K-12

Hello everyone! My name is Lauren Krznaric and I’m thrilled to be the newest team member on the Program Marketing Team at Blackboard. The Fall is already shaping up to be packed with many great community programs including our Exemplary Course MOOC! I’m excited to also be a part of the Catalyst Awards and Exemplary Course Program. The 2013 program will kick off in early December but over the next few weeks I will be highlighting some of the 2012 winners.

Recently, I had the pleasure of speaking with one of the 2012 Blackboard Exemplary Course Award Winners, Elena Pravosudova. Pravosudova wears many hats at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) – a school with roughly 18,000 students and 900 faculty. She is an associate professor, an undergraduate advisor, and a University Curriculum Committee chair. The winning course, Principles of Biological Investigations, is a team effort between herself and instructional designer, Alina Solovyova-Vincent. The course also earned one of the coveted six spots for Directors’ Choice for Courses with Distinction.

 

The Ripple Effect

At Blackboard World this year, I spoke with training professionals from institutions around the world.  One of the biggest challenges shared by all: getting faculty engaged in—and of course, completing— training.

I heard the frustration from instructional designers and professional trainers about how they invest significant time in designing training to increase instructors’ proficiency with developing online and hybrid courses. And yet, despite these “free” internal resources, some instructors simply don’t take advantage of them, and others may never complete the courses they do start.

We all know instructors’ ability to create engaging and exemplary online/hybrid courses is critical to the success of an online learning program. As the demand for online courses grows, whether by virtue of being part of your institution’s growth strategy, or due to increased learner demand, faculty must be ready and able to make the shift. The effects of poorly executed online sections can have a ripple effect—from impacting the academic success of students (and ultimately, retention) to influencing an institution’s brand reputation as a result of “poor reviews” via social media outlets.

Never has faculty adoption and proficiency with online learning been more critical.

 

Earlier this year, a handful of leader’s from higher ed institutions met at a symposium for a day-long session to chat about key topics and issues facing their institutions. One of the topics of the day was on Social Learning – what it is and what it isn’t, and no, it’s not new. What dawned on us after the conversations is that the term means a lot of different things to different people.

So, drawing upon the key takeaways, subsequent discussions and research of our own, we’ve compiled some myths (and truths) to help you better understand what is often misunderstood about social learning.

While the list could go on, we landed on four myths of social learning. First we are going to address them and then we’re going to debunk them.

Over the next few weeks we’ll present a breakdown of these myths and take a deeper dive into what they mean for active learners and instructors..

• Myth 1: Social Learning Is New
• Myth 2: Social Learning Is the Same as Social Media
• Myth 3: Social Learning Is Just for Fun
• Myth 4: Social Learning Is a Fad

Want to be the first to know when our paper is ready?  Tweet us @Blackboard with the hashtag #4myths and we’ll send you a copy before it’s available to others!

We’re excited to announce that we’ll be holding an ANGEL Community Webinar on October 18th at 2:00 pm ET to share a client-influenced roadmap for the ANGEL LMS 8.0.

When we announced the indefinite extension of ANGEL’s end of life earlier this year, we also said we would invest in select enhancements to ANGEL 8.0. We held an ANGEL Suggestion Squad during the summer to solicit the community’s input to help us determine where to make those investments. The ANGEL Community Webinar is your opportunity to hear that input and learn where we’ll be investing in ANGEL 8.0 over the coming year.

Today we announce the launch of a new MOOC powered by the CourseSites Open Course Series, Designing an Exemplary Course.

If you’re not familiar with the term MOOC (Massive Online Open Course), read on to learn how the latest (free) trend in Professional Development can impact your classroom instantly.

The newest addition to the CourseSites Open Course Series centers around the Exemplary Course Program (ECP) Rubric, which is a useful guide created by distinguished educators and instructional designers that will empower you to improve your online teaching experience. Whether you are just getting started or are an advanced online educator, this course will provide you with a framework to help identify and disseminate best practices for designing engaging online courses. But you will not be alone in your journey!