Ryan Watkins

Tool:

Blackboard

Benefits for Faculty:

• Flexibility in distance education though the use of discussion board, group management, tests and surveys.
• Students are automatically populated into the Blackboard course and communication with students is easy.

Benefits for Students:

• Self-paced environment though the use of discussion board features, grouping features, testing features, survey features.
• For students who are less familiar with tools, the move to Blackboard has been useful because it is all within one setting - "You go to one website and [you have] access to everything."

Teaching Tips:

"When you are giving [students] an assignment, often it is very helpful to list the steps that a student will have to go through in a very specific order. Another thing...is how to make [the Blackboard course] a more interactive environment. You can transition a lot of games and activities from the regular classroom and put them onto the online classroom pretty effectively."