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Blackboard Course Shell

Blackboard Course Shell

Nicholas J. Galullo

Post University
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Blackboard Course Shell
Introduction

The small section of the course created for this examination was done in Blackboard

Ultra for an 11th grade Modern American History Course. The site is developed to cover the first

Unit of the Course, The Great Depression, over a four-week time frame. The portion of the

Blackboard that was created is intended for supplemental learning that would be taking place in

the physical classroom. The site is designed to play to Blackboard's strengths, which tend to be

used as an "educational competently to facilitate learning" (Alokluk, 2018). The Blackboard site

in question is designed to provide digital materials, supplementary review materials, and

assessments when appropriate. Altogether, the Blackboard is intended to run parallel with the

physical course's pace. 

The first prompt students will find on Blackboard is a discussion post. This post is framed

to prompt students to discuss what they think is the first thing they think of as "Modern US

History." This is intended to get students thinking about the course and what they might learn. It

also is designed to get them thinking of why the class starts when it does and what history will be

covered.
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Blackboard Course Shell
The main organizational structure of the Blackboard site is broken down into weeks.

Those weeks are created from the section blackboard labels as “learning modules”. Each learning

module is further broken down with a description of what each module with focus on. For

example, week one will focus on “Start of the Great Depression”.

The modules are further broken down into assignments to be completed by order of number, for

example. In week one, there are two individual tasks to come. Each task is provided with a quick

explanation of the task and the learning goal once the job is completed.
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Blackboard Course Shell
Ultimately, the individual material for the given module assignment is placed in a folder

for the students to access. Depending on the task, students will find PowerPoints, videos,

worksheets, assessments, etc…to complete.

From the first unit on, students are asked to respond to a discussion question that has the

students demonstrating their understanding of the course material pertinent to that module, as

seen in the third assignment of the week two module pictured below. Lastly, the unit ends on
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Blackboard Course Shell
module four, Week four. This module uses the assessment, link, and video features found on

Blackboard. The students will be tasked with completing two different reviews before

completing the assessment. The first review is a Crash Course video featuring famous internet

personality and writer John Green. Students will be provided with a video and asked to complete

a worksheet upon finishing the video. Secondly, I created a 20-question review “Quizizz” for

students to complete. Students are provided with the link on Blackboard that will bring them to

the third-party site to complete it.

The assessment that is found in Blackboard is created using their “test” feature. The test

includes a variety of different questions from the different choice options available. These

questions, as seen in the example below, include short-answer, multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank,

and true or false questions.

Reflection

When starting my Blackboard site, I wanted to make sure that it may be something that, if

I wanted to, I could back in the future and use it. Even before I logged into Blackboard, I knew it

would be structuring and creating it with many materials that I have used in my classroom. So,

upon my initial dive into the platform, I had a general idea of what I would be used to fill the

site. However, upon entering, I found the task to be slightly more complicated than I initially
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Blackboard Course Shell
thought. First, I was meet between choosing the Ultra vs. the traditional platform. Being newer,

I went with Ultra because I figured it would be more intuitive. When I got to work, I found that

Blackboard does extraordinarily little handholding for the user unless it is actively sought out.

For example, I want even sure how to create modules until I found a YouTube tutorial on how to

do it (Blackbpoard, 2019). However, from there, I was off and running. That YouTube video led

me to their help page, which allowed me to expand my working knowledge of the sites and

answer most of my questions.

The most major obstacle I had to overcome was being locked out of my account. After

about a week or so of using and developing my Blackboard, I found that my credentials were no

longer working. I tried the password reset, but I kept getting an error message that stated my

account didn't exist. I went to my email and verified that I was still getting emails from

Blackboard. After multiple attempts to log-in, I tried using their "help Instant messenger" client.

I messaged, and 45 tense minutes went by without a reply. After a back and forth that lasted

almost two hours because of the pauses between responses, the Blackboard representatives found

no solutions. The problem seemed to be that I never verified my account via email, an email I

assure you I never received. Eventually, my help request was escalated, and I was told to wait for

an email. I awoke the next morning to an email with a new verification code that earned back my

access. Altogether, it delayed my progress only a day and wasted a couple of hours, but I was

glad to get my account back, and the process could have been more straightforward, but it was

successful.

Using Blackboard was a more challenging experience than I thought it would be. As a

student, most professors seem to have an excellent grasp of the capabilities and structure of the

platform and how to use them best. As a result, I figured it would be easier than I found to create
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Blackboard Course Shell
my small Blackboard course. It taught me just how much work has to go into using some

learning management systems effectively. I've used Google Classroom and Schoology, these

programs do a lot of the work for you, but I see now, this does stifle some creativity. If I want to

increase student engagement and use a Learning Management System more effectively, I will

have to get out of my comfort zone and do more research on how to utilize specific features best.

The before mention platforms are great, but they are limited. Using Blackboard to its fullest

extent gives access to ways more engaging elements like a live Tweeter stream, grading

feedback, or an active discussion board. Going forward, I will be much more likely to explore

new LMS to see how I could become a better teacher.

References

Alokluk, J. (2018) The Effectiveness of Blackboard System, Uses and Limitations in

Information

Management. Intelligent Information Management, 10, 133-149.

Blackboard. (2019, November 4) Create Learning Modules in the Ultra Course View [Video].

Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?

time_continue=1&v=Uzpx_sCkVwc&feature=emb_title