Six Trends for the Future of Faculty Development

April 8, 2014 By Jason Rhode Leave a Comment

Charting a Course for the Future

Having spent the past decade in the support of higher education faculty, I have had an opportunity to observe the evolution of the faculty development ecosystem. Increasingly, institutions are recognizing the value of providing centralized and systematic faculty development support services, programs and workshops. Providing this level of support for faculty seems to be at an all-time high with studies and reports from practitioners in the field confirming the need for such efforts and administrators giving priority on those initiatives.

In addition to the faculty development programs at their home institutions, there are also more opportunities to participate in a wide range of workshops, webinars, and open courses through other organizations and institutions. The rapid growth of virtual attendance options for faculty, combined with the sheer volume of information and resources available online have resulted in a large selection of programs from which to chose. Faculty are also developing professional learning networks and leveraging social media where they can share their own tips, recommendations and best practices.

As new technologies and pedagogical approaches are continually perfected, there are no shortages of opportunities for experimentation and innovation in today’s college classrooms, both physical and virtual. It is easier than ever for faculty to select a new technology tool or instructional methodology and incorporate it into their teaching repertoire. Adaptations of “traditional” teaching methods in physical and virtual classrooms are just a few of the many forces converging to bring about a significant transformation of higher education in both the short and long term.

Despite all that has changed in the field, many constants remain. Faculty requiring assistance still seek out personalized support and appreciate having someone they can call or email for a prompt response. Many needs are localized to specific technology or academic system configurations making support provided by the institution critical. As we adopt new systems and processes for meeting evolving student requirements, faculty training on new features and workflows are necessary for envisioned outcomes to become fully realized. Institutions must also continue to serve faculty at varying stages in their academic career, from junior to mid-career to senior faculty status. Furthermore, tracking completion of professional development programs and expressed support continues to provide important data points that can inform both administrators and support staff on the progress made and challenges still to be met.

As I look to the future of higher education faculty development, I see several trends that I believe will persist in the coming years:

1. More ‘Just-In-Time’ Training and Resources

As technology for easily creating and sharing information and learning artifacts becomes even more commonplace, the number of training aids and resources will continue to grow. Faculty are becoming quite comfortable searching online for quick answers to technical and/or pedagogical questions as they arise and likely will not wait for a formalized training session. Educators are seeking training materials and resources made available in bite-sized pieces; easy to find and readily at hand.

2. Curation of Available Professional Development Resources

As the vast number of resources expand, so will the necessity for curating and help options that highlight the most applicable and relevant needs for a given scenario. While we are beginning to see the use of bookmarking and other social sharing tools with surface resources that a mass of users have viewed, liked, etc., there is room for continued tool improvement and systems to augment manual curation approaches. I envision an Amazon-style recommendation paradigm to become commonplace; where after accessing a resource, faculty are advised on other helpful alternatives. In the meantime, collections of links, tutorials, and other resources curated by faculty development staff will continue to be sought.

3. Flexible Participation Options for Live Programs and Workshops

With workloads continuing to increase for a growing number of part-time and adjunct faculty in face-to-face and online programs, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for a large number of faculty to attend live programs and workshops. Flexible participation options for live programs and workshops will go on to flourish and may cover a wide range of possibilities: such as live/online simulcast workshops and archiving programs for on demand access.

4. Recognition of Prior Learning

Given the availability of resources and a move toward credentialing prior learning experiences, faculty will continue to seek credentialing and reporting of their professional development activities for career advancement. This emphasis toward recognition will likely involve badges and other digital certification, but will certainly rely on institutions embracing faculty development initiatives completed while at other institutions, or through alternate organizations like the Sloan Consortium. It will be up to institutions to decide how they will accept and recognize certifications and trainings procured through other establishments while simultaneously ensuring that faculty possess skills deemed necessary.

5. Data-Driven Decision-Making

As it becomes easier to gather a wide range of data on faculty development outcomes, ever-increasing opportunities exist for this information to be used in guiding future offerings. As data is purposefully collected and analyzed, resulting trends can provide valuable insight into the utility of offerings and inform future decisions on prioritization of finite efforts and resources.

