Two Situations: Blackboard and the flu

Okay, here are the situations:

1. I have an unfortunate case of the flu and missed my Technology for Teachers class, Student teaching in the Secondary classroom class and student teaching yesterday.  And my Shakespeare class today. The staged reading for my student teaching class was Monday--it went extremely well and I will post pics later. Now I'm trying to play catch up with my classes.

2. My mission which I've chosen to accept: write about Blackboard.

The "Blackboard Academic Suite" is on every NYU student's Academic page. Students can get assignments and readings from Blackboard, they can submit work and communicate with class members via message boards and email. It's also a tool for teachers who use it for communication and posting assignments, suggested readings, etc. When a student logs into her NYU account and goes to her Academics page, the Blackboard section comes up on the right hand side of the screen. See below:

I personally like the hearts next to the class names--there's something nice about that touch. So you click on a class and you go to that class' Blackboard. There are different sections within a Blackboard--Assignments, External Links, Announcements, etc. This semester I've spent the most time on Blackboard for my class,  Technology Resources for Performing Arts Educators.  I usually go to the Assignments section. For each class the professor has a folder with the assignments and directions. (Recently they've become quite challenging). This is what the Assignments page looks like:

For this class, there is a lot of crucial information for completing assignments. By creating a folder for each class with the assignments and some directions, Blackboard is being utilized in a way that is simple and efficient. It also makes it easy to go back to earlier assignments, review the directions and clean up your work.

I don't think Blackboard really has a negative--it's all in the way the teacher uses it and expects the students to use it. For one class we had to post a response a video on the message boards. We also had to respond to a classmate's response to the video. In this particular instance the flow of information was a little choppy; you had to tinker a bit to see how the tree of posts was laid out.

Every teacher uses Blackboard differently. Some just post additional readings and the syllabus there and you don't have much reason to go to Blackboard unless you need those things. For other classes you post all of your assignments there. For my Dramatic Activities in the Elementary Classroom our teacher had us post all of our lesson plans and warm-up activities there so the class could share with each other. The professor asked us to choose our favorites and put them in our final portfolios which was a smart idea on his part. I'm grateful to have those lesson plans and warm-ups now.

Overall I think Blackboard is a good tool for teachers and students. Teachers use it to fit their needs and students have no confusion about where to go for things. They can also send class emails out from there with just one click. That recently came in handy for me for my Student Teaching class.

Alright, I'm out for now!

DG