Presenting... iLearn-Blogs

At long last, iLearn-Blogs is up and running. One very keen academic will be using it to host student blogs for assessment in two subjects this semester.

Due to it being week 3 and the service only just being made operational, the integration for this semester will be minimal. This means that:

* Users will create their own accounts
* Users will create their own blogs
* Comments will be moderated by default, and restricted to registered users
* Users must have a bond staff or student email address to register

Many, many technical issues with getting this service set up have meant that it will only be available in a limited way to a limited number of students. I just don't want to go ahead with the full pilot I had planned. So I'm disappointed, but at least we've got a service. And the students are using it. And its an open source application.

Blackboard Impressions via Impressions Scholarcast

Michael Rees, one of the academics involved in the May semester pilot of Blackboard here at Bond, has begun a series of posts on his experiences with and initial impressions of Blackboard. A long-time ed-tech user, Michael made the switch from using Sharepoint as an LMS to Blackboard this semester. Most of his observations ring true with me, the good and the bad. Reading his first two installments made me think how frequently I've heard similar observations from academic staff I've worked with over the past 5 years. His first summary post describes his experience as an overall positive one, despite a number of niggling frustrations.

His second post reflects on Blackboard's user interface, which, while it's simplicity and ease of navigation was a strength 4 years ago, is now showing its age quite dramatically when compared alongside modern web-applications.

I'm looking forward to reading more on Michael's thoughts on his first run-in with Blackboard.

Blog humour on a blog

Being up to my eyeballs in basics-level staff development lately has somewhat squashed the analytical, creative, and witty thinking required to come up with a good blog post. I'll be back in usual form soon, but in the meantime, here's a comic from Wondermark about being analytical, creative, and witty in a blog. Enjoy.