The module displayed on this page is a Blackboard course module that shows FSU instructor mentors, new to Blackboard, how to execute certain course creation basics of the Blackboard LMS.

The module was the primary assignment for a spring 2008 course titled Instructional Materials Development, taught by Dr. Jennifer Gramling. The teaching methods and Alessi Trollip ISD model were a particular focus of the course, along with other topics relating especially to online instruction.

Note: The above module was created by a team working at a distance. The team never met physically. It is also important to know that the technology skills of certain team members varied widely, thereby greatly affecting the content and quality of the final product. Also note that the two panel layout seen in the above video is more of a "hack" of the Blackboard LMS. It does not appear that Blackboard was designed to allow a class who's lessons were simultaniously live instances of Blackboard for practicing instructors. This required some tricks and tweaks on the part of the author.

The requirements for the module were initially as follows:

After completing the module (that your team designs) learners should be able to:
• Navigate a Blackboard site
• Post an announcement
• Access and view the course grade book
• Develop a simple test using the Test Manager
• Use the email function to contact all users on a course site
• Create forums and threads in the discussion board
• Create student groups using the Easy Group Management Tool
• Use Blackboard to encourage good instruction and assessment practices.

Towards the end of the course these requirements were dropped to any three of the above.

ANALYSIS: The analysis of the end users was provided before the project was started. It should be noted that a key design strength of this model was that it would maximize efficiency by allowing the learner to work in a live Blackboard environment while watching an instructional video in a sidebar. (Videos were created fresh using Adobe Captivate)

The course instructor implied that the module would be used by future course mentors and was thus not a prototype. The project was completed as required, but as noted above, the initial concept requirements for the module were severely curtailed due to a lack of time remaining in the course.

It is the author's opinion that the course concept of watching an instructional video while working in a live environment is the best method for teaching this type of skill because it quickly moves the learner into a phase of manipulating the actual Blackboard LMS. "Performing the actual skill" is an absolute must when learning any psycho-motor skills.

In the authors opinion, this product suffered some as a result of being created by a team working completely at a distance. Several synchronous sessions were held using vyew.com during which the author attepmted to guide the team in the creation of the module, and an understanding of the "sidebar-video+live-work-area" concept. After creating a demo of the concept the team gladly chose to attempt it.

None of the other team members had the skills to reproduce the above idea using HTML+Blackboard, so they (without the author's prompting) elected to record the lesson videos and have the author assemble the entire module in Blackboard.

Even with roles being divided, some team members struggled to use Adobe Captivate effectively. Furthermore, it surfaced that at least one team member held a lower concept of the depth of material appropriate to the module.