6. Renewed Focus on Mission and Offering Programming and Services to Meet Stated

Higher education is facing a time of unprecedented change and those leading faculty development initiatives will be well-served to sharpen their focus on their mission and offer programs and services to meet designated objectives. Initiatives that once met stated needs or requirements may need to be revamped, renewed, or perhaps in some cases discarded so that available resources can be best utilized.

Looking Ahead

What trends would you add to this list? What will shape the future of faculty development? Leave a comment and join the conversation!

Orignally posted 2/4/2014 on Sloan Consortium blog

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Trends in Online Learning – April 2014

April 4, 2014 By Jason Rhode Leave a Comment

I was recently invited to participate as a panelist in a Blackboard webinar discussing results of study of 200 senior education leaders from universities across the U.S. exploring trends in learning management systems and online learning and engagement strategies. The webinar archive is available here via Blackboard Collaborate as well as YouTube.

In addition to commenting on the findings from the study, I was asked to try forecasting the future of online learning at my institution, in which I briefly touched on a few trends related to online teaching and learning at NIU (discussed below) that I see continuing.

Growth in online learning plateau

It’s unrealistic to expect the exponential growth that we’ve seen over the past decade nationally in students taking online courses to continue indefinitely. Rather, I believe we are going to begin seeing a plateau and stabilization in the growth of online learning in the coming years as online modes of learning become commonplace and are no longer perceived as “new” but are rather just part of the fabric of higher education.

New niche programs to meet student demand, targeted at students in region

I anticipate that we’ll see our institution develop new niche programs to meet student demand as well as market demand, targeted at students in our region. With the majority of our current online students currently within the Northern Illinois region and trends toward students preferring to enroll in online programs from institutions within a 100 radius, I envision that new programs that we develop will be tailored to students in our Midwest area.

Online programs to attract new students, increase revenue, and improve retention

Online programs will be one means for attracting new students, increasing revenue, and improving retention. Given the heavy competition in the online learning space, institutions will be well-served to identify their competitive advantages and clearly communicate these advantages to prospective and current students. I see some fantastic opportunities for institutions to leverage emerging learning analytics and outcomes data combined with new models of student support services online to see retention rates among online programs be equal to or even superior to traditional face-to-face retention rates.

Coherent online strategy and financial model is critical for buy-in from institutional leaders

In conversations that I’ve had with chief online learning officers and leaders at institutions that have vibrant online programs, it’s clear to me that a coherent institutional online strategy and financial model is critical for gaining buy-in from institutional leaders. Our institution is currently in the midst of a significant internal budgeting overhaul as we look to maximize our available resources to make academically responsive and fiscally responsible budgeting decisions.

Investment in central support infrastructure needed to scale current offerings

As we look to scale our current offerings, investment in centralized support infrastructure is needed. Our institution has taken a very decentralized approach to this point and left majority of development and support of online programs to individual colleges and departments. While this has provided a great deal of autonomy, duplication of efforts and inconsistency often results when each separate college or department tries to build their own infrastructure. For many aspects of online program development and support, we can be more efficient institutionally and offer a better online learning experience to our students by centralizing many aspects of the online program infrastructure to maximize expertise and resources. What specific support is centralized varies by institution.

Focus on student career success

With our current institutional keystone goal of student career success, we are aligning all our resources and efforts in focusing on this goal of ensuring that students leave NIU prepared to make and impact and be successful in their career. I forsee online learning as being one avenue by which we are able to make available to students high quality, engaging, and flexible learning opportunities that fit their busy lives. Especially for adult learners who have families, jobs, etc. and are seeking to improve their career or perhaps change careers, I see online programs as being a key component of our full complement of program offerings.

Articulation agreements with other institutions

We are continuing to focus on developing articulation agreements with other institutions that bring added value to the NIU education. An example of such an agreement is a recent reverse transfer pact that NIU signed with a local community college that was hailed by Illinois Lt. Governor Sheila Simon as, “a student-centered reform that should be implemented at campuses across the state.” Basically, this agreement allows eligible NIU students who transferred from nearby Kishwaukee Community College without associate’s degrees to earn the two-year degree using credit from NIU courses. If for any reason a student then must stop-out for a period of time while finishing their undergraduate degree, they will have an associates degree credential. Students want a hassle-free transfer process and to receive credit for the work they do. Agreements like this and others will make it even easier for students to incorporate educational opportunities from multiple institutions.

