Using Blackboard Scholar in Teaching and Learning

Using Blackboard Scholar in Teaching and Learning! John Morrison Director of Blackboard Beyond User Communities jmorrison@blackboard.com 3400+ Institutions 1000+ Developers MILLIONS of users Blackboard Beyond Initiative Mission Make the power of the Blackboard client network useful to faculty, students, and administrators in their everyday teaching, learning, and research.  Connect institutions, faculty, and students across campuses and disciplines  Central platform, hosted by Blackboard, integrated with Blackboard products via Building Blocks & PowerLinks  Developed by Blackboard, shaped by the community  Multi-year effort with multiple web properties Beyond Multi-Year Effort Phase 1 “Foundation” Phase 2 “Expansion” Phase 3 “Transformation” Student-centered Learning Social Networking Lifelong Learning Everything Starts Somewhere . . . App App App App App Beyond Framework B2 PL B2 PL Introducing . . . What the change looks like … Scholar in Education • Individual Tool • Keep track of vetted and to read • Subject resources • Research tool • Teaching Tool • Learner Centered Tool Scholar as an Individual Tool • Individual Tool • Keep track of vetted and to read • toread • vetted • Subject resources • keeping track of topic or subject resources • Research tool • building expert tags on a topic • building a network of experts on a topic • pulling the 2 together Scholar as an Individual Tool • Research tool • building expert tags on a topic • explore->organize->monitor->refine • E.g. image collections, image development, image research • building a network of experts on a topic • explore->organize->monitor->refine • E.g. experts in Images and Instructional Technology • pulling the 2 together from Joe Tojek, Principal Learning Architect, Capella University Scholar as Instructor/Teaching Tool • Teaching Tool • Providing structure to explore/direct • Pushing resources out to students • Setting activities to engage with resources e.g… Scholar as Instructor/Teaching Tool • Setting activities to engage with resources E.g. • find an image which represents a topic • find resources which best summarize a topic • find resources for and against an argument • find a biased or misleading resource on a topic • Questions which require examination of resources Scholar as a Learner Centered Tool • Learner Centered Tool • Activities which require students to build resources.. A learner centered activity Getting students to evaluate, summarize and build resources • You allocate topics. Students locate 5 informative and high quality resources, to cover a topic • Each saved as bookmark with appropriate Tags • Each bookmark, students to summarize the resource and explain why it is high quality (Description field) • Assessment: tags cover resources, summary is comprehensive and clear, good quality justification • Extension: basis for a student paper Scholar in Education • Individual Tool • Keep track of vetted and to read • Subject resources • Research tool • Teaching Tool • Learner Centered Tool Scholar, next steps for you… • • • Scholar (http://www.scholar.com) Scholar Wiki (http://wiki.scholar.com): user help, technical support and teaching ideas Initial Accounts, Install on a test server, Install on production server You and your faculty already have - Your resources (where they are) - Your organization (your structure and topics) • • Benefits of the Scholar Resource network – Ease of updating, ease of sharing with students – The benefit of getting resources from others in your discipline – The benefit of making students co-builders, active learners How can you direct your students to actively, yet critically, use resources, learn to build resources for themselves and learn to contribute to class and ultimately the communities resources? Scholar … help from the community Work with others in your program Work with those in your discipline, across all institutions Webinars – Introductory and Teaching & Learning with Scholar Presentations and other Resources – talk to me Getting Help, Contributing to Help http://wiki.scholar.com, beyond@blackboard.com Thank you http://www.scholar.com http://wiki.scholar.com (from Help in Scholar…) beyond@blackboard.com John Morrison, jmorrison@blackboard.com Director of Blackboard Beyond User Communities Go forth and Scholar!