Hannah Whaley . com

I gave a presentation at the recent Blackboard World Conference (#bbworld09) in Washington DC on ‘Groupwork Assessment’. The powerpoint for this presentation is available on the Blackboard Connections site. The talk was videoed by the 360 people, and you can watch the video here. Thanks to everyone that turned up - and asked questions and spoke to me at the end. The feedback was all positive, and appeared to highlight the genuine requirement for a system of this kind to be more widely available within Blackboard. The rise in group teaching and assessment, and the issues students face with it, appear to be consistent across disciplines, year groups, institutions and continents.

The ability to work effectively in a team is seen as a crucial skill within many professions and industry sectors. There has been a rise in the use of assessed group work in many disciplines over recent years. There are numerous reasons for this increase, including larger class sizes (therefore making it efficient to have group submissions) and a greater emphasis on employability and transferable skills.

Despite this rapid progression, methods for assessing the individual contributions of team members have not advanced significantly causing a feeling of dissatisfaction amongst many students. Faculty are also concerned about the possibility of students gaining high marks because of their team’s effort, when the individual contribution was unsatisfactory.

An approach to collaboration has been developed that teaches about team work by focusing on assessment criteria and peer evaluation aspects of group working. As the amount of group work that students complete continues to increase, enhancing their learning in this area helps them achieve more from project work and benefit from collaborative learning approaches. By ensuring fairer grading for individual contributions to groups, students are less stressed by the challenges of team working and are better able to focus simultaneously on the project deliverable and team interactions.

It has been a busy few weeks, and I thought I would share a couple of recent challenges with you.

I recently spent two weeks in Germany, completing a 2000 mile driving holiday in our Lotus Elise. We spent some time at the Nurburgring - the longest, most challenging and unforgiving racetrack in the world. I chose to drive a lap - a genuinely nerve-wracking experience and not a decision I took lightly given the well documented dangers of the track. Also driving the 13 mile ring was a Lambo, Corvette ZR-1, Ferarri F430 Scuderia, Nissan GTR, and more GT3 RSs than you could shake a stick at - all doing some serious speeds on track. It was an amazing experience, a genuine feeling of accomplishment and I am incredibly glad I chose to tackle it.

This was not the only challenge of the last few weeks. Immediately before I left for Germany I had a job interview, and I have been delighted to accept the position of Assistant Director of the Library and Learning Centre at the University of Dundee, responsible for Research and Systems. I am looking forward to working more closely with the Library and Learning Centre staff to build on existing work and tackle the many challenges being presented within this area - not least the changes in the publishing sector, effective search, integrations, open access repositories and research management initiatives.

This week I am at BbWorld09 in Washington DC and have been presenting on both the challenges with Groupwork Assessment and with effective implementation of content systems for learning and teaching. Common themes from talking to colleagues here have centred on  moving elearning systems forward (the adoption of Bb9) and providing stable, integrated systems that meet our staff and student’s expectations for modern working. It never fails to impress me how much progress there is in the sector year on year, and yet how we feel constantly challenged by the needs and requirements of the university community. I understand how people can feel swamped by this, but it is important to realise just how quickly we can adapt, and how far we have already risen to meet the challenge of achieving 21st century education.

I hope that challenges of all kinds continue to present themselves to me in life, as the biggest challenges tend to bring the best opportunities with them.

Just last week Blackboard announced that they have bought Angel Learning. I thought it might be useful to pull together some of the information and opinion that I have observed online since this announcement.

First the info. Blackboard have been through the mill once before with a high profile acquisition, and while Angel is not as high profile as WebCT was in terms of client numbers it still represents a leading competitor at this time. Announcements came through thick and fast from Blackboard, and you can read them here:

• Michael Chasen’s twitter account, closely followed with retweets from other well known Bb twitterers, and complete with its own hashtag of #bbplusangel
• Blackboard blog posts
• Blackboard press release
• Dedicated section on Blackboard Website
• Michael Chasen on Fox Business News

Early reaction included lots of retweets, and news of a 10% drop in Bb’s shares (Nasdaq BBBB) - this was later accredited to lower guidance and a downgrade on the day. Subsequent twitter reaction seemed to show disappointment from Angel clients, and approval from Blackboard clients. The news that Ray Henderson (the No.2 at Angel Learning) was now to become head of Blackboard Learn seemed to help even out the opinion.

