Workshop Phase 1 Wrap-up

Whew! I made it through the first batch of Blackboard workshops with my pilot group. I knew it would be a lot of work, but I think I'd forgotten how draining this type of training can be. It's actually been a couple years since I did this much intensive training. I was fairly removed from basic level induction and training at Griffith, and generally only got involved on the fancier stuff, and on advising EDs and MDs. The workshops I designed and ran at ACU seem like forever ago. Judging on the feedback and progress of the sessions at Bond, I think I've become much better at this sort of teaching since then!

Here's what I'm taking away from these sessions:

I need to revise the program for the first session. Almost all the groups I've had have been able to get through a lot more in the 3 hours than I thought they would.

My contingency strategies worked a treat. Always have a spare account handy for the staff member who can't login.

For the most part, Bond academics are very efficient, practical folk. They are very time poor and very much appreciate being given the information they need to get on with their jobs, but don't tolerate "waffle" very well. I need to come up with better strategies to make sure the theory and the pedagogy is seamlessly slipped in with the hands-on, practical skills. I think this will become easier as I improve my own understanding of educational theories and how they can be applied

Never underestimate the power of cake. These workshops are almost as draining for the academics as they are for me. I was amazed how much people revive after the mid-session break. I need to schedule it for earlier in the session though. An hour and a half is too long to go without breaking

Revising key skills throughout the workshop worked really well. I think my scenario approach was good, but I want to refine it more. After taking the group through how to add announcements, folders, and various types of content, I took them back out to the portal page and gave them the scenario of "I'm a lecturer and I need to post an announcement to my students about the mid-semester exam, and I need to upload this week's lecture notes. What do I do?". I then asked the group to instruct me on how to do these actions. They perked up a bit as they tried to recall all the 'click here, then here, then here' stuff we had just gone through. I think I will continue to do this, but set a more complex scenario at the end of the session as well, which includes the use of the communication tools and discussion board.

Keep it light and fun, but still focused. One of the sessions got away on me a little and I need to work on taking a more serious direction when this happens.

Writing this wrap-up has been really helpful in clarifying my own thoughts on this. I look forward to doing the post-pilot review and getting the academics thoughts as well

People/Student power!

Great post from Jerry Slezak of Running with Scissors on Students as Change Agents. Jerry describes an experience where he unsuccessfully tried to convince a non-Blackboard user to use the LMS to collect and distribute student contributions instead of using email attachments. The academic then raised the option with his students who were all for it an encouraged the use of the LMS.

This morning I saw that faculty member again. He had class last night with those students, and they discussed how he was planning to send them the MW Word documents via email. He said to me "I told the students in my class last night about how you suggested using Blackboard for this. They said, '‘Yes! - that is much better!'"” Then he said to me - "Do you think we have a revolution on our hands?"

Awesome. I must admit, I've been counting on Bond's very vocal students to assist me with encouraging staff to use Blackboard. Here's hoping they come through.

Understanding Networked Learning

I regularly read Leigh Blackall's blog Teach and Learn Online, and have recently started reading his new "work" blog Educational Development at Tekotago, which chronicles his new appointment at Otago Polytechnic. Because he's blogging about the work he is actually doing, as he actually does it, I'm finding it a great source of inspiration and ideas for my own work here at Bond.

I've been struggling a bit with how best to tackle staff development here, and in particular, raising awareness of the internet beyond static websites (blogging, collaborative authoring, tagging, content re-usability and portability etc). I'd been toying with the idea of holding sessions where I can take academics through 'guided play' in technologies both Blackboard and beyond. Leigh has helped clarify my ruminations in his post on Networked Learning Workshops, where he describes a series of lunchtime workshops he will be running on everything from blogs and wikis to Open Office and tagging.

Thanks Leigh, for putting your knowledge out there to help inform and inspire us ed-tech newbies, and don't let your IT department lock you down!

Still moving along

Wow. Almost a full month since my last post. Yikes. In my defense, I've been a bit busy. The training program for the first batch of staff who will be using the new LMS has begun in earnest now. The sessions have been fun, if a bit draining. Note to self: don't attempt to do more than 4 hours of facilitation in a day. Organising and then running the sessions while also trying to keep on top of the implementation project itself had me nearing breaking point for a few days. Thankfully an unusually social weekend coupled with a float session revived me.

After spending a solid 2 weeks working out in the faculties, I'm even more impressed by the ideas and teaching talent present in the Bond community. Being able to work with academics who really do care about their teaching is encouraging me to stretch and further develop my own knowledge of instructional design. I've also been asking staff who have used LMSs at other universities what they liked/didn't like about the may those LMSs operated. This has proved very useful both to informing the implementation at Bond and to lobbying support by being able to do away with past annoyances.

I've also had an idea for a paper I would like to present at this year's Blackboard Asia Pacific User's Conference. I'm thinking of something along the lines of "6 Steps to Blackboard Administration Nirvana" or some such title. I thought of this while Matt and I were discussing some of the myriad of options to consider when setting up Blackboard such as site naming convention, content management process, static vs dynamic sites, site persistence, access rights, roles etc. I was thinking about how great it was to be able to make decisions on these things with 4 years of LMS management experience behind me. I draw on my knowledge of what worked and what didn't at both Griffith and ACU with the ultimate aim of making the system at Bond operate with the right balance of simplicity, flexibility, and stability. Matt also brings his own experience from administering Blackboard at RMIT. We've both had to deal with inherited system configurations in the past and are both excited to be taking what we've learned and applying it to a brand spanking new implementation. My idea for a paper is around what we have/are doing given our past experience. One of those "What would you do if you could start from scratch" things. I think it could spark some interesting discussion amongst sys admins and managers alike.