Mix of online and blended/hybrid programs

I see a mix of fully-online as well as blended/hybrid programs to be offered in the future at NIU, where the benefits of a synchronous, face-to-face experience can be coupled with the flexibility of online delivery. An example is a new interdisciplinary Ph.D. program in Health Sciences recently approved by the Illinois Board of Higher Education that is scheduled to launch in 2015. This program will be a hybrid program, consisting of fully-online courses with several on-campus face-to-face intensives each year. This blended/hybrid approach provides many benefits for faculty as well as students.

Accelerated courses (8-week terms)

I also envision growth in the number of accelerated online courses (those of different lengths then the traditional 16-week semester). From market research that we’ve done, many fully-online programs geared toward adult learners have taken an accelerated course model with students taking fewer courses at a time of shorter duration. For example, instead of a part-time student of taking 2 courses each lasting 16 weeks, students take 2 8-week courses back-to-back, focusing solely one 1 course at a time. There are some obvious benefits as well as challenges when moving to an accelerated course model, but studies are beginning to be published reporting student learning outcomes in accelerated courses as comparable, and in some cases superior, to the semester-long course.

Faculty continue to develop own content for individual courses, instructional designers to assist with online course development in programs

We will continue to see the lines blurring between online courses and those web-enhanced and blended courses where faculty are utilizing online technologies in the delivery of their courses. In many cases faculty at NIU will continue to development their own content for individual online courses, but I see instructional designers skilled in advanced technical and development skills as assisting with online course development for online courses that are part of a cohesive online program.

Ongoing faculty training and support is essential for success

Finally, ongoing faculty training and support will continue to be essential for successful online program offerings. No matter whether faculty are developing the content and building courses themselves or if instructional designers are building courses, faculty still need to be trained not only on pedagogical best practices for teaching online, but also need to keep current in their technology skills. LMS features change rapidly as do the software and technical processes that institutions employ in their online offerings. We need to be equipping faculty for continued success.

What trends do you see in online learning at your institution? Your comments are welcome!

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Hierarchy of Instructional Design

February 13, 2014 By Jason Rhode 1 Comment

I drafted the following comparison of instructional design theory versus instructional design models and developed the accompanying hierarchy of instructional design back in 2006 as part of one of my comprehensive examination responses for my Ph.D. I’m sharing here it on my blog at this time for my students and others who may find the commentary and diagram comparing ID theory versus ID models helpful.

Brief Overview of Instructional Design Theory

Analysis of a complex concept such as instructional design theory begins with defining key terms used. Instruction can refer to “any activity that is intended to foster learning” (Goodyear, 1997, p. 86), whereas design focuses on improving the quality of subsequent creations (Smith & Ragan, 2005) while considering the many factors that may affect or be affected by the implementation.

A theory is simply “an organized set of statements that allow us to explain, predict, or control events” (Smith & Ragan, 2005, p. 23). Another, more expansive definition of a theory is “an organized set of propositions that are syntactically and semantically integrated” (Snelbecker, 1999, p. 33). Instructional design theory is drawn from an assortment of abstract communication, systems, and learning theories (Richey, 1986) which form a basis for practical models for instructional design and development.

Many scholars have attempted at providing succinct definitions of instructional design theory (Merrill, Drake, Lacy, & Pratt, 1996; Reigeluth, 1999; Richey, 1986). Reigeluth (1999) defines instructional design theory broadly as, “A theory that offers explicit guidance on how to better help people learn and develop” (p. 5). In its most basic form, ID theory is simply a collection of assumptions that specific approaches to ID are built upon. ID theories describe instructional methods and situations for proper use and define how complex methods can be broken into component methods (Reigeluth, 1999).

Hierarchy of Instructional Design
Hierarchy of Instructional Design

ID theory is build upon the adoption of one or more procedural and conceptual models (Richey, 1986). The resulting theory enfolds the beliefs concerning general systems theory, communication theory, and learning theory. Conceptual models of instruction are built upon such theoretical foundations, upon which specific ID models are applied to real-life educational challenges. The figure above depicts this hierarchy of ID formation as described by Richey (1986) and Smith and Ragan (2005).

