Top Ten Time Saving Tips for Blackboard

Mary Wall’s Top Ten Tips for Blackboard

1. Select the GRADE Option in the Discussions. You will be able to see how many posts and the dates for each students. This will make grading much easier.

2. Allow students to modify, remove their posts. Sometimes Blackboard “stutters” and one post becomes seven. Allowing students to remove their own post saves you time.

3. Use the Assignment feature for papers, not email or quiz. You can give feedback, and the paper and your comments stay in the course for documentation.

4. If you give Group Work, be sure to make yourself part of the group, and SUBSCRIBE TO THE DISCUSSIONS.

5. Create a survey at the end of the class for YOU to find out how the class can be improved. The survey should be short, and have mostly open ended question. Your institution probablydoes its own survey, but you should do one also for you. Stress to the students that is in anonymous,but you can see who did it. Award a small amount of points for completion.

6. Be sure to emphasize that students must press SUBMIT when they do an assignment, quiz or survey.

7. Quizzes can be formative, as well as summative. That means you can set up a quiz for student practice. If you do this, be sure to make it multiple-choice, matching, or another form that YOU do not have to go in and grade.

8. Check with your institutions to see what add-ons are available and use them. SmartThinking, TurnItIn, and ProQuest and others can help you manage the class.

9. Don't neglect the libraian at your institution. Librarians are an underutilized resource in online education.

10. Use the Performance Dashboard, accessed through the Control Panel, for a quick snapshot of who is logging into the class.

Rubrics

Ten Sigma: All About Rubrics Rubrics are important in teaching. In this site contains a discussion of why we should create rubrics and how to use them effectively. Ten Sigma: All About Rubrics.

Provocative Point to Ponder

Provocative Point to Ponder: “Moreover, the alleged correlation between more e-resources and improved student outcomes does not seem to hold. Not only do students give slightly lower satisfaction ratings to classes with higher levels of e-resources, they are substantially less likely to say they “learned more” in a class with lots of e-resources than they are in a class with none at all.” (emphasis mine). Higher Education Strategy Associates http://higheredstrategy.com/ The State of E-Learning in Canadian Universities, 2011: If Students Are Digital Natives, Why Don’t They Like E-Learning? http://higheredstrategy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/InsightBrief42.pdf

Audacity tutorial

I like to use Audacity to make my sound files. However, when I have students do this they are often stumped by the lack of documentation. Here is a free video tutorial on the web that I found to be very useful. http://www.multimediatrainingvideos.com/audacity1/

Great History Game

The BBC has a great example of a history game. It is about the Gunpowder Plot when, in 1605, Guy Fawkes and a band of Catholics tried to blow up Parliment. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/interactive/games/gunpowder/index.shtml
The graphics are great. It's not too long but it tests knowledge of the plot.

Resources for online pictures

The following sites contain links to pictures that can be used in online classes:
http://morguefile.com/ Morgue File: "Public Image Files by Creatives for Creatives"
and
http://www.imageafter.com/index.php Image Afer, the "Raw Base For Your Creativity."

How the Computer changes reading habits

"Reading Revolutions: Reading in the Digital age http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3340/298 is an article, available through Creative Commons license, that discusses reading in the digital age. Students do want print some times!

The article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial–NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Reading revolutions: Online digital text and implications for reading in academe
by Barry W. Cull.
First Monday, Volume 16, Number 6 - 6 June 2011
http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/3340/2985

Fun site for avatar creation

It is often fun to create an avatar, especially if we do not want our picture on the Internet. The site http://www.clayyourself.com allows you to do this in an easy step by step process.

Text to speech

"Read the Words" reads text that is on the screen. http://www.readthewords.com/ The text is read by an avatar,and you can select whether it is read in a male or female voice. In a comment, a special education teacher notes that this is great for students who favor audiory processing.

Great site discussing Social Media and FERPA

Social media has changed education, but teachers tend to overuse or to shy away because of FERPA concerns. This is a great article that discusses the pros and cons of Using Social Media with Students.
http://www.getideas.org/getinsight-blog/does-social-media-violate-student-privacy "Does Social Media Violate Student Privacy?"

Wonderful site for art images

The Yale Art Galley has released some of their Art Images as part of the Digital Commons. This is a marvelous collection of art for an online class.

http://discover.odai.yale.edu/ydc/

Scribe at Desk
Pietro Palmieri, the Younger
Yale University Art Gallery

Reading and technology

Interesting article exploring the Internet and its use does affect how we read. While the article http://edte.ch/blog/2011/05/07/are-online-behaviours-affecting-reading-skills does deal specifically with K-12 I think, if we read it, we can recognize how the behaviors affecting this group also change the way adults read now.

Great resource for teachers

The "Body systems coloring book" http://www.coursewareobjects.com/objects/elr/Chabner/language7e/bodyspectrum/ is a good example of multimedia that requires students to do more than just view.

Online infographic

The article "How Social Media is Changing the Education Industry" http://www.mindjumpers.com/blog/2011/04/education-industry-infographic-2/ is interesting not only for its content but also for its presentation. It is an "infographic" and the graphics shown illustrate more clearly than a traditional chart.

iPads in the Classroom

This interesting article "iPads Could Hinder Teaching, Professors Say" in the March 13, 2011 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education discusses the negative impact of the iPads. http://chronicle.com/article/iPads-for-College-Classrooms-/126681/ It makes a point that I did not think of: the slow typing (no keyboard) makes taking notes more difficult. I know one of my students bought the eBook version of the text for class but she cannot cite the page numbers because there are none. Still, I think I will get an iPad.

