DIGITAL PEDAGOGIES

With this being the start of a new year I wanted to take the opportunity to provide a brief update on the state of play with respect to the Blackboard transition as well as reiterate my availability regarding any educational technology related questions or ideas.

I have met with the TELT Administrators from each school to discuss the best way forward with respect to the course building process (in the Blackboard sense). Given we are moving to a new system, it was felt that opportunities to come together as a group might be of value to the instructors who will ultimately be designing the courses in the LMS. Therefore the intention is to organise as series of informal workshops in which teaching staff bring their course materials and then build their courses in a collaborative setting.

The form these sessions will ultimately take is still being discussed, and I welcome any feedback or suggestions anyone may have in that regard. The basic idea though, is for the sessions to be hands-on and informal, with the bulk of the activities revolving around the building of the courses. It’s not seen to be a training event; nor is attendance mandatory. This is, rather, an opportunity to tackle Blackboard in a collaborative setting, with assistance and support immediately available in the event of any problems or questions.

For those of you who are either unable or uninterested in attending these sessions, there is also a series of 3 video tutorials available, provided by Learning & Teaching, which depict the set-up of a Blackboard course from scratch.

There are 3 videos in total, each of which are no more than 7 minutes apiece and feature navigation options on the right side of the player to quickly access specific parts of the video.

The videos are available on the FASS Learning & Teaching website:

http://learningteaching.arts.unsw.edu.au/blackboard9/index.html

Above and beyond this, I would also like to reiterate that my role in FASS does not revolve around Blackboard exclusively, but educational technology more broadly – and importantly how these elements can be most effectively integrated into the learning and teaching processes. This includes the suite of TELT applications (http://telt.unsw.edu.au), as well as programs and services more broadly available elsewhere. So if anyone has any ideas for their courses they would like to discuss, or is interested in exploring other avenues for online learning I would be only too happy to meet with you.

In the meantime if anyone has any questions or problems please let me know.