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.
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.
posted by Kate at
11:09 AM
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