academic & online learning leader embracing emerging #edtech
As in the past, I again this year plan to blog my experiences at BbWorld, July 15-17th. Somehow my calendar is already fuller this year than ever, including 3 presentations, 1 poster presentation, and a host of a few other commitments. Stay tuned here on my blog for more or go directly to jrho.de/bbw14 for all my #BbWorld14 posts.
Are you headed to #BbWorld14? Leave me a comment or hit me up on Twitter @jrhode and let’s connect!
Blackboard is conducting a series of user research studies to aid the design of the next generation of Blackboard Learn, the flagship LMS. Please pass along this invitation to participate to any students or faculty who might be interested in these opportunities.
Who: Blackboard is being assisted by TecEd (www.teced.com), an independent research firm.
What: You’ll try some features of the redesigned Learn and tell us your thoughts.
Where: At your own computer, speaking on the phone with a researcher during the one-to-one research session. Sessions will last 30 or 60 minutes for students, and 45 or 90 minutes for faculty.
When: Sessions will take place July 11 – August 29.
What else: Participants who complete a session will receive an Amazon gift card to thank them for their time and input. The card value will range from $50 to $150, depending on the session length.
To apply to participate, please click this link, or copy this link into your browser: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/XHLZYLZ
If you meet the study criteria, TecEd will contact you to schedule a research session.
With the recent conversations that I’ve had with other institutions regarding piloting the Blackboard Enterprise Surveys and Course Evaluations (ESCE) tool, I’ve reserved a meeting room and time slot at BbWorld in the Blackboard User Group (BUG) Lounge for an open conversation on the feature gaps and workarounds that institutions are employing in attempting to implement the functionality.
If you will be attending BbWorld and are currently exploring the ESCE tool, feel free to join the conversation on Wednesday, July 16, 4:00-5:00pm, Veronese 2401A.
The meeting room will have bean bags and several round tables, allowing for several groups to meet at the same time. This is a low tech room. Projectors, speakers, microphones will be NOT available.
I plan to take notes of the conversations and will plan to share here on LinkedIn for those who can’t attend.
See you in Vegas!
Jason Rhode, Ph.D.
Director, Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center
Northern Illinois University
jrhode@niu.edu
twitter.com/jasonrhode
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in 2012 approximately 2.6 million students were enrolled in fully-online degree programs, while 5.5 million were taking at least one online course. For institutions to fully understand how to best serve this growing population, it is critical to understand who is studying online and what they are looking for in from their degree program.
The “Online College Students 2014: Comprehensive Data on Demands and Preferences” report, a joint project of Learning House and Aslanian Market Research, shares the findings of the third annual survey of 1,500 former, current and future online students.
Fifty-four percent of students attend an institution within 100 miles of where they live, showing a three-year trend of students increasingly willing to attend an institution farther from home. (In 2012, 80% reported attending an institution within 100 miles of where they lived. This declined to 69% in 2013.)
Although students reported that cost was a primary selection factor when choosing an online degree program, approximately two-thirds of respondents said they did not choose the most inexpensive program. Only 20% said they would not attend an institution if financial aid was not offered, although approximately half said they would need financial aid.
When given a choice of 18 marketing messages, the overwhelming favorite was “90% job placement.” This makes sense, given that a large majority of students pursuing an online degree are doing so for job-related reasons.
Approximately 80% of students have earned credit elsewhere, and those students want to bring that credit with them. Having a clearly defined, generous, and easy-to-navigate transfer credit policy can help institutions stand apart.
Download Online College Students 2014: Comprehensive Data on Demands and Preferences
As part of the 2014 Teaching with Technology Institute at Northern Illinois University, I led a breakout session for faculty where we explored creating a course wiki. We looked at both 3rd party wiki tools as well as integrated course wikis within the learning management system (Blackboard), using a sandbox wiki on Jottit. The following are links to the resources and I shared regarding wikis during this session:
Collaborative website where all participants have equal ability to make change to content
Key features:
| Blackboard Wikis | 3rd Party Wikis | |
| Access | Only registered students and instructor can access in Bb course | Can be made available for anyone to access publicly without a Bb login |
| Availability | Available to students and instructor for duration of course | Available to students, instructor, and potentially others after course ends |
| History | History of changes tracked and can easily be compared, reverted back to | History of changes tracked and can easily be compared, reverted back to |
| Integration | Can be easily graded using interactive Bb rubric and feedback securely provided to students in Grade Center | No integration for grading in Bb |
| Security | Student-created content is secure and only available for other students in the course to view | Depends on the wiki tool selected |
| Support | Support offered by Blackboard support personnel | Depends on the wiki tool selected |
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.