Blackboard


http://blackboard.brooklyn.cuny.edu/
http://blackboard.com

Blackboard has truly revolutionized online teaching and learning at Brooklyn College. This flexible, friendly e-learning platform (which debuted at Brooklyn College on October 31, 2000–only 18 months ago) enables faculty to build course sites without learning to write code or use complex authoring systems. At the same time, AIT staff have bettered Blackboard, creating new and exciting tools that complement and work within this platform. As a result, the College's Web-based teaching at Brooklyn College has taken an enormous leap forward, and the number of course sites has spiraled.

  • BUC: The Blackboard Users Community

    • BUC, a users group for faculty with Blackboard course sites, was organized by Multimedia Specialist Sylvie Richards; it held its first meeting on October 11, 2001. At BUC's second meeting on December 18, staff from Blackboard Inc. were our guests. They outlined the features of Blackboard level 2 and fielded questions from faculty about Blackboard's many features.

    Dr. Richards has created a BUC Blackboard site where faculty can post their questions and tips about Brooklyn's e-learning platform. She also uses the site (which provides both an active discussion board and an area for sharing course materials) to solicit evaluations of our Blackboard workshop series (for more on this topic, see below). In the spring 2002 we plan to make this site available to non-Brooklyn faculty and welcome their participation via http://www.core.cuny.edu/. From the BUC site:
    "Welcome to the Brooklyn College Blackboard Users Community course site! Here you will find helpful solutions and tips that can assist you. Look under 'Course Documents' for updated materials. Join the Forum on the Discussion Board, and watch for announcements about upcoming BUC meetings!"
  • Blackboard Open House

    • On October 16, 2001, we held our second annual welcome-to-Blackboard open house and reception. Faculty who attended were treated to a general introduction to the product, as well as cookies and coffee. Staff distributed Blackboard workshop schedules and set up individual appointments for interested instructors.

  • Upgrading to Blackboard Level 2/3

    • On December 18 staff from Blackboard's corporate headquarters met with us to discuss the advantages of upgrading our Blackboard level 1 license to level 2 or 3. There are several major benefits: it interfaces with a campus's other administrative systems, saving quantities of both staff and faculty time when it comes to setting up new course sites, enrolling students, and so forth. (The only difference between level 2 and 3 is that level 3 also includes a portal.) If Brooklyn plans to follow the counsel of the Distance Learning Task Force to move to a programmatic approach to online learning, an upgrade is imperative. However, licenses are costly (about $50,000 per year). We hope that the University will agree to support part or all of this cost and that, within the coming year, Brooklyn will upgrade its Blackboard license. Before long, an upgrade will be imperative: our course site numbers are growing so rapidly that we are about to surpass the capacity of a level 1 license.

  • Staff Development for Blackboard

    • In the past year, Vice-President Steve Little supported Multimedia Specialist Sylvie Richards' attendance at:

    April 2001 Blackboard Summit Conference (Washington, DC)
    May 2001 New Media Centers Conference (Monterey, CA)