Meeting 5: Assignments & Assessments

Data from the fourth Tool Evaluation Form (Communication Tools) completed by committee members was distributed.  Please take a look at what committee members thought about Communication Tools in Moodle and Blackboard 9.1.

During our fourth meeting, members were surveyed (see results here) about the review process to date in efforts to best focus our remaining meetings this semester.  This will facilitate the committee in making  a solid recommendation for an LMS to carry the Massasoit community forward in teaching and learning online.  Members chose to turn our focus to the examination of Blackboard 9.1 tools at this point in the review. 

During the fifth meeting, participants looked at the Assignment and Assessment tools within Blackboard 9.1. Participants walked through the Assignment creation steps as well as the Assessment creation steps. Many of the the features are similar to Blackboard CE8 with some added options and changes in organization.  For example, there is no "Assignments" section rather Assignments are created in a Content Areas (weekly, chapter, topic folders/learning modules).  Another example is that the creation of Assessments is more seamless with questions being created within an assessment rather than in a separate question bank and then associated with an assessment.  There are also new question formats, including ordering and quiz bowl.

Meeting 4: Communication Tools

Data from the third Tool Evaluation Form (Quick Communications) completed by committee members was distributed.  Please take a look at what committee members thought about Quick Communication Tools in Moodle and Blackboard 9.1.

During the fourth meeting, participants looked at the more robust communication tools within each LMS: 

• chat
• forum (discussion)
• wiki
• blogs
• messages
• email 

Both LMSs provide a wiki tool, new to us as part of an LMS.  If you are not familiar with wikis, they are a web-based many-to-many form of communication where students and/or faculty can collaborate on content.  To learn more about wikis, visit the Workshop Support Wiki Aimee uses to support some of the workshops she facilitates on campus.

One feature of Blackboard CE8 contains that many faculty use and like is the Mail feature.  This internal, or walled, email system allows faculty and students to communicate via an email tool that is only available within the course space.  This allows for easy management of communications related to a course.

In Moodle, there is no internal mail feature.  There is an Instant Messaging feature which facilitates one-to-one communication, but it is not course specific (you can IM across courses) and notifications would be sent to your Massasoit email inbox.  Blackboard 9.1 has an email feature which would be linked to your Massasoit email as well as a Message Center which is very similiar to the Mail feature in Blackboard CE8.