Wikis, e-portfolios, Journals, and Search Options Enhance Blackboard

Issue 37, Fall 2006

by Patricia LeClaire

Following very positive response by Western's faculty to their summer evaluation of four Learning Objects enhancements for Blackboard, ATUS has purchased a license that will make wikis, journals, e-portfolios, and search capability available to instructors and students. These new functions significantly extend options for teaching and learning online, whether you are using Blackboard as enrichment for your on-campus courses or are teaching in a completely distance online educational environment.

A review of these new resources will be integrated into the regular Friday afternoon Blackboard workshops, while additional specialized Brown Bags and SIG sessions on these Blackboard functions will soon be offered by the ATUS Instructional Designer Patricia LeClaire A brief review of the four new Blackboard enhancements to teaching and learning follows.

Teams LX , an exciting new option for your small-group projects, provides increased opportunities for small-group communication and collaboration, and the development of information literacy skills, through joint student authoring of web sites ("wikis").

Instructors can use this new resource to foster high-order professional communication and collaboration skills by organizing students into groups and assigning each group a project in which they jointly author a dynamic website, including multimedia content (text, images, audio, video). When this collaboratively-developed site is complete, instructors will be able to review not only the whole-group effort and its final output, but also specific records of each person's contribution, enabling grading for both "process" (forming, storming, norming, performing) and "product."

Journal LX is a reflective journaling tool that fosters metacognition, transformative thinking and reflection through student use of private journals. Reflective journals allow students to privately gather information, reflect on their personal progress with course-related topics and assignments, and receive mentoring and tutoring from the instructor or TA when needed.

The only choice previously available for providing such individual journaling opportunities within Blackboard was to laboriously create a one-person discussion forum for every student in the course. Instructors will now be able to click one button and instantly create individual reflective journals for every student in their course, whether the enrollment is 14 or 400.

Simply by setting two other options from "off" to "on," faculty members also have the option to "open up" individual journals - turning them into online blogs available for review and comment by other students and the instructor.

Expo LX is a cross-course e-portfolio resource for Blackboard that enables opportunities for cross-course reflective thinking, development of information literacy skills, program assessment, personal expression and career/employment objectives.

Students can begin building their portfolios during their first year at Western, continue to add to them as they progress through their program and take it with them when they graduate. Portfolio content can be added in multiple formats: text, audio, still graphics, video and animation (simulation, 3D modeling etc.).

Unlike course-bound content, the portfolios are stored in a central repository. This allows students to access, and add to, their portfolio from within any Blackboard course in which they're enrolled, and also makes it possible to attach metadata to portfolios so that they are searchable across the university.

Multiple needs can be met by this e-portfolio resource -- addressing course and program assessment or balancing student personal expression with career and employment objectives. Based on program requirements, instructors for each course can specify which assignments in their courses should be included in the e-portfolio as demonstration that specific requirements were attained.

In addition to allowing students to selectively release different parts of their portfolio to individuals and groups - potential employers, graduate schools, and community members - every portfolio is stored by ExpoLX/Blackboard in a central repository so that it can be searched for by the entire Western community (information available will depend on student preferences for selective release).

Search LX means the Google search box is always open and available for users within Blackboard. Students can search for content within all courses for which they've been a student. Search results are clearly described by name, content type, relevance score, location, and last date modified. The results listing offers one-click access to the underlying content. Advanced capabilities allow users to refine a search by course, organization, content type, or keywords.

Instructors can configure each of the four Learning Object resources for student use via the Blackboard Control Panel under Course Tools:

and can make them specifically available to students by adding a hyperlink to the left-hand menu or by linking from within any Content Area by using the right-hand dropdown menu labeled "+Select:"

For further information, or details on workshops and other training, please contact ATUS Instructional Designer Patricia LeClaire, 650-2557 or email patricia.leclaire@wwu.edu.