Why WordPress is Better than Blackboard (Video)
So I’ve been writing about my escape from Blackboard to WordPress for my online course management system. Some people were wondering what this looks like. I can’t just give you the link because the classes are live and are in locked down mode (private), so I create a screencast so you can see an what an online course in WordPress might look like. I also talk about the feature I like best in comparison to Bb.
Saying Goodbye to Blackboard – Part III: Missing Essentials
The hardest part about doing away with the standard LMS is replacing the essentials like gradebook, quizzing, and assignment dropbox. The assignment dropbox feature is used to collect assignments from students. I’ve tried using email for this in the past, but I’m not organized enough or consistently organized enough to make that work. Besides I’m a stickler about submitting assignments on time, and if your email inbox is your dropbox, you can’t simply turn that off or lock it down when the due date has passed. So I had to come up with a solution for this, as well as a gradebook and quizzing function.
Increasingly book publishers are replacing standard LMS services with new companion sites that come packaged with textbooks. Last year we adopted both the McGraw-Hill Guide with Connect Composition Plus and Cengage’s A College Writer with Enhanced InSite. Both offer online textbooks and companion sites that provide lots of resources for both faculty and students. I chose to use the McGraw-Hill text with Connect Composition Plus.
Connect Composition Plus provides comprehensive, reliable writing and research content that is searchable, assignable, and inviting. It includes a fully integrated eBook with exercises, peer review tools and editing skills diagnostic tests.
With this new tool, it’s easy for me to assign custom assignments for students that provide detailed instructions and then gives the students a place to submit the assignment. Connect Composition, as well as Enhanced Insite, have built in grading features. I can quickly annotate student assignments and post grades for students to see.There are also features in both that allow for students to peer review essays.
This is a great setup as it gives me one place for all submitted work, and one place to go to grade submitted work. I can create as many assignments as I want and set due dates. The down side is that their is no internal gradebook attached. There is a gradebook, but you can’t add outside assignments or exclude ebook assignments or grammar exercises you might assign students for extra practice. Basically you don’t have any control over the gradebook – weighting grades and assigning point value. Everything is just graded on a 100% scale. Ultimately I would like to see a gradebook built into this system, but in the mean time, I’ve decided to use Engrade for my gradebook.
Engrade is a free set of web-based tools for educators allowing them to manage their classes online while providing students with 24/7 real-time online access. It’s private, secure, truly free, and unbelievably easy to use.
It was very easy to set up all of my classes in Engrade. I just created rosters with the FirstName LastName IDNumber (MEIDs for Maricopa) and Engrade creates an access code for each student. I just emailed this access code with instructions to all students along with instructions on how to access their grades.
Engrade just recently added a feature that allows you to create quizzes, although it is a bit limiting at the moment. You can only create multiple choice quizzes. That doesn’t work for me, so I’m using Classmarker.com for my quizzing needs.
The ClassMarker online testing website is a professional, easy to use, online quiz maker that marks your tests and quizzes for you.
ClassMarker has educational pricing at $24 for the year and I’m able to create quizzes with different types of questions, including fill in the blank and essay – my favorites. It keeps track of all the scores and I can provide feedback on the quizzes. Initially I wanted to use ClassMarker because they have an external quiz feature that allows you to embed quizzes into your site. I couldn’t figure out how to make that work, but that is ultimately what I want to see on my WordPress site, quizzes embedded directly into the site.
So those are the three essentials that I had to replace when I made the move from Blackboard to WordPress. I’ll discuss more about the social aspect of WordPress over Blackboard in my next post.
Saying Goodbye to Blackboard Part II – Student Blogs & Privacy
In my first post I explained how I am using WordPress as a course management system, and in this post I will explain how I was able to easily add students to the class and set up their blogs. Keep in mind that my new course network is completely private, so only registered users can see who users are and participate in activities. To achieve this privacy, I installed a plug-in called Private WordPress. “Private WP will make sure people can only read your blog after they log in. Already logged in users will see no difference. Users who are logged out will get the login page, and only that.” I like to keep my options open, so although we are completely private, I still set up the students so they can have an option to use an alias.
