ELMS Users Group Meeting
May 8, 2007
Summary
Attendance:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Cohen, Helene
Egel, Andy
Lee, Linda
Macready, George
Pragel, Steve
Welcome
After brief introductions, we discussed the possible roles for this user group. The
list is meant as a guide, and is open for discussion. Agreed upon purposes include:
- to serve as a venue for faculty-to-faculty sharing of information and
techniques related to BlackBoard.
- to provide a platform for the two-way flow of information to and from OIT
regarding BlackBoard problems, issues, and features.
- to provide an infrastructure for arranging Benjamin-housed, college-specific,
training sessions or demos by OIT and/or others (including other faculty).
Announcements
Based upon the OIT ELMS Technical and Support committee, Steve announced:
- OIT is looking into providing student "dummy" accounts for faculty use.
- OIT has approved the use of BlackBoard for administrative, non-course use
(e.g., committees, workshops, etc.).
The above items are approved, although OIT is still building/refining the
administrative methods of implementing and/or requesting those features.
Other features, and related items:
- Andy Egel mentioned that he is signed up for BlackBoard boot-camp. This is
an intensive two-day workshop that others in his department have taken and
enjoyed. More details can be found at www.training.umd.edu under IIT
training.
- George Macready mentioned some boilerplate items that he saw demoed at a
recent OIT brown-bag that would be helpful to have available to all (see
Action Items).
- Helene Cohen mentioned Wimba, which is a BlackBoard add-on that allows
real-time voice communication in a chat-room style interface. It also has
some graphic-based interactive tools that emulate a face-to-face environment
(i.e., virtual classroom). George mentioned that this feature has recently been
enabled on the campus BlackBoard instance (see Action Items).
-
George Macready mentioned Camtasia (see
http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp) for screen capture and video
creation. He provides video tutorials and class lessons via a BlackBoard link
to the streaming media server.
Future Discussion
Other items for future discussion include:
- Workshops for students in BlackBoard courses. Who would conduct them,
how do you ensure attendance, what would they cover, etc.
- Technology institute and/or demo of faculty use of technology for the collegeat-large.
- Distance learning.
- Video streaming (and streaming media server availability).
- What happens if technology fails in the classroom?
- Maggie McLaughlin (by email) expressed an interest in discussing the
archiving of courses, as well as general communication and teaching
techniques, as related to BlackBoard courses.
Action Items
Steve and/or Linda will:
- Check on availability of boilerplate items.
- Confirm scope of availability and operation of Wimba.
- Check on streaming media server integration into BlackBoard.
- Check on support mechanisms available for students, in general.
- Check on anytime support for faculty and students (either email or
knowledge-base).
- Check into archiving options in BlackBoard.