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May 12, 2004
Step Up to the Blackboard
Application Builds Scholarly Class Community
There wasn’t any Blackboard or Prometheus when Steve McGraw,
assistant professor and director of the Clinical Management and Leadership
Program, Health Care Sciences, started teaching in 1997. That was the
year Web developers began building Web sites to help streamline the process
of posting course materials online. Since then a revolution has swept
across campus, motivating even the most technologically recalcitrant into
the next generation of higher education.
“From the faculty perspective, the biggest advantage is that [with
Blackboard] it is easy to get your materials online,” said Michael
Corry, assistant professor and director of the Educational Technology
Leadership (ETL) Program. Corry explained that the ETL Program has standardized
the look and feel of online courses, reducing the “learning curve”
for students because of the common approach.
By using Blackboard, faculty can organize course content, monitor class
interaction and evaluate student work in their GW distance and/or face-to-face
courses within an online secure environment. Many find that exchanging
student papers, research tips and handouts with the help of Blackboard,
helps build a scholarly class community.
Blackboard, which replaces Prometheus after May 31, also includes tools
that faculty members can use to provide students an engaging online experience.
Such tools include the discussion boards, the virtual classroom, group
pages and more.
Ryan Watkins, assistant professor of ETL, has used the discussion boards
(asynchronous communication feature) in his distance learning courses
in order to provide a two-way communication environment for his students
who have different schedules. Messages about course readings, questions
on lectures and debates can be posted using the discussion boards.
Greg Squires, professor of sociology, of public policy and public administration,
and chair, Department of Sociology, has used the electronic reserves feature
of Blackboard for required readings. Articles and book chapters can be
scanned and linked to Blackboard courses by staff members at GW’s
Gelman and Himmelfarb libraries.
“What online learning has done is to increase the size of the pie
of numbers of potential students,” Corry said. Students who cannot
attend on-campus classes can attend distance education classes delivered
in Blackboard.
Ginger Smith, associate professor of tourism studies and associate dean
for academic program development, College of Professional Studies, said
that students benefit by using Blackboard because “no one misses
out on a mode, style or methodology of teaching just because in the old
terms, they are on- or off-campus.”
“Blackboard and other tools like Blackboard will continue in popularity,”
said Corry. GW instructors have initiated a Blackboard Users Group (BbUG),
and a Blackboard special use course has been set up to aid the exchange
of information and the sharing of ideas. To join the GW Faculty BbUG,
please complete the brief survey at http://survey.gwu.edu/survey/index.cfm?SURVEY_ID=5032.
Send feedback to: bygeorge@gwu.edu
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Related Link
GW
Gets Onboard with Blackboard
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