First I added every student as a user to the main “hub” blog using their MEID and their Maricopa email address. This information is easily accessible in both Blackboard and SIS so I can do this before the semester begins. After I add them to the network, students are sent an email with log in instructions and a password to access the site. When they log-in they are instructed to edit their profiles to add their real name and a photo. At this point they can choose to display their first name only, first and last name or just their MEID. They can also use a chosen alias instead of their real names if they want. Students cannot change the initial username given (MEID), so no matter what they provide for their names, I can always identify them on the back end by the MEID. So far, all of my students have chosen to use their real names or stick with the MEID as the display name.
Next I create a blog or site for each user. You are given the choice between sub-domains or sub-directories in Step 4: Installing a Network. This means each additional site in your network will be created as a new virtual subdomain or subdirectory.
- Sub-domains — like
site1.example.com
andsite2.example.com
- Sub-directories — like
example.com/site1
andexample.com/site2
I wanted to try them both, so ENG101 uses sub-domains and ENG102 and ENH295 both use sub-directories. I think I like sub-directories better so. To add a site I need a site name, site title and an admin email. For the site name I used MEIDs again because they will be easily identifiable by me, and if students neglect to make their site private, they are not automatically identifiable to the world. For site title I use the student’s first name temporarily, and then I add their Maricopa email for the admin email. Once I add the site, students are sent another email with log in instructions. They are then instructed to either leave their blogs public or make them private by using the same plug-in I used on the main site. If they choose to go private, I instruct them to choose the option to “Allow all feed access – Guests may continue read your blog via feed readers. “ This is essentially the same option we would have in Blackboard if our district had the balls to turn it on. The blogs are not accessible by search engines, and you have to have the feed url in order to see the posts. So it’s still private, but I can still access it via a feed reader. This makes me very happy. 🙂
Students are also instructed that they can change the title of their blog to whatever they want, thus removing their names. So they can change Mary’s blog (default) to MJ’s Hangout if they want. I don’t really need to have their name in the title because when I set up the blogs initially I created a blogroll for each class using their real name and subscribed to each blog using the real name. This blogroll list is only viewable by logged in users from the main site, and my Google Reader list is private as well. When I want to grade Mary’s blog, I either click on her real name or visit my GReader. And if I ever get confused I can just look at the URL: http://eng102online.com/mar1234567 (fake) and the MEID on the end will identify the student. My initial impression is that either students don’t care about privacy or they’re too confused to care. Not one student has changed the name of their blog, and I haven’t check to see if any have gone private. I’ll do that soon.
Blogroll at the bottom of the main course site.
Students have most of the same controls over their blogs that I have over mine. When I add and install plug-ins to the main blog, I have the option to activate site wide meaning students will now have access to the plug-in on their site. I can even control what themes are available to students, so if I want for their blogs to all look the same, I could just provide the one option. Or in the future I like to create a custom theme built just for writing portfolios for my ENG101 class. I could have all the pages prebuilt to make it easier for students. It can be a little confusing at first for students because they have two sites, the main class site (hub) and their own blog. When they click from the main site to go the dashboard, they end up first in the main site’s dashboard and there is not much there. They have to then click on the My Sites to see their blog and to be able to get to that dashboard.
Students cannot add themes or plug-ins to their site on their own. They can only activate themes or plug-ins that you have activated sitewide. The only problem that I can see so far is with the spam filter Akismet. I activated it sitewide so that all the student blogs could be protected, but it prompts all students to add their API key that you get by signing up for WordPress.com. I didn’t want to have students go through all of that, so at the moment all their blogs are exposed to spam. I like how the Private WordPress plug-in reminds students to activate privacy on their blog in case they missed my instructions to do so.
Overall, I’m pleased with how it’s all working out. