Blackboard - Community Engagement

I had a WebEx session with Frank Marshall and Mike Petersen about the community engagement system. We were hoping that this solution would allow us to cross authenticate across Bb servers so that we could create seamless access for E-School students. HVLN is currently looking at switching to Bb so we thought it would be an opportune time to look at options.
At this time, it doesn't seem like the community system is meant to be used in that way. What it can do is create different domains and levels of access to manage their domains. So I could see KS as an institution investing in this solution and all campuses having their own domain or tab.

Web Presence
One of the things that Mike did emphasize is that some schools are using the Blackboard Community Engage system as their public Web presence. The tabs become different areas (i.e. parents, community, etc.) and then each area can be built out with modules like a course.
It was an interesting feature to consider since we are looking at transitioning our Web site and everything could be housed in one place - courses and information but I'm struggling with the overall design and how appealing it is. Blackboard has a site with different K-12 examples:
http://bb9-k12.blackboard.com/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_129_1

Aggregated Dashboard
Mike also wanted to emphasize that you get more aggregated views and data when you use the community system. For example, teachers would have access to information from all courses in one place vs. having to look in each individual course for missing assigments or things they flagged for early warning.

Here's the first part of the recorded session: https://blackboard.webex.com/blackboard/lsr.php?AT=pb&SP=MC&rID=48524337&rKey=e75ee0811cb3677d

Comments

Schools of the Future: Acquiring and Representing Knowledge

This year's Schools of the Future conference was an information-rich event. When we think of the future, more than a few of us probably also think of technology. That association certainly carries over in the interpretation of the conference title Schools of the Future . Indeed, many topics besides educational technology were covered; however, the technological advances were a strong highlight at the conference in my view. As mentioned in one of Cassie's previous posts , there are online classes everywhere. The first few links on my list reference ways to learn on your own (i.e., ways to acquire knowledge). The second set of links refer to ways of representing knowledge. **Note: All icons link to the affiliated website. Academic Earth has hundreds of free online lectures from prominent university professors, including Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, The University of Houston, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, MIT, Michigan State, Princeton, Rice, UCLA, UCSF, and the list

Geotagging

A "wouldn't it be nice" idea that's been around a while is the ability to tag a map with images that are linked to more information about the site. Kelly C suggested it as a way for students to share knowledge about a cultural/historic site or the geographic area they live in with classmates. (right, no addresses!) There are now cameras and even storage media that embed latitude and longitude into images as they are shot. But you don't need fancy new toys to do this. I tried Flickr's geotagging map and it's fun and supereasy. Want to try it? Log in to Flickr http://www.flickr.com Sign in as " techedine " password " wist101 " yea, corny. Click the " You " tab then the " Your Photostream > Map " or Organize > Your Map links. Click the Satellite link in the upper right. Cool view! (you may need Google Satellite downloaded). Images along the bottom of the screen with colored dots have already been droppe

Zoho Creator

I thought I’d share this web application I came across in my quest to find a relatively simple app to help us manage our mentoring data in the DL Orientation. Our specific needs were that it be a free online database, password protected, had the capability of rapid form development without too much programming knowledge and was easy for the end user to use. The application that met these requirements was Zoho Creator ( http://www.zohocreator.com/ ) a part of a suite of online applications including word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, wikis, organizers and more. What’s great about Zoho Creator is that they have an online repository of applications already developed that you can download to your account and use for free. Initially, I tried some of these applications, but it was overkill for our needs. Zoho Creator can do a lot if you know programming and they have a pay model where it allows you more flexibility and features. I think Zoho Creator would be a useful tool for both

Kamehameha Schools Distance Learning (KSDL) Owau

Search This Blog