The Blackboard Quest

E-Learning Show Case

Chris Jobling

What?

• Introducing Blackboard and Oremi

• Using Blackboard and Oremi

• Encouraging Exploration

• Learn by Doing

• Serious in Purpose but Fun in Practice

• Could Be Adapted for any Course Group

When and Who?

• Start of Week 3 of First Semester

• All First Year Engineers

Why?

• Need to introduce Blackboard to all first year engineering students

• Desire to encourage use of Oremi

• Part of School’s Commitment to ICT and LEAP

• Forms a Component of “Personal and Professional Development” module (1 credit).

[Hidden Agenda]

• Taught by a Guest Lecturer (me!)

• Minimum Supervision

• Some Credit Desired but …

• Ideally No Marking!

How?

• A Quest

• Exploration

• Treasure

• Challenges

• Rewards

Technically

• In Blackboard and Oremi

• Read

• “Review”

• “Selective Release”

• Quizzes

• Treasure

• Automatic Grading

The Quest

• The Gatekeeper’s Challenge

• The Treasure Hunt

• The Second Challenge

• Exploring Oremi

• The Final Challenge

• The Reward

The Gatekeeper’s Challenge

• Questors must be worthy!

• Provide some introductory information in Course Documents

• Quiz them on the content

• Demand more than 40% effort (I demand 80%)!

• Reveal “Treasure Hunt” only when they have achieved this minimum level of performance.

The Treasure Hunt

• A tour around your Blackboard site.

• Try to ensure site is “typical” Module Information Staff Information Course Documents Assignments Books Communication Discussion Board External Links Tools

The Treasure – Typical Questions• “Treasure” is module resources

How many credits does the module have? Who is the principle lecturer? Where does “wizard” Jobling live? List the Learning Outcomes What is the ISBN and Voyager Call number of the

module textbook? Which professional body is responsible for accrediting

Aerospace degrees? Who said “Thermodynamics is a funny subject?”

• Key is that all answers should be discoverable in the Blackboard site or by reviewing the resources provided.

The Hunt

• Blackboard allows virtually any form of content item, folder, external link, course link or test to be subject to selective release.

• Use “Manage item” to add review control to resources you want your students to read.

• Use reviewed setting to control selective release of the next item in the quest.

• Release items only when the previous item(s) have been reviewed.

• Sophisticated rules possible but keep it simple!

The Second Challenge

• Another blackboard quiz

• Answers should be discoverable in the treasure hunt

• Try to ensure that questions can only be answered if the materials have been properly reviewed.

• Set a “pass mark” or not as you wish

Exploring Oremi

• Oremi – Swansea’s new PLE

• All students should be able to login

• Create a new community for your students

• Encourage them to join the community as part of the quest

• Hide some treasure in the community

• Aim to get a critical mass so that students are into Oremi when it’s used later for academic purposes!

The Final Challenge

• Students must find a key in the Oremi community site

• Key used to “unlock” final challenge

• When final challenge is unlocked quest ends.

• May want to offer a reward!

The Reward

• My reward is access to a Matlab tutorial that used to be part of the PPD module!

• Didn’t want to throw it away, and it’s useful to students.

• You might want to give them a useful document, access to a video, link to a useful web site, a voucher to spend in the tuck shop, or simply the satisfaction of a job well done.

Adapting to Other Courses

• Build a quest into a module that all students take.

• Give credit – students like credit!

• Make documents to be reviewed relevant to your course

• Use quizzes to ensure proper review of materials

• Use selective release “hurdles” to force more than 40% effort!

• Give examples of real teaching and learning materials from your courses

• If you use Blackboard quizzes, give examples of as many question types as you can.

• Allow retries – possibility of 100% scores is a good motivator!

Finding Out More

• I have put copies of this presentation, handouts that I use, keys and grading information onto the Oremi site as a presentation.

• You’ll need to join the “Blackboard Quest” community for access.

• Once there, you’ll find the materials under Chris Jobling’s presentations.

• The quest itself is implemented in EG-168 (guest access is enabled)

• This could be made into a template module perhaps but would need customizing.

Summary

• This has been the “Blackboard Quest”

• A presentation made by Chris Jobling

• For the first E-Learning Showcase, October 2007.

• Thanks for your Time!