A few people have been asking my thoughts lately on online learning, and whether I've yet experienced any really good interfaces for it. So I thought I'd share my thoughts on another online course I've enrolled in this semesterr. This is the third online course I've taken this year, although the previous two were six week "mini courses". The interesting thing about this one is that it's completely taught via Blackboard, which I use at CWRU but only as a supplement to in-class learning. I may keep posting on my thoughts on Blackboard as the semester progresses, but I must say that so far it is quite a "clunky" interface to use for an entire course ie a course in which there is no face-to-face interaction because of geographical distance. To mitigate the tyranny of distance, the instructor has set up a "chat" forum where she will hold regular virtual "office hours". However, the technology isn't working very well and so far no one has managed to get the chat software on Blackboard to work.
Some of the particular drawbacks of relying on Blackboard as the key forum in which to teach an entire course seem to be:
1/ The discussion threads are not very user friendly. There's a lot of pushing the "back" button in order to maintain the discussion, and it is difficult not to lose "threads" of the discussion. While this is manageable, but difficult, in a limited enrolment class, I don't think it would scale up very well.
2/ The interface doesn't handle large written assignments very well, so for groupwork involving larger pieces of writing (ie more than 500 to 1,000 words) the instructor has asked us to email her so she can make the material available to the rest of the class.
I should note that the course I'm taking seems to be using an older version of Blackboard than the one I use at CWRU. I haven't yet played around with all of the interactive features of the new version so it is possible that some of my concerns are already dealt with in this version. I'll keep playing and mulling over this and would certainly be interested in others' thoughts and experiences as usual.
I happen to be taking three online graduate level courses in psychology, which are powered by D2L–a small Canadian company. I don't think online teacing has much to do with the interface. It has everything to do with the instructional design.
One of the courses is exceptionally well designed. The professor has put thought into how he presents the material, making online learning a pleasure. Each concept is taught in manageable chunks, with each concept building on the next. Basically, there is a good flow to the course, even though we never meet in a chat room (a live chat can replicate bad teaching in a traditional classroom). Using the language of cognitive load theory, this professor has reduced the extrinsic load to increase learning (i.e., germane load).
Not sure from your post which version of Blackboard (Classic or Vista) you are using. Both have their advantages and drawbacks, and both can be "clunky" in different ways. I built our first online course (Professional Responsibility) and I am currently teaching it in Vista. So far, the students seem quite happy with the online environment (we polled them mid-way through the course) and I am generally happy with it, too. FYI, Blackboard is currently — meaning as we speak — merging Classic and Vista into an entirely new platform — Blackboard Learn — which seems to take bits and pieces from each of the two older platforms. It looks and feels quite different. I will need to actually convert my entire course into the new platform before I can teach it again. Sigh.
Thanks, Beth. I have been using various different versions of Blackboard and, to be honest, I'm not sure which is which. One of the courses I'm taking at least gives the participants some leeway to reorganize discussion threads for easier viewing. So that might be the newer version. I know I worked briefly with a prototype of one of the newer versions a year or so ago when I was visiting at UF. Will be interesting to see how Blackboard Learn comes out.
Online learning has so many benefits and it also contains some drawbacks but as per my experience we have to try this because it is most continent way of learning. i have read this whole article and it is really having a good stuff, we have to followed these all points.