Blackboard 9: Teaching and Learning Online Advanced Certification Series

I just completed the three courses in this series. It was an interesting experience taking training from a provider like this. All three courses gave the tools needed to implement more advanced concepts in BB9. What was missing for me more than anything else were examples of implementation from schools using BB9. I guess that is to be expected though. The people enrolled with me were from a variety of backgrounds, everything from Community College to IT types. It would have been difficult to cater to the variety of potential applications.

If I were to give one piece of advice for someone thinking about taking this series, it would be to have a specific goal in mind for each of the courses. Again, hard to do since one does not know what specifically will be covered, but it doesn't hurt to know what you want to apply your new training to. I was fortunate in having been in the process of adapting courses from WebCT to BB9 alongside the training.

Another thing that stood out for me is that this is not to be confused with an online course. The training is not intended to build community in a constructivist sense as part of the curriculum. Almost all the objectives can be met without interaction with anyone else in the courses. This will work better for some than others.

All in all worth the $1200.

Blackboard9, webCT 41, Volvos and Ford Escorts.

School started on Monday. I'm using BB9 exclusively, having weaned myself entirely from webCT. Not that the desire to continue with WebCT isn't still strong, but to use analogy, that relationship is over and it time to move on. BB9 is flashier, has more bells and whistles, better interface, more options. I have traded in my beloved Ford Escort of a Course Management System for a late model Volvo.

My old escort was really a strippy. Most of the functionality was minimal and a bit clunky. I knew where all the controls were on the tape deck and how to make the seat go to the exact position I like, I knew all the idiosyncrasies, and how to keep the windshield from fogging up in the rain.

The Volvo is different. It is svelte and has every option known to man. I know there is a way to adjust the seat, and I also know that some of these buttons on the dashboard control the sound system.

It is just the process of figuring out what I need to do that is the issue. I have three formal classes through Blackboard and I still don't know how turn on the windshield wipers, though I was taught to change the blades. :-) Also, it isn't like the old Volvo (BB6) I drove briefly a few years ago. The controls are in different places.

I very much like Blackboard 9. Almost as much as I like Moodle. But I really do miss WebCT 4.1 right now in the first days of class.

Casualty of the CA cuts - Blackboard Nine

Well, the other shoe dropped. I am no longer faculty at CSUB. My position was eliminated. I have some pretty strong feelings about this right now, but I won't get into it other than to say that I still will be teaching a class or two as an adjunct through Extended University, at least this quarter. If anyone is looking for an innovator in distance education, I am now very available.

I have been re-developing courses through Blackboard Nine. I have to say I am fairly impressed. They have gone to great lengths to improve the interface and make the system more user freindly. There is still a lot of baggage from previous versions, but what can one expect from a system that is ten plus years old. It is approaching the functionality of Moodle in a lot of respects.

Linux Multimedia Studio - Addicted? Yes!

I'm always looking for some way to generate royalty free music. Part of the reason is that I see myself as providing multimedia to students, and there SHOULD be a soundtrack. And I am very frugal. I have to be, I am in education. ;-)

Last week I downloaded LMMS 0.4.4. I was very impressed. I don't have a keyboard at this point, though thanks to Musician's Friend I have a USB powered Yamaha on the way right now. In the interim I thought I might experiment with what was available in FOSS on Windows (not SuSE Linux. A long story certainly, but for another time) under Vista.

If you wish to produce a simple soundtrack/background music for a podcast or other project, this is fairly simple to use and it has the ability to use samples from soundfonts and the onscreen keyboard. For more on Soundfonts check out any search engine. A prime source for these is http://www.hammersound.net/ The idea is to provide samples for making music without a microphone or real physical instruments. I have to admit that this is by no means as end-user-ready as something like Garageband under OS X, but it is a very sophisticated system if you have afew hours to learn. If you have a background of any kind in music, then this will be even more of interest, if for no other reason than to help you waste hours at a time producing your own "opus". :-)

Oh yes, the link: http://lmms.sourceforge.net/

I think for those of you who took the podcasting course last year from Dr. Swenson, you will find this a great means of providing music free of charge in your podcasts. One hint that will be valuable: Look on the Web for midi files. These are music files in the .mid format. You can find everyting from Glen Miller to Metallica in this format. These can be imported into LMMS and then modified for your needs. Think of it this way. If you can find that perfect background music by Moody Blues or some such, then this program will allow you to import the midi track, modify it, and output it to an MP3. In addition, you can use Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) with LAME to output the creation to Mp3.

I am very impressed with what this can do. Hopefully you eill be too.

Does crisis stifle innovation?

This is more a question than an opinion. I have been thinking about this a great deal over the last few months. As California slowly edges toward what commentators seem to believe is certain financial ruin, I am struck by the lack of conversation about alternative means of running the state. We have the capacity to run a great deal of the day to day in government virtually, cutting down on the infrastructure needed to do common tasks such as register vehicles, pay bills, fill out forms, etc.. At some level wouldn't it make sense to reduce the amount of time that face to face transactions were made in government and move more of it to a virtual setting? I have puzzled over why this is such a leap. I'm sure that familiarity is a portion of the problem. In times of crisis might it be that we pull back to the familiar and take less risks with technologies and paradigms that have not been proven?

Maybe it is time for some real risk taking.

Transitioning to Blackboard 9 and training

Last Fall CSUB did a pilot of Moodlerooms as part of an investigation into alternative LMS systems once it was deemed that WebCT 4.1 (yes, 4.1) was no longer an option due to accessibilty issues. I was able to offer a course in Moodle for the first (and perhaps only) time. I have been familiar with Moodle for some time, since 2002 at least when I had it set up on a server at home and played with it extensively. The Fall semester was a great boon in that I was able to teach a course for K-12 teachers in using Moodle. I have been blessed in that a few have gone on to actually implement web enhanced and hybrid Moodle in their classrooms.

CSUB made the decision to go with Blackboard after the pilot. So now I must update my dated experiences with WebCT 4.1 to this new system. I am already familiar with the Blackboard from using it at different campuses, actually developing courses on it at one point, and last semester taking a real estate course in it.

I have decided it is time to take the Blackboard certification courses. Starting July 1st I'll be taking three courses in the Learning and Teaching certification track as well as in the advanced certification track. It will be the first professional development in this area I've done since 2007. I am very much looking forward to the opportunity. While I am not a Blackboard advocate particularly, in the same way I am not a Microsoft advocate though I hold four certificates there, it is the platform my university has standardized on and so is an area I must know as much as possible about. It will be an interesting experience. I will report back on anything remarkable as I go through.

Free to Air and academic programming

Last week I decided to investigate satellite TV in the form of an FTA receiver and a 36” dish. I have a number of reasons for doing this, not the least of which is my disenchantment with the programming on cable, and for that matter the state of modern programming in general. Most of what is available on the cable networks seems a bit pedestrian most of the time. I admit this is just my personal preference, I prefer more detailed information and greater depth than most of these entities seem to provide. Rule of thumb for me is that any station that has to provide multiple serialized reality show format programs is probably not somewhere I would go for entertainment or enlightenment.

So I started looking at what might be available directly from the satellites.

I found some interesting programming on the Galaxy 18 satellite. This satellite does have some free to air programming. You can find a list of what is on this satellite by going to Lyngsat and looking at Galaxy 18. Most of what is here is encrypted, but the entries that show as either NTSC or DVB are open and available to anyone with a dish pointed at the satellite. Some of the best here are The Research Channel, University of Washington (UWTV), and the 3C (California Community College) channels. There are others certainly, including Retro Jams, the oldies music video station, and This TV, the oldies movie station (hey, I qualify as an oldy myself :-) ), but the top three are very good 'brain food'.

Since I just set this system up, I have not spent much time looking at the programming, but so far the lectures and programs on UWTV and The Research Channel are top notch.

A bit about my setup. This is not a particularly difficult project if you are fairly handy, have a view of the south sky, and some patience. The system I put together cost less than $250 and consists of a receiver (Viewsat VS2000), a 36” dish with tripod, and accessories such as coax, a signal meter, etc..

It DID take me approximately 8 hours to figure out the basics, assemble the equipment, and aim the dish.

A few things I would like to emphasize:

1. The programming I am getting from this satellite is free.

2. The programming available can change at any time

3. You MUST have a signal meter to aim your dish. Otherwise you may become frustrated enough to decide to try to determine the glide path of your equipment through practical application.

4. This is not a motorized dish. If I wish to “change” satellites I will have to go through aiming again. A motorized system costs about $100 more.

5. HD PVR type systems are also available. These allow you pick up and record programming to an external hard drive. This can be very handy if you find programming to use in your classroom, but it is another $200-300 in addition to the original cost.

6. When aiming the dish take into account your elevation. In a nutshell, aiming a dish in Tehachapi is much different than in Bakersfield. Your satellite dish elevation settings will be much closer to the horizon.
   

For now I'm content with the setup I have. Since I teach in education and in technology, I have the quadruple benefit of being able to find intelligent programming, potentially more content for my courses, intellectual stimulation, and access to types of programming that absent from my cable provider.

I will report back at some point as I upgrade my installation.