As Reigeluth (1999) notes, ID theory is not synonymous with learning theory, ID process, or curriculum theory. However, ID theory is inextricably connected to each. Learning theory is predominantly descriptive, serving to describe how learning takes place. ID process details the procedures that the instructional designer or educator ought to use when planning and preparing the instruction. Curriculum theory is based on a set of values and offers suggestions for methods of instruction. ID theory surpasses all of these individual viewpoints and aims to answer the questions of both “what” and “how” in a proposed educational experience.

Numerous working definitions of ID exist, many of which exude similar connotations. ID is defined as, “The development of learning experiences and environments which promote the acquisition of specific knowledge and skill by students” (Merrill et al., 1996). In a similar vein, Smith and Ragan (2005) define ID as, “The systematic and reflective process of translating principles of learning and instruction into plans for instructional materials, activities, information resources, and evaluation” (p. 4). Richey’s definition (1986) is quite detailed, referring to ID as “The science of creating detailed specifications for the development, evaluation, and maintenance of situations which facilitate the learning of both large and small units of subject matter” (p. 9).

Recently, even the term “instructional design” is being examined and compared to an alternative of “learning design” (Gibson, 2006; Ip, 2006; Taylor, 2006). While some consider the terms to be synonymous, the latter more closely aligns with contemporary constructivist views of the roles of the instructor and learners. Throughout this paper the term “instructional design” (ID) will be used inclusively to refer to the processes of creating a blueprint for successful learning experiences, whether they be more self-paced and instructivist or student-centered and constructivist.

When considering ID theory, one must acknowledge the personnel who take theory and apply it to the design of learning: the instructional designers. The role of the instructional designer is crucial to student success (Liu et al., 2005). Yet, what is the role of the instructional designer? This is a question that has been raised in many professional and collegial venues, with the debate as divided today as ever before (Klein, 2006; Spector, 2006a, 2006b; Wissing, 2006). The International Board of Standards for Training, Performance and Instruction (IBSTPI) has taken on the monumental task of identifying and compiling the competencies for someone involved in the many diverse tasks of ID (“Instructional design competencies”, n.d.).

In reality, the role of instructional designer is multifaceted, requiring a unique and varied skill set. The instructional designer has been referred to as an engineer (Smith & Ragan, 2005), creative scientist (Richey, 1986), and project manager (Mager, 1997), making every effort to create a blueprint for the further development and implementation of the learning initiative. The instructional designer recognizes the difference between the design processes and products (Glaser, 1971), forming a structure that future development and implementation to be built upon.

Yet, even with the tasks of an instructional designer defined, because ID is such a complex practice, there are countless ways whereby a learning program can come to fruition. Hence the need for ID models!

Instructional Design Models versus Theory

Instructional design (ID), also referred to in the literature as “systematic instructional planning” (Kemp, 1985) is an umbrella phrase used to refer to many differing aspects of the design of educational experiences. ID is often used to refer in general terms instructional systems development (ISD). Numerous ISD models exist, all of which typically refer to the phases of analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation of instruction. Today much indeterminism and ambiguity exists with regards to the use of the terms ID and ISD. Yet, a clear distinction does exist between ID and ISD. Whereas ISD models include a “major emphasis on front-end analysis, implementation strategies including train-the-trainer, maintenance of the instruction, and external or summative evaluation” (Dick, 1997, p. 364), ID models generally focus upon the steps necessary to transform a goal statement to instruction that is ready for development and implementation. Models are valuable because they serve as a visual representation of the relationships among various components of the ISD process.

Instructional design endeavors to guarantee that a learning activity is developed according to specifications. It culminates in a framework outlining how instruction should be developed given the outputs of various design tasks (K. A. Conrad & TrainingLinks, 2000). A number of principles underlie this framework (Spector, 2001), which accounts for the varied and increasing approaches being used to design instruction today.

A host of ID models exist that aid in depicting the complex and interwoven tasks necessary in order to design quality learning experiences. The true value of an ID model is not in providing a concrete order whereby effective instructional development takes place, but rather in providing a “meaningful organizing framework within which development activities can be described, discussed, actualized, and assessed” (Spector & Muraida, 1997, p. 61). ID models generally tend to simply modify and elaborate upon a basic problem-solving model tailored to meet the needs of the educational endeavor (Smith & Ragan, 2005).

