I've been struggling this week with a conflict of two personal beliefs that:
1. the future for our students will be based around a Personal Learning Environment where they have full control of everything they choose to see and share and the tools they wish to use...
and
2. the increasing usage of Blackboard (in our current case) as a Managed Learning Environment and the desire for the University to mandate usage and set minimum baselines of how Blackboard is used within each and every course here.
This conflict has been brought up by a discussion I took part in on Mike Bogle's blog about his Reflections on the LMS (LMS = Learning Management System, MLE in our language). He makes the point that "consistency" (ie the mandated baseline I mention above) doesn't equate to a nurturing learning environment for students, which of course it doesn't.
Mike's post brought about a response from Lisa Lane, who posted "Why an LMS?". Lisa clearly identifies the two things an MLE provides above anything else as the Gradebook and protected Copyright material. And those are two compelling reasons - nothing to do with the learning - for an institution to have an MLE because we couldn't do without them.
I want to think about my terminology in justifying why I think there is a place for Blackboard. Blackboard doesn't have to be where the learning takes place, but it is an excellent Course Management System. An authoritative, authenticated, integrated place for students to start - which can then link off to whatever wonderful tools the students and tutors do want to use for sharing/collaborating/discussing.
I think my role as a developer is to keep looking at ways of improving and providing choice to the students and tutors - whether that be ways students can pick up their Blackboard content via other portals/devices/mash-ups etc or ways that tutors can experiment with new tools and tie that back to Blackboard for ease of access.
I'm still working this through in my head, and trying to balance this with the range of uses and users we have here. In many MANY cases, Blackboard is exactly what they want - a structured delivery system. So I can't join the anti-MLE brigade quite yet, but I shall try and provide a bridge between the camps for a while.
I reserve the right to change my mind about this when I read some more compelling comments no doubt on Mike and Lisa's posts!
4 comments:
I think PLEs are the way forward, and a natural progression.
Hi Katie,
Thanks very much for sharing your thoughts on this. I'm quite conscious of the fact my views have made me biased against seeing any value at all in LMS/MLE (what does MLE stand for?). So hearing the perspectives of people who can still see the matter objectively is of tremendous value - not just to me but to others as well.
Particularly for new users, I think it's important that objective information be available so people can decide what's best for their context. Opinionated tirades like the ones of mine you mentioned don't help the situation for them - I think it would only confuse them or make them uncomfortable. (Though I do try to leave my views out when discussing the options with instructors who seek advice on their courses).
There's still a lot going on in my head about this as well - not the least of which relates to the notion of the right tool for the right situation.
I'd be quite interested in hearing what other sorts of activities people are doing in Blackboard at your institution that make the environment particularly valuable to them.
One question I'd like to ask regarding the notion of Blackboard as a portal or gateway to other activities or content, and the fact it's "an authoritative, authenticated, integrated place for students to start."
In your view and/or experience, are there aspects of Blackboard that make the environment the obvious choice for a portal like this, or do you think you could set-up something similar using free tools (either free as in open or free as in zero cost) elsewhere?
I'm thinking along the lines of something like a wiki - even an authenticated one.
Thanks for continuing the conversation. I appreciate your thoughts on all this.
Cheers,
Mike
@mike - I've just put up a new post detailing the scale of our usage at Brighton as a bit of background reading...
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