Boing Boing: Anyone who's ever had the misfortune to attend or work at an academic institution that uses the horrible classroom software Blackboard knows that it is a worse-than-useless exercise in technological sadism that is responsible for more pain and suffering than practically any other technology in educational history.
4 comments:
I agree that Blackboard is not the best technology out there, but I do not think it is THAT bad! From a student point of view, Blackboard has its ups and downs. To start, Blackboard can definitely cause stress when it either decides not to work, is being slow, or simply does not open at all. However, I have noticed in the past year that Blackboard has improved significantly. Perhaps I think this only because I have become more accustomed to it, but I do not think this is the case. The design of Blackboard is definitely more clean, concise, and clear now than it was a year ago. However, I do see how educators and students alike would still be frustrated with the program. From a students point of view, Blackboard is useful for submitting projects and papers, and for finding a syllabus for a class, but that is about it. I think Blackboard would be much more useful if every single class in the University was required to use it. Blackboard attempts to help students keep track of their grades and homework assignments, but this really only becomes useful when all of a student's classes are using the program. Otherwise, the student may as well just keep track of everything on their own, all in one place, such as a planner.
This is basically a giant rant about Blackboard, with no reasoning as to why.
Blackboard is a powerful and effective learning platform. It becomes a problem because most instructors don't set up their courses and modules correctly.
When done correctly, Blackboard is one of the most useful learning tools available today. Why?
It allows instructors to create assignments that can be graded immedietly.
It allows studwents to access their work and assignments anywhere.
It creates a level of accountability for both the students and instructors. Blackboard keeps record of all changes to posted documents. Instructors can't change assignments or documents without a record of the modification. Students can't argue that an email with an assignment was sent because Blackboard sends receipts for documents sent.
Blackboard is also highly flexible and can be integrated with other online learning platforms.
I mean, Blackboard is bad, and I've definitely seen better products out there, but its not the worse. I feel that it's mainly up to the instructor to make sure their course content is easily accessible and understandable. I've definitely had blackboard courses on the far extremes of that spectrum. That being said, if the discussion board link wasn't so hard to access.. that would be great.
Blackboard does have its ups and downs, but I disagree with the fact that it is the bane of students. Especially here at CMU, they have worked hard to improve the stability and efficiency of the system and it is working better. That being said, blackboard does have its faults too. Not working at times or pages randomly stop working. BUt ultimately this article is someone just ranting about blackboard
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