Mediated Learning Newsletter

Vol. 5, Issue 3: December 2005, page 1

Computer-Mediated Instruction via Blackboard

Melissa Holmes
Instructional Designer, Continuing Education

Blackboard is a Learning Management System–a software package designed to deliver online classes and supplement face-to-face instruction. The Blackboard software provides a suite of communication and information management tools that may be used to enhance instruction and manage course-related information.

Melissa Holmes

As Blackboard grows in popularity among our faculty, more and more students become accustomed to using it to find course syllabi, lecture notes and assignments. Many of our students use it to communicate outside of the walls of the classroom. They may also use it to turn in assignments, e-mail their instructor, and check their grades.

Dr. Mizuki Miyashita, Assistant Professor and Acting Director of the Linguistics program, has used Blackboard as a supplement to her LING270 Introduction to Linguistics and LING471 Phonology/Morphology courses. Mizuki has used the system for several semesters and has used a variety of Blackboard’s content, communication and assessment tools. This semester she has extra teaching preparations and is using only the syllabus, study guides, schedule and practice exam features of Blackboard. In succeeding paragraphs, you will see her comments about use of Blackboard over time.

Dr. Miyashita is enthusiastic about Blackboard and feels that it helps the students by making course materials available 24/7. She posts all course materials, including the syllabus, course schedule, handouts, study guides, assignments and data sets. If a student has missed class or lost a handout, the material is available on Blackboard.

Miyashita has used both the discussion board and the virtual classroom to extend communication beyond the walls of the physical classroom. She says that “the discussion board is a good way to get to know students who are quieter.” Students who don’t speak up in the classroom can use the discussion board to express their thoughts about the content. While Mizuki thinks the discussion board is “great,” she also states that it is time-consuming to monitor and reply to each student. This semester, Miyashita is not using the discussion board because of the time required and is considering how to handle sometimes offensive language used by students on the board.

Miyashita has used the virtual classroom, a real-time communication tool, for exam review sessions. The virtual classroom provides a chat window, where comments can be typed by all participants, as well as a whiteboard, which allows the instructor and students to draw. For example, the whiteboard feature was useful for creating a syntactic tree, which is easy to draw but difficult to type. While Miyashita feels that the virtual classroom has been effective for exam reviews, it was impossible for all of the students to meet online at the same time.

Miyashita uses some of Blackboard’s assessment tools. The online gradebook can be exported into Excel, where it can be saved as a backup or used to calculate grades. While the online gradebook is a secure way to distribute grades to each student, it doesn’t accommodate Mizuki’s grading system well, so she uses Excel for some calculations.

Blackboard is also used for practice exams in the linguistics classes. Practice exams, which consist of 10 to 15 questions, are created using the test manager. The practice exams are optional and each student may take the exam multiple times. Each question
includes feedback for correct and incorrect answers. The feedback isn’t designed to give students the “right” answer, but is designed to help them look for the correct answer.

Despite some frustrations, Miyashita feels that Blackboard helps the students by making course materials available all of the time, and may help to manage courses. To learn more about using Blackboard to supplement your course, please contact Melissa Holmes in the UMOnline office, (406) 243-4556 or visit the UMOnline Web site.