From what I have read, I have seen three main themes for community concern and opinion - collated here with example blog posts to reflect them:

1. Can you escape the gravitational pull of Blackboard? Many felt they had made repeated decisions against Blackboard, by buying WebCT and then Angel, yet seem to be pulled back to being Blackboard clients without actively making that decision.

• Angelic Learning Online

2. Have enough lessons been learnt? Many of the statements of optimism from this acqusition seemed to reflect similar statements given at the time of the WebCT merger.

• Three tests for the ‘new’ Blackboard 

3. Can Blackboard ever have a good guy reputation? Many feel that Blackboard’s reputation is going from bad to worse, following the WebCT merger, D2L lawsuits and now this latest acqusition of a main competitor.

•  A corpse for Blackboard’s corpulence
• Inside Higher Ed

It is important to remember that Blackboard are a business. Not a charity, not an educational establishment, not a government funded body. They are a company, and if they don’t do business right then they will cease to be a company, and the time and money invested in them by institutions will amount to nothing.  Somebody has to be a leader in a marketplace, and that fact alone does not make them evil or dangerous. A lack of innovation or  monopolising while stagnating would do. In the time I’ve worked on Bb systems they have continuously taken significant steps forward, and that is important to me. Interesting that the anger is always directed to Blackboard who appear committed to offering educational products rather than the companies that sold out their customers. Perhaps its just easier to aim at the ones that are still around.

Also, they are a really young company. A big company, but still young and still learning. We all work to promote learning in individuals so why are we so unforgiving of businesses that are learning? Maybe they have learnt nothing at all from the WebCT merger, but I don’t believe that could be the case. However, learning is not enough alone, and they must act on what they have learnt. I hope they do, as it could benefit many institutions. I’m possibly too optimistic, but I feel that a focus on the negatives helps no-one. There will be opportunities to come from bbplusangel - perhaps people should focus on providing a strong community voice to guide them.

I realised recently that my Twitter addiction has weaned me from my YouTube addiction without my knowledge. Sneaky Twitter. As I was reminiscing about my forgotten video friends I got to thinking about videos that I would happily watch again and again – and why. I think some videos are just good for you. So here is my pick of 3 videos that educational technologists should make time to watch every so often. I am sure you will have seen all of these before, but take 5 mins or so to watch them again now and think about why. If they don’t make you smile even a little then consult a doctor – you may be dead inside.

1. Michael Wesch’s Students: A Vision of Students Today
Great video which I first saw when he was a keynote at a Blackboard conf. I’ve heard many reactions to this video – some saying that it scares them, that they worry about how fast HE is changing, that they feel sorry for students today. Personally, it makes me happy, it reminds me that I’m glad I do the job I do. I’m glad there are others out there too, trying to make universities grow and change. Watch this and smile – you’re doing a good job.

2. Mrs Palin: Song for Sarah
I first saw this after a friend of a friend on facebook posted it, saying that it was two Russian students that they had taught. In the midst of the biggest election campaign in history they produced this video themselves, in response to Sarah Palin’s infamous interview about her foreign policy credentials (which seemed to centre around the fact that America used Alaska to launch planes into Russian airspace). Watch this and remember that your students are ingenious – you would be daft to underestimate them.

3. Dancing Matt: Where the Hell is Matt?
I can’t remember where I was first linked to this video. Matt dances all around the world, and finds some friends to dance with along the way. A great reminder that it is in our nature to build communities as soon as we have any common ground at all. Watch this, and think about how many more ways we could find to really interact with each other.

Any others?