Since my colleagues have largely left me to my own devices in Hanover while they attend Blackboard World I decided (in between re-arraning the furniture and throwing lavish parties in their offices) to put down some questions to which I hope folks can attach some answers.
To help BB World attendees remember these questions, as they load up on the vendor swag and redeem their free drink coupons, I placed them within an easy to remember mnemonic: M.I.S.T.
Mobile:
What is BB saying about both adoption and roadmap for its mobile apps? Is there excitement and innovation in the community space around Blackboard and mobile? Are vendors offering compelling integration and building blocks in the mobile Blackboard space?
Integrated:
The marketing for Release 9 http://www.blackboard.com/release9/whats-new.aspx highlights the Web 2.0 ish nature of the interface and the ability to integrate with other platforms such as Facebook.
At BB World I'd like to learn exactly how BB 9 integrates with Web 2.0 platforms? Is there any movement by Blackboard or other vendors to provide single-sign on authentication and integration with media publishing platforms such as YouTube and/or iTunesU?
Does the platform really support pedagogies that integrate platforms such as NetVibes, Flickr, Twitter, and Web 2.0 blogging tools? Any action with integration with Google Apps? And how are the Facebook tools working out for schools that are using them?
Social:
Learning is social, but BB often resembles a stay in solitary confinement. Does BB 9, and or the various vendors and building blocks, offer a way forward to the social?
Some enhancements that I'd love to see:
Presence awareness....the ability to see who is in the course or the system and what they are doing in real time (if they give permission).
A news feed of my fellow learners activities (if they give permission), one that would track what folks are doing on the site (ie posting an article, contributing a discussion post or or blog, updating a wiki, taking a quiz...etc. etc.).
The option to chat, in text voice, or video, with folks in the course through a browser tool. This chat should be contextual around the learning activity taking place.
Can student collaborate and communicate in BB 9 by easily uploading and sharing their own content, videos, podcasts, discussions, etc. etc? Does BB 9 feel more like a social learning space for all learners?
Transparent:
The great shame of the C.M.S. is that all the learning, collaboration, discussion and learner created content is locked up in the course. Unavailable for the world to see, difficult to share, impossible to locate.
Learners in Blackboard should have the option to make everything they do public and transparent.
I'd like to show off the course design and materials in a public way...perhaps not all the library articles and videos...but the design around that content. Blogs and Wikis should have a public option - ideally linked to a blogging / wiki platform that is one that can have a life outside of the CMS.
How much of what goes on in courses can be made available at the institutional level....and how can course material and content be made discoverable through search?
How can we make best practices in course design and teaching transparent to our college/university communities, and then transparent to all learners?
Does BB 9 gets us closer to transparency and a break down of the course-centric silo?
How are other schools moving towards a vision of transparency, openness and sharing? What vendors are offering building blocks or add-ons that move us in this direction?
Have fun at the conference.....and bring back some good SWAG.
I love the acronym, Josh. It is is both reminiscent of computing in the "cloud" and of the evanescence of digital bits (despite the fact that nothing ever disappears off the 'net)!
Reading through your list, though, it strikes me that publicly accessible (though controllable) site tools that seamlessly blend the features of blogs and wikis may offer a better solution than that of our current CMS approach--the community garden model versus the walled-garden model.
Posted by: Anthony Helm | July 14, 2009 at 03:21 PM
Josh, I like the social enhancements that you suggest. Speaking of social enhancements, when are you going to invite me to the lavish parties in your colleagues' offices?!
Posted by: Brian Reid | July 14, 2009 at 11:01 PM
MIST - nice.
M: Bb just purchased MobilEdu, developers of the Stanford and Duke mobile apps - there is potential here and an indicator Bb is aware of the significance of mobile computing. Watch the OSCELOT space - I expect soon we will see some FOSS mobile applications start to appear.
I: While Bb 9 will facilitate the integration of external sites I believe the answer here will actually lay in the adoption of open standards and an IMS specification around Learning Tool Interoperability (LTI) - again watch OSCELOT.
S: Learning Objects' Fusion product is (IMO) the best social W2.0 application to date which integrates with Bb - as for an observation on public social spaces in T&L see comments in linked article at the end of this comment.
T: See my comments in a forthcoming post - in short Ray Henderson is going to bring a bit of fresh air/life to Bb in the form of transparency and openness. And I believe that as NG develops we will see the ability to easily expose content - again check out the following URL.
URL:
http://elearnmag.org/subpage.cfm?section=opinion&article=118-1
Posted by: Mark O'Neil | July 24, 2009 at 09:00 AM