Comments on: Teaching Bytes

By: A. G.

A. G. — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

The Blackboard system is quite good for this purpose and it comes with all the features included (bulletin board, mailing list, discussion board, so on and so forth). It also interfaces with some nifty software such as Agilix GoBinder.

I did take an Ethics course that used the Blackboard system. It was quite nifty.

By: sepoy

sepoy — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

yes, blackboard system is good for accomplishing most of the above. i have used it - clunky - but doable. If your institution has it, go for it!

By: Patrix

Patrix — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

WebCT is another tool that does all of the above.

By: nykol

nykol — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I had a great time using a blog/discussion board this past spring. I posted info for folks who didn’t make it to class, topics that extended outside of classroom discussion, etc. It got people taking with each other - very cool. I graded it as a section of their participation grade. Some of my students that had the tendency not so talk too much in class posted a great deal on the board and asked really good questions that I later brought up in class.

By: Eric

Eric — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve tried a variety of web-based tools: using an existing mailing list as a source of discussion materials, using a Yahoo mailing list dedicated to the course. This term I am integrating Blackboard for the first time, since it is becoming standard equipment on campus. But the design is not encouraging — seven steps to do what other software takes one step to do. it seems like what you have got down is how to integrate the online component into the instruction, which is probably the biggest challenge. I’d like to get a clearer idea of how you managed this technically.

By: sepoy

sepoy — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

eric: blackboard is indeed a very clunky and unfriendly piece of software. I used it for one course and quickly dropped it. The students cannot be motivated to use a system that un-intituitive.
In any case, I designed my own class website - simple html stuff - and converted all the readings to pdf etc. For the blog portion, I installed wordpress. Very easy installation/maintenance. I set up all the students as authors on the blog and there you go.

Granted that one needs some technical skills to do so and also a university server that allows php files. The alternative of a blogspot account is not that appealing to me because one cannot password-protect it. I wanted to keep the blog private to the class. I have heard that the MSN Spaces has pwd capability but I am not positive. I am, still, dubious about commercial packages and doubt I will be using it.

You should def. contact the tech people at your uni and see if they won’t allow you to run your own little server [if on a Mac OS X machine, 2 button clicks].