by Beth Stinson
Entering into our second Back to School season, the On Demand Learning Center continues to provide popular video tutorials and quick start guides to support students and teachers working in Blackboard Learn. After our first full year of recording statistics, we logged over 1 million page views! If you haven’t yet visited On Demand, you’ll find lots of short how-to videos and getting started guides covering course design, tool use, and much more.
The On Demand Learning Center content is sorted into four main areas:
• Understanding and Building Your Course
• Communicating and Collaborating
• Assessing Learners
• For Students (more…)
by Leslie Day
Ever find yourself wishing that you could spend less time grading student submissions in Blackboard Learn? If yes, then a quick review of the new Blackboard Learn 9.1, Service Pack 6 Features & Enhancements is in order.
I decided to experiment with the program Jing Pro, which allows you to capture short, 5 minute videos, complete with audio. What a great way to showcase some of the new features and enhancements in the Blackboard Learn platform’s latest release, Service Pack 6…I’m hooked.
Service Pack 6 introduces efficiencies across multiple levels of the education experience through enhancements and new features across the entire Blackboard Learn platform. As the Product Marketing Manager for the Course Delivery module, I selected videos that highlight new features and enhancements across core Course Delivery workflows: grading and assessment. These videos focus on how Blackboard Learn’s latest Service Pack will help educators spend less time on the tasks that they do most often. (more…)
by Garen Singer
Does this sound familiar?
- Data is not accessible – only a small group of people know what’s there, how to get to it and what to do with it.
- Data is siloed, and how/where it’s stored (index card?) varies greatly across the institution
- Strategic decisions are sometimes 100% not strategic, like a 15% across-the-board budget cut
- Everybody (and nobody) wants to own the data (more…)
by admin
As a Blackboard strategic consultant, I work with 2- and
4-year institutions around the globe in designing manageable and sustainable
assessment processes that produce actionable knowledge – knowledge that leads
to action – action that increases the quality of educational and administrative
programs and services. While I love my work, I often find myself wishing for a
magic wand. My magic wand would wave and the potential of outcomes assessment
would become evident to everyone around. Institutions would see that
“accountability” is not about metrics but about having a means of evaluating
the impact of their work and taking action to increase the quality of that
impact. Assessment would be seen not as a burden, but as a powerful gift. This power
would be understood as making the work of higher education visible – to
students, faculty, programs, institutions, and oh, yes, to those pesky
entities demanding accountability. What do I mean by visibility?
(more…)
by admin
Best wishes for 2010! Those of us who are involved in assessment are frequently asked “Why would anyone want an assessment job?” All of the assessment people that I know love their work and are passionate about the benefits that assessment offers. As we start a new year, perhaps we should stop now for a few moments to reflect on why we “assessment people” believe so strongly in our work.
As a director or coordinator of assessment, you are always balancing the demands from your stakeholders. The administration wants the institution to meet improvement goals while meeting the standards of the accrediting agencies. The faculty members, already overburdened, often view assessment as another chore to accomplish and want assessment to be as easy as possible. Meanwhile, the “shifting sands” of the accrediting space are always demanding changes in established (and comfortable) assessment practices. In addition to being an administrator and assessment evangelist, you must also find the time to remain current in your practice.
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