Teaching online

What is Online Teaching?
 
What is Blackboard?

What is Online Teaching?

As classroom instructors, we're all familiar with the concept of teaching in a building in front of a group of students. But what does it mean when someone says "online teaching"? Generally, online teaching refers to any formal, planned instruction that occurs via a computer network. Usually the computer network is the Internet. Online teaching can be for an entire class taught over the Internet, or it can be to supplement a class that meets occasionally in the traditional way and uses the Internet for instruction between face-to-face meetings. This type of class is usually referred to as a hybrid class.

Online teaching can use many different tools for students and instructors to interact with each other and with the subject content:

• Audio lectures
• Chat sessions
• Discussion forums
• Downloadable files
• Email
• Online readings
• Power Point presentations
• Quizzes online
• Video demonstrations
• Video conferencing
• Web searching
• Webquests

More information on these tools for online teaching is provided in the Technology section of the website. But the most important thing to remember about online teaching is that it isn't about the fancy technology that can be used. The important element to keep in mind is the learning that needs to occur. So don't be intimidated by the tools that might be used. Begin instead with thinking about the best way for your students to learn the material to succeed in your subject area.

What is Blackboard?

Blackboard (Bb) is a course management system (CMS) for online learning. It is software that provides a way for faculty and students to share information. It's web-based so it can be accessed via the Internet from wherever you have a connection. And it's a tool that helps you organize information for a course. It can be used as a supplement to face-to-face courses or for courses that are completely online. Blackboard doesn't contain any subject content; it is a template for organizing course information. Martin Community College has adopted Blackboard for all of its courses. Once students and faculty become familiar with the interface it is easy to find information for any course.

As an instructor, you can change the look of the page (colors, buttons, banners) as well as how the information is arranged – for instance a button might be labeled "Course Information" or you could select other options such as "Homework", "Syllabus", "Labs", "Course Material", etc.. You can also delete buttons that aren't needed. Instructors have access to a button for the Control Panel where these choices are made and documents are loaded into the site.

The best way to learn how to use Blackboard is to attend an orientation session or just request Bb access for your course and begin to play with it.

If you are using Bb for more than one course a helpful trick is to make the buttons for each class a different color so that you have a quick visual cue that tells you which class you are accessing.

Blackboard is a little like a shopping mall

With a shopping mall you have a central location for different stores. In the case of Blackboard, we have classes instead of stores but each college has their own place to group their classes together -- the mall. Think of all the different classes at MCC that are taught in Blackboard -- each with their own space but they are all grouped together in a larger space.

The different sections of a class are like the departments in a store. You wouldn't go to the men's department to find a crock pot and you don't go to the Assignments section to look for your calendar. You get a little less exercise with Blackboard though since you only have to click your mouse to move from one department to another.

After a while you become familiar with the layout (whether a mall or Bb) and you move around more easily.

At the mall there is a directory that gives you different types of stores grouped together and this is a lot like how Bb is structured with the navigation buttons that group together different documents or tools. Instead of the listings for women's shoes, though, there is a listing of all the assignments.

Sometimes it gets noisy and crowded in the mall, like at Christmas, but it's usually because people are excited about what is going on. Blackboard can be like that if people get excited about the topic of discussion and there is a lot of communication going on!

But one advantage Blackboard has over the mall is that it is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week so that you can go when it is convenient to you. In that case, it's more like a Walmart Super Center than the mall.

Many malls have the same selection of stores which make a customer feel at home; most Blackboard courses have consistent toolbars and folders to make students feel at home.

Finally, stores have security cameras to see where customers spend their time; the instructor's control panel allows the instructor to take a look at when students log in and how the students spend their time on the site.