilitated the meeting, and she collated the PowerPoint slides created by all the presenters and uploaded them to the system. The system is easy to access: participants simply need to click on the weblink included in the emailed meeting invitation in order to access the space.

Screenshot of the 'meeting room' page

Presenters speak to the group using microphones, while participants can ask questions using a ‘chat’ box on the bottom right hand side of the screen. There are a number of useful icons that participants can use, including ‘raise hands’, ‘agree’ or ‘disagree’, ‘laugh’ and ‘applaud’. In general the participants in this meeting didn’t use many of these, not being used to the programme, but were able to act on instruction when my manager requested that they click the ‘raise hands’ icon to confirm they could hear.

It was decided that the presentation would be recorded and loaded onto the VLE for future reference.

How did I prepare?

Luckily I am familiar with PowerPoint, and it didn’t take me too long to prepare some slides along with some notes to ensure I said everything I wanted to. I made sure to read through these thoroughly beforehand, and ensured that I rehearsed my delivery.

I received some training on Adobe Connect Pro from my manager before the meeting. I thought it seemed relatively simple to use, but took some time to have a look around the system and familiarise myself with it.

The meeting was due to take place at 2pm, after I had a morning off work: perhaps this wasn’t ideal, but I actually felt that it gave me time to practise at home and was ‘fresh’ when I arrived into work. I normally get a bit of an afternoon slump so perhaps this was just as well!

How did it go?

As I said, I was very nervous about the meeting. I work in an open plan office and felt rather self-conscious at the thought of delivering a presentation within earshot of everyone. In the end I managed okay as once I got into the meeting I almost forgot about my surroundings. Also, it helped that the two other presenters were delivering their parts of the session first, so I had time to take a few deep breaths and familiarise myself with the situation. I was a bit nervous about presenting alongside one colleague I hardly know and another I have never met in person, but this wasn’t a problem either.

In general I thought the session went pretty well: I got across all the points I wanted to and found the software relatively straightforward to use. Informal feedback suggested that the participants found the session useful. I was pleased with the question-and-answer session, which I had been dreading: I hate being put on the spot, but I found that I was able to answer all of the questions asked at some level.

Reflection

I feel generally positive about the session. I found to my surprise that I felt more comfortable with this kind of training than I do with presenting face-to-face: I hate using the telephone and thought that using a headset and speaking into a microphone would provoke the same sort of reaction in me. I liked having the screen in front of me as it gave me something to focus on, and I didn’t need to worry about having to make eye contact or speak at a loud volume as the microphone picked up my voice. I was also happy about the question-and-answer session at the end. It seems that if you know your topic well you shouldn’t have too much trouble with answering questions about it: on some level I knew this already but it helps that I have been able to put it into practice.

I think there were some things that I could have improved upon. My manager kindly offered to hear my presentation before the session, but I didn’t take her up on this. I would have felt more self-conscious presenting to just one person, even though it was a practice run, but perhaps I should have given it a go. I also feel that I would have had time to create better PowerPoint slides if I’d had more time – the slides I had weren’t bad, but I had a long weekend off work before the presentation and only had a limited amount of time to work on them. Still, I think it is a good thing that I am able to work under pressure.

As this was my first time using Adobe Connect Pro, I think I still need to get the hang of some of the tools. For instance, other participants can’t see your mouse pointer, you need to click on the arrow icon and drag it around the screen so that they can see what you are focusing on, but there were a few moments when I forgot this and had to quickly go back and drag the pointer over. I imagine this will improve with practice, however.

Next steps

I would like to learn more about Adobe Connect Pro and online training. I’d like to explore the program and make more use of the tools available, as I’m sure it has even more to offer. It would be good experience to lead a session rather than just be one presenter: perhaps this is something I could do in the future.

Blackboard Training

At work, my job involves helping to manage the Virtual Learning Environment, for which we use the Blackboard system. We are upgrading Blackboard this year and had a week-long training programme to get us up to speed on the new system. I’ve never done anything like this in a role before, so I thought I would reflect on the training in order to work out what I got out of it (beyond knowledge of the new system itself).

• The first thing I would say was that just having the training was itself really important. Before that week I was tasked with going through the new system, having a look at what had changed, what had stayed the same, any new features and so on. I developed a familiarity with the system that definitely helped when we had the training, but even so, the training was absolutely essential as lots of things were pointed out that I had completely missed.
• The second thing would probably apply to any training: I made minimal notes, preferring to watch as the trainer explained things and then try them out for myself. If I’d made too many notes I wouldn’t have concentrated on what he was telling us.
• The training involved a lot of practical work which was very useful as it gave us practice in doing the things we would need to do on the new system (which we already did on the old).
• There was a lot of discussion in the training which was really useful. We discussed problems and solutions and ways in which the new system features could help us. The discussions are ongoing and there is lots to think about, but it was really handy to have that space just to think about the implications of the changes.
• Finally, biscuits always help! Our trainer was Dutch and brought us some caramel waffles (stroopwafels!) which were delicious and definitely helped the training along!