The Learning Coach: Great web site for teachers

The Leaning Coach is a great web site for teachers. http://theelearningcoach.com/learning/what-is-cognitive-load/ For example, in this post, "What is Cognitive Load?" the graphics visually describe the difference between long term memory and working memory.

Great Journal Resource for Online teachers

The IRRODL (International Review of Research in Online and Distance Learning) is a great resource for online teachers. http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/index
As I was looking through the latest issue (Vol 12, No 3 (2011): Special Issue - Connectivism: Design and Delivery of Social Networked Learning - I noticed that any of the refereed publications can be accessed by HTML PDF MP3 or EPUB. This means I can listen as well as read. Good for them!

Humor in Teaching

In the March 2011 issue of JOLT magazine (http://jolt.merlot.org)
Donna Gayle Anderson Instructor, Texas A&M University-Commerce
Commerce, TX 75429 USA donna_anderson@tamu-commerce.edu
reports on adding humor to a class with low student retention, Production Operations Management.
http://jolt.merlot.org/vol7no1/anderson_0311.htm

I was interested because humor can be a tricky thing online. What the author did was link to YouTube videos that showed humorous situations of production operations such as an "I Love Lucy" segment on Lucy's schedule. The retention in the class improved significantly and students felt they were welcome. Of course the author also notes that she was an active participant in the class, which does make a difference.

Scholarship in Teaching

http://www.itl.usyd.edu.au/projects/scholarshipproject/model.htm

The Australian "Scholarship in Teaching" began in 1999 as a collaborative effort in three Australian institutions with the aims:

•To improve teaching, and the recognition and reward of teaching, through the development of scholarship in teaching in four universities.
•To improve teaching, and the recognition and reward of teaching, in the United National System in general through the development and dissemination of two self-help modules on scholarship in teaching.

They have developed the modules. I cannot find any research on whether this model actually improved teaching scholarship.

The Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education-TOJDE October 2010 ISSN 1302-6488 Volume: 11 Number: 4 Article 12 article "ARE YOU A DREAM COME TRUE OR A NIGHTMARE? DESIRED CHARACTERISTICS IN THE FACE TO FACE AND ONLINE INSTRUCTOR" used a small group to examine what students said were positive and negative characteristics of teachers. The article is found here: http://tojde.anadolu.edu.tr/tojde40/articles/article_12.htm; the authors,Dr. Barba Aldis PATTON and Dr. Teresa LESAGE are from the University of Houston-Victoria, Victoria, Tx USA. The tables produced are interesting, and the conclusion is: "The first recommendation is for instructors to communicate with their students." Why is that so difficult for so many online instructors?

I was impressed with the research behind this article and their conclusion:

Social Media
Effects of Twitter in an online environment http://www.elearnmag.org/subpage.cfm?section=articles&article=154-1
“First, there was much enthusiasm and participation noted by professors who use Twitter that was not echoed when a particular graduate student population was surveyed, this should be investigated. Speculated reasoning for this includes that if students are not already used to using Twitter it may appear as an extra chore or homework assignment for which they receive no reward. Second, should Twitter, or any social networking site for that matter, be pushed if students are satisfied with discussion boards? Possibly over the next few years, as LMSs develop and incorporate the ability to contribute to social networking sites from within, use will increase. However, for now, it would seem discussion boards are the place keep in-class participation.”

Online teaching persona

Good strategies for adding your own "teaching persona" to your online class. I don't agree with everything in this article, but the author makes good points. http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/convey-your-online-teaching-persona/
I like the idea of a letter to students before class begins, but I am no longer sure the students need my picture.

Elixir and Merlot

Merlot has a great new resource for teachers: Elixr http://elixr.merlot.org/ From 2006 to 2010 the program was funded by FIPSI. The Case studies deal with faculy concerns about teaching with technology.

Death by Power Point

This video is a satire on the problems of Power Point but it also contains good tips on how to more effectively use the software.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpvgfmEU2Ck
Don McMillan: Life After Death by PowerPoint.

New Ways to Learn in 2011

Eleven new ways to learn in 2011 are explored in this eLearning Coach article. http://theelearningcoach.com/elearning2-0/11-ways-to-learn-in-2011/

Among the suggestions are "Learn to Focus" (the free book is located at http://theelearningcoach.com/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2011/01/FocusFree.pdf

I especially liked "Explore the World's Museums" and "Soothe Your Inner Geek." Web site references are included in the article.

Indicators of Instructor Presence Rated highly by students

In the latest issue of JOLT (Vol. 6, No. 4, December 2010) the article "The Indicators of Instructor Presence that are Important to Students
in Online Courses" by Sheridan and Kelly notes a study that found online students "While the students generally placed high value on communication and the instructor’s responsiveness, they did not place as much importance on synchronous or face-to-face communication. Participating in synchronous chat sessions had the third lowest rating of importance across all of the rated items, but it also had one of the highest variabilities, suggesting that it was very important to a least a few of the students. Based on a significant negative correlation between the number of online courses taken and the importance of chat sessions, the value that students place on this form of communication may wane as they acquire more online course experience." This finding is significant because some institutions are now requiring online teaching to hold mandatory synchronous sessions.
http://jolt.merlot.org/vol6no4/sheridan_1210.pdf