[Englecturers] Blackboard option (sort of)

[Gray Scott]

Hello all, 

Teri Carter has recommended that I share, via listserv, something I've been doing recently with Blackboard. 

So here it is: Rather than juggle three different Blackboard sites for three different sections of the same class, I've simply started asking Computing Services to combine my three sections into one single Blackboard site. That way, I only have to post things once. In most areas, it simplifies things tremendously. 

There are some disadvantages:

1. You cannot use Blackboard's list of students as a class "roster" any more because, as far as it is concerned, you have one class with 69 students. The only way you'll know which students belong to which sections is to consult the old-fashioned rosters. 

2. The folks in the computing office appear unused to this kind of request. As a result, for each of the two quarters I've done this, I've had to ask politely several times (and once by phone) before I got the sites combined. If you're going to do this too, please be patient with the staff. I strongly supsect that it's an unfamiliar nuissance for them. (If you're going to contact someone, I recommend emailing Ming Yang, who fixed the last one for me: ming.yang at ucr.edu . Tell Ming that you want yours set up like Graham Scott's, so there's a reference point. Ming's more likely to remember my odd request than anyone else there is.) 

3. If you have an active online discussion element to your course, you should probably make it clear to your students that multiple sections are present, so that students from one section don't become baffled by things that students from other sections say in passing. This hasn't happened to me, because my students are acutely aware of the fact that the sites have been combined, but I can envision instances in which a student from a morning section types "I'll see you all at 8 a.m. tomorrow!" and as a result, the 12:40 p.m. students start showing up at the wrong time. (Note: Last quarter, my students got into the habit of putting their section numbers into the subject lines of their postings, which helped clarify things greatly.) 

4. Some Blackboard features may take longer to load. If you don't use the course statistics, electronic gradebook, or discussion boards heavily, this won't be a big deal. 

The obvious advantage to combining the sites is that you no longer have to bounce back and forth between multiple sites. But there are other advantages: For instance, a combined site opens the door for some interesting section-to-section interactions, for those interested in such things. Students can peer review work from another section (and are often more frank, knowing that they won't have to sit next to the recipient of the feedback). Sometimes it helps if students receive two peer reviews, one face-to-face with a classmate and one electronic review from a stranger. Also, if you ever use peer grading (as opposed to peer review), it seems to work better across classes. Additionally, postings from other sections can be pulled up on overheads and discussed, and again, the discussions are usually more lively if all of the participants know that the author isn't there to be wounded. Last quarter, I even had some students write collaborative papers together across sections. (If you plan on doing anything wildly collaborative, talk to me, both so I can pick your brain, and so that you can pick mine. Because collaborative writing is my primary area of research, I've done a lot of collaborative experimentation, with results both beautiful and ugly. Trust me: You don't want the ugly results.)

- Gray   

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