It's New BlackBoard!

We use BlackBoard (a course-management software) on my campus. Some folks use it for running online courses and doing lots of online discussion. I mainly use it to post stuff so things like handouts are available to students (it is SO NICE to be able to say, "Just get it off BlackBoard" when someone comes and says that they missed class, do I have another copy of the thing I handed out). I also use it as an online gradebook, which is also nice, because people can monitor their grades over the course of the semester if they want. (And if someone does come to me complaining they "didn't know" they were failing, it's their own fault, for not keeping track. Oh, I had work back, but it is also nice to have the running total on BlackBoard).

Well, a new version is out. I knew it was coming and was kind of dreading it because the last change to BlackBoard changed EVERYTHING and I was scrambling (because all of the orientation sessions seemed to happen when I was in lab) to figure out where stuff was. (The standard Rule of Software Evolution: things must be changed for the sake of change and for the sake of obsoleting the old versions, even if those changes do not improve, or even make worse, the user experience).

But this new version, the main changes I see are two:

1. "Reminders" of "You need to put content here" Oh, thanks BlackBoard, I'd be too dumb to realize that clicking on the "add content" link requires me to link to a file otherwise. Feh.

2. We can now customize the course with "themes." These are kind of like the themes in PowerPoint: different color schemes. A couple of thoughts:

               a. BlackBoard has many themes, but just one real "look." (Kind of like Derek Zoolander. And I thought of him because one of the themes is "Steel," which made me think of "Blue Steel")

               b. Is it awful that I was ever so slightly tempted to use the pinkest, girliest theme for my Soils class (which is usually 90% men)? The idea of that made me laugh but I did wind up going with a theme called "Sand," which is sand-colored and has a vaguely topographic-map-like design for the wallpaper.

Yeah, it's just windowdressing, but I like the idea of being able to use different color schemes for my different classes, because then I can be reminded without even having to check which class I'm working on: moss green for Ecology, ocean blue for Directed Readings, a cutesy-leaf theme called "Forest" for the intro class....

I also had a student with accommodations come in to speak with me, and he said, "If there's any way you can let me have copies of the Powerpoints you use in class, I can manage without a notetaker...." When I told him I posted them on BlackBoard as a matter of practice, he high-fived me.

(Notetakers are a bit of an issue here. Some schools have paid individuals who do it, which seems to work better than our volunteer system, where you ask someone in class to be a note-taker. Some semesters the volunteer note-takers are not very reliable or it's hard to get someone to volunteer, and I always worry about what happens if a student has an accommodation to have a note-taker and I can't get one, or can't get a reliable one - am I liable? At this point, 90% of my notes are in my head, and transcribing them for someone who needed them would be VERY time-consuming)