Treating Blackboard as an expansion of a module can encourage students' to engage with the module content, with each other, and with the tutor.
Franck Michel's use of Blackboard was commended in School of Modern Languages Internal Subject Review.
Franck uses a number of methods to make Blackboard an extension of the French language classroom: - adding links to podcasts and audio material (in the target language) that expand on academic content covered in timetabled sessions - setting up small weekly quizzes for students. These can be grammar quizzes for language modules, or multiple choice questions for French History modules - using Blackboard as a repository for information to support students during their year abroad. The effective approach here seems to be to 'think like a student' when organising and naming folder structures, so content is accessible to students with as few subfolders as possible. Colour coding can help here, for example if all week 1 materials have blue headings across the Blackboard community, week 2 materials are red…
Using Blackboard to expand on content covered in timetabled sessions is an example of blended learning: online and face-to-face learning are considered as a whole, rather than as two separate things. The quizzes aim to help students consolidate what they've learned that week. They can also be useful for revision: at the moment Franck finds that students use the quizzes more for revision before exams than for regular and ongoing consolidation, but tying each quiz to a given week's module content offers both possibilities. Making information accessible makes it more likely to be used. This applies to all students but can be particularly important for those on a year abroad, so that information is available and findable when they need it.
Franck includes a Blackboard evaluation question on module evaluation questionnaires. This asks whether this module's Blackboard is better, as good as, or worse than other modules': student responses are largely positive. Blackboard can also monitor how many times students use quizzes. Whilst the quizzes took a while to set up they can be rolled forward, so the time invested pays off.
Blended learning using Blackboard in SML
Student Engagement, Assessment and Feedback, e-learning/UNITE
Undergraduate (all Stages)
Modern Languages
Blackboard
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