XplanaZine

And this week… let’s talk about Blackboard! Last week I did a quick survey of how the Internet and web publishing can completely change the way students write - the Internet gives students a real audience for their writing, it expands the content of their writing (images!), allowing them to link and be-linked-to, while promoting continual revision throughout the semester. Does Blackboard, a web-based course management system, take advantage of any of these features? It does not.
Blackboard lets faculty members share documents with students, but it does nothing to promote web publishing by students.
An instructor using Blackboard is able to create a number of document folders, labeled with some pre-assigned names: Course Documents, Assignments, Lectures, Labs, and so on. These folders are linked to a set of navigation buttons that always appear on the left-hand side of the screen. Inside those folders can be other folders, which can contain documents of various sorts - HTML documents, but also Word, Powerpoint, Excel and so on. This is the equivalent of the teacher giving handouts during class, or displaying some kind of presentation in the classroom. It’s tedious, but it works. Instead of a classroom presentation or a handout, the instructor can now share that information with the students over the web.
But what are the students able to do? Does the student have a document folder where they can upload their course project? No, they do not. With Blackboard, the only way that a student can share documents with other students in the class - correct me if I am wrong, somebody! - is by using the “attachment” feature in the Discussion Board. In other words, the student can create a posting in a Discussion Board, and attach a document to that posting.
Now clearly there is no technological barrier to each student having a folder inside Blackboard where they could upload material to share with other students in the class. Although I much prefer teaching my students how to create websites, it would be at least acceptable to have them upload Word documents throughout the semester so that they could share their ideas and writings with other students in the class. But this is not possible. The best you can do is create a Discussion Board Forum, and inside that forum put a thread, and inside that thread, have the students create posts… and attached to those posts would be a document. Click, click, click, click, click… that is the sound of people clicking and clicking, digging down through the layers of the Blackboard interface until they happen to find a document that another student wants to share with them.
Personally, I think that is just crazy.
The Discussion Board is for discussion. So let the students discuss! But the Discussion Board is not for web publishing - there should be a better way for students to publish on the web than by attaching documents to Discussion Board posts.
But let’s step back for a minute and figure out why Blackboard is being so perverse. There is no technological explanation for why they give students a Discussion Board, but not a documents folder. The reason seems to be this: Blackboard mimics the classroom. Students discuss in class, so Blackboard has a Discussion Board. But do students share their work with one another in the classroom? Not usually. And so Blackboard does not offer an easy way for students to share their work with one another in the virtual classroom.
The technology behind Blackboard, the technology of the web, should allow it to boldly go where no classroom has gone before. But it does not. No warp speed here.
Instead, Blackboard uses all the jargon of the Internet, without fundamentally changing anything.
Just out of (morbid) curiosity, I logged on as a student to Blackboard this evening to take a look at the Student Manual for Blackboard. Let’s see how Blackboard explains itself to students. And here is what Blackboard says:

Introduction to the Student Manual
Blackboard 5 is a comprehensive and flexible e-Learning software platform that delivers a course management system, and, with a Level Two or Level Three license, a customizable institution-wide portal and online communities. In addition, a Level Three license includes advanced integration tools and APIs to seamlessly integrate Blackboard 5 with existing institution systems. Blackboard 5 has evolved from the Blackboard’s award winning Course Info™ software.
I kid you not!!! That is from Blackboard’s Introduction to students who actually take the time to go look at the Student Manual to learn more about what Blackboard has to offer.
So I think we have stumbled on to one of Blackboard’s biggest failures. And it is not a failure of technology, but a failure of recognition.
In other words: I don’t think anybody at Blackboard has ever talked to a student.
So no wonder they don’t worry about helping students to publish on the web.
What else can we learn from perusing Blackboard’s Student Manual? I’ll take that question up again tomorrow.