References

Conrad, K. A., & TrainingLinks. (2000). Instructional design for web-based training. Amherst, MA: HRD Press.

Dick, W. (1997). A model for the systematic design of instruction. In R. D. Tennyson, F. Schott, N. Steel & S. Dykstra (Eds.), Instructional design: International perspectives. Volume 1: Theory, research, and models. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Dick, W., & Carey, L. (1996). The systematic design of instruction (4th ed.). New York: Harper Collins.

Gibson, D. (2006, April 10). Instruction design verse learning design [Msg 11]. Message posted to ITFORUM, archived at http://listserv.uga.edu/archives/itforum.html

Glaser, R. (1971). The design of instruction. In M. D. Merrill (Ed.), Instructional design: Readings (pp. 18-37). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Goodyear, P. (1997). Instructional design environments: Methods and tools for the design of complex instructional systems. In S. Dijkstra, N. Seel, F. Schott & R. D. Tennyson (Eds.), Instructional design: International perspectives (Vol. 2, pp. 83-111). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Instructional design competencies. International Board of Standards for Training, Performance and Instruction. (n.d.). Retrieved February 3, 2006, from http://www.ibstpi.org/instructional-designer-competencies/

Ip, A. (2006, April 10). Instruction design verse learning design [Msg 6]. Message posted to ITFORUM, archived at http://listserv.uga.edu/archives/itforum.html

Kemp, J. E. (1985). The instructional design process. New York: Harper & Row.

Klein, J. D. (2006, April 20). You’re an instructional tech, yes [Msg 12]. Message posted to ITFORUM, archived at http://listserv.uga.edu/archives/itforum.html

Liu, X., Bonk, C. J., Magjuka, R. J., Lee, S.-h., & Su, B. (2005). Exploring four dimensions of online instructor roles: A program level case study. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 9(4), 29-48.

Mager, R. F. (1997). Making instruction work (2nd ed.). Atlanta, GA: CEP Press.

Merrill, M. D., Drake, L., Lacy, M. J., & Pratt, J. (1996). Reclaiming instructional design. Educational Technology & Society, 36(5), 5-7.

Reigeluth, C. M. (1999). What is instructional-design theory and how is it changing? In C. M. Reigeluth (Ed.), Instructional-design theories and models: A new paradigm of instructional theory (Vol. 2). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Richey, R. C. (1986). The theoretical and conceptual bases of instructional design. New York: Nichols.

Smith, P. L., & Ragan, T. J. (2005). Instructional design (3rd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Snelbecker, G. E. (1999). Some thoughts about theories, perfection, and instruction. In C. M. Reigeluth (Ed.), Instructional-design theories and models: A new paradigm of instructional theory (Vol. 2, pp. 31-50). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Spector, J. M. (2006a, April 20). You’re an instructional tech, yes [Msg 3]. Message posted to ITFORUM, archived at http://listserv.uga.edu/archives/itforum.html

Spector, J. M. (2006b, April 20). You’re an instructional tech, yes [Msg 15]. Message posted to ITFORUM, archived at http://listserv.uga.edu/archives/itforum.html

Spector, J. M., & Muraida, D. J. (1997). Automating instructional design. In S. Dijkstra, N. Seel, F. Schott & R. D. Tennyson (Eds.), Instructional design: International perspectives (Vol. 2, pp. 59-81). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Taylor, M. (2006, April 11). Instruction design verse learning design [Msg 16]. Message posted to ITFORUM, archived at http://listserv.uga.edu/archives/itforum.html

Wissing, G. (2006, April 20). You’re an instructional tech, yes [Msg 11]. Message posted to ITFORUM, archived at http://listserv.uga.edu/archives/itforum.html

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7 Steps for Choosing the Best Technology Tools for Your Teaching

January 21, 2014 By Jason Rhode 2 Comments


In the decade now that I have spent supporting educators in the endeavors to teach using technology, I have lost count of the number of times I’ve been asked by faculty for advice on how to choose the best technology tools for their teaching. With the seemingly endless selection of technology tools available, how do educators choose the right technology tools to incorporate into their teaching? If you are in the situation of considering a new technology tool in your teaching, here are 7 steps to take as you choose which tool may be best for you:

Step 1: Start with your objectives

It’s important to always start any conversation about technology selection with objectives. What is it that you and/or your students should be able to do? There are some great models available, such as Digital Bloom’s Taxonomy and SAMR, that can offer guidance as your craft and/or revise objectives that will form the basis for any decisions regarding technology decisions. Are you seeking to substitute, augment, modify, or redefine an existing teaching or learning activity? Make sure that it is clear from reviewing your objectives what your intended goals are.

Step 2: Survey your “tech landscape”

Once you have your goals and objectives clearly in mind, the next step is to take an inventory of your current technology use as well as look at your environment for incorporating the new technology. What tools are you and/or your students already using? What are you comfortable with? What is working? Keep in mind the adaage, “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it” and don’t discard an existing technology if it is the meeting your needs. What tools are already at your fingertips and/or perhaps provided/supported by your institution? What tools are frowned upon and/or blocked at your institution?

Step 3: Set your budget

How much are you and/or your students willing to spend on a tool? Do you need to stick with a free solution? Or, are you able to spend some money? Many tools take a “freemium” approach, meaning that they are available for use on a limited basis for free with additional features available for a fee.

Step 4: Sample available tools

Pick a few (5 or less) available options and try the tools yourself to see which you and/or your students like best, are easiest to use, and meet your needs. What are the pros & cons of each? What support is available? How does each integrate into the existing workflow and/or lesson?

Step 5: Select your tool

Eventually, you finally need to take the plunge and pick a tool to use. Don’t worry..you aren’t stuck using the tool forever 🙂 If you eventually change your mind down the road, you can always change the tool.

Step 6: Set parameters for use

Clarify for yourself and/or your students how the tool will and won’t be used. It’s at this point you may want to revisit your objectives to ensure that your plan for use meets your stated learning objectives. Are you using the right tool for the right problem?

Step 7: Scrutinize your choice

After you’ve thoroughly used the tool for a specified period of time (term, semester, etc.) reflect on your use of the tool? Did it meet your needs? What unexpected issues did you and/or your students encounter? Is it working well enough that you want to stick with it, or is it time to try something else? You’re not locked-in to continuing to use the tool if it isn’t meeting your needs.

There you have it…a seven-step approach to selecting a technology tool for your teaching. Leave a comment if you found these steps helpful or if you perhaps have additional suggestions to share with educators as they choose technology tools.

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Blackboard Feature Request: Customizable Course Communication Dashboard Home Page

March 18, 2013 By Jason Rhode 2 Comments

For quite some time, I have been frustrated with the lack of options within Blackboard for customizing the entry point of the course. While an instructor can set any tool or content area to be the default entry point in a course, there’s only so much that can be done in a Blackboard content area or page using the current built-in functionality. When Blackboard introduced the “Home Page” as the new default entry point, students were given access to a variety of information streams when logging into the course. However, these information modules are still primarily system driven and can not be easily customized or new modules setup by the instructor. With a few further customizations, the Home Page could become a much more useful tool.

For years, the Announcements page was the default entry point in Blackboard. With the release of Blackboard Learn 9, the Home Page was added which includes various information modules for the user, such as: Needs Attention, What’s New, My Tasks, Alerts, etc.

Home Page

Home Page in Blackboard Learn

 

While the Home Page tool was a step in the right direction, it is still very restricted and falls short in allowing faculty to customize at the level in which it can be a true “Communication Dashboard” for the course. I’ve shared this feedback with Blackboard product developers at BbWorld and the Blackboard Idea Exchange over the past nearly 2 years, but since I’ve yet to see my suggestions implemented, I’m sharing them here as well so that perhaps others can echo the value of such a feature enhancement.

What follows is my rationale for why I’ve desired a more instructor-customizable communication dashboard as the entry point for a Blackboard course as well as a sample of my “homemade” solution. In future posts, I’ll then share more specifics for how to create a customized communication dashboard in Blackboard and incorporate a variety of different information sources within the dashboard.

Needs

In my teaching, I’m often introducing in-service teachers to new technology tools and practices that they can apply into K-12 classroom teaching. My students and I use 3rd party blog, sms, calendar, and other tools in addition to Blackboard and I would like to be able to provide information about accessing these tools as well as streams of information from them in a single communication portal. Basically, I’ve simply been looking for a customizable and yet visually appealing area within Blackboard where different information sources can be embedded. In particular, these are the tools that I use and want to easily share with my students:

Latest Blog Posts – During the course, my students and I each setup and post to individual 3rd party blogs. Even though my students are instructed to subscribe via RSS to my blog as well as the blogs of their classmates, I want to display clickable titles of the last several posts from my blog.

Course Calendar – While Blackboard’s Calendar is greatly improving with the release of the new Blackboard Calendar in Service Pack 11, up until this point, the built-in calendar hasn’t been acceptable and I create a Google Calendar for each class. I would like for a version of that calendar for the upcoming 7 days to be embedded and viewable by my students.

Texting List Sign-up – In my teaching, I use Remind101.com and encourage my student to opt-in to my texting news list powered by Remind101. I would like to provide the information for signing-up to join the texting list.

Course Podcast Player – I’ve setup a podcast for my course and would like to embed a player so that right from the course entry page, students can listen to the most recent episodes of the podcast. I’ve previously shared steps for how I setup my podcast using Dropbox.

Class Blogs – The students in the course each setup their own blogs and post to throughout the course. I would like to include links for each of my students’ blogs.

Instructor’s Tweets – Twitter is another important communication means used during the course. I would like at the outset of the course to include a Twitter widget displaying the latest tweets from the instructor, with the widget to be changed after Twitter is introduced to students and they begin tweeting, to display latest tweets using a course hashtag.

Dashboard

With a little HTML and CSS know-how, I’ve gone ahead and created this course communication dashboard that I now use in my Blackboard courses. It includes the communication streams and information sources that I want my students to see when they login to my Blackboard course. Students have commented on how helpful having such a communication dashboard available upon entry to the course has been and as a result, I’ve continued to include my homemade version in the courses I teach.

Course Dashboard

The dashboard is a simple html page (more details to be shared in a future post how to setup) set as the default entry point for the course. For this particular course I’ve shared, the dashboard contains the following information items:

Class Photo Roster – Students were requested to provide a digital portrait during the first week of the course. These photos are displayed along with their preferred first name to be used during the course.

Announcements – Latest several course announcements, also posted and sent via email using the Announcements tool in the course, are displayed for students.

Latest on Dr. J’s Blog – Utilizing a simple javascript RSS embed utility, Feed2JS, an embedded script that displays the latest 5 blog post titles from my blog that students can click on to go directly to those latest posts.

Course Calendar – Google Calendar I’ve setup for the course.

News & Reminders – Details for how students can sign-up to opt into our course texting group.

Course Podcast – Embeddable player using BigContact to play the latest episodes of the course podcast.

iTunes U – Details for how students can sign-up to try the iTunes U version of the course being made available as an experimental trial during the course.

Class Blogs – List of all class members’ blogs.

Tweets from Dr. J – Instructor’s tweets, to be adjusted later in the course to instead display most recent tweets using course hashtag

Ideal Solution

This “homemade” dashboard I’ve created isn’t ideal, but it is closer to my ideal course entry point than the current Home Page tool in Blackboard. It’s conceivable that Blackboard could develop a customizable dashboard, based on the Home Page tool but redesigned, which could take the information modules already in the Home Page and build in additional flexibility of the layout (2 columns, 3 columns, 1 wide column & 2 narrow columns, etc.) as well as include module types where faculty could embed various other information sources, images, scripts, or HTML.

Students could still perhaps add other personalized modules, but the instructor should have much more flexibility in how the Home Page is formatted and be able to embed other types of content or information streams. I envision this communication dashboard being much more instructor-driven than the current Home Page tool, affording the instructor the ability to develop “social presence” within the course by featuring at the login page the various communication streams for the course. I hope this solution will eventually be considered by Blackboard Product Development and I welcome any opportunity to provide further input.

What entry point do you use for your Blackboard course, the Home Page, Announcements, or something else? What features would you like to see in an ideal course entry point? Leave a comment with your suggestions!

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