Blackboard
Blackboard is a well-known LMS that is used in a variety of settings, including K to 12, university, government, and businesses.
Homepage
Login: Located in the top right corner, click on this to take you to your page.
My Page: This page includes a helpful Tools section comprising: announcements, calendar, tasks, grades (courses you are enrolled in), hot spots (links to other OISE functions, e.g., ROSI, U of T libraries, webmail) and so on. You may find this to be one of the strongest features of Blackboard.
Your Course: Your instructor will post other course links for you (e.g., to C2C). From here you go to My groups. Your groups will be set up with options to send email, post discussion, share files, chat, and so on.
Selected Beneficial Features
Announcements: There is a good set up for announcements--easy to see.
Multiple courses: If you are taking multiple courses, Blackboard can house them and you need only one login.
Blog: The blog feature is easy to use.
Privacy: There is no feature to display who is online. If privacy is a concern, you will like Blackboard.
For Instructors: The backend allows you to collect stats and manage marks.
General Notes and Recommendations
Recently, Blackboard has lost business share to D2L. When you have worked in the environment, you can begin to understand why. It lacks the intuitive nature of a C2C or Pepper environment; it is slow to load; it can lack stability when modifying documents; no red flags or alerts will have you checking each space for new postings; and the chat function is wanting.
It will be interesting to watch Blackboard's progression. We would hope to see, at the least
- a more intuitive interface to solve user woes
- system stability (watch for updates because they happen regularly)
Login: Located in the top right corner, click on this to take you to your page.
My Page: This page includes a helpful Tools section comprising: announcements, calendar, tasks, grades (courses you are enrolled in), hot spots (links to other OISE functions, e.g., ROSI, U of T libraries, webmail) and so on. You may find this to be one of the strongest features of Blackboard.
Your Course: Your instructor will post other course links for you (e.g., to C2C). From here you go to My groups. Your groups will be set up with options to send email, post discussion, share files, chat, and so on.
Selected Beneficial Features
Announcements: There is a good set up for announcements--easy to see.
Multiple courses: If you are taking multiple courses, Blackboard can house them and you need only one login.
Blog: The blog feature is easy to use.
Privacy: There is no feature to display who is online. If privacy is a concern, you will like Blackboard.
For Instructors: The backend allows you to collect stats and manage marks.
General Notes and Recommendations
Recently, Blackboard has lost business share to D2L. When you have worked in the environment, you can begin to understand why. It lacks the intuitive nature of a C2C or Pepper environment; it is slow to load; it can lack stability when modifying documents; no red flags or alerts will have you checking each space for new postings; and the chat function is wanting.
It will be interesting to watch Blackboard's progression. We would hope to see, at the least
- a more intuitive interface to solve user woes
- system stability (watch for updates because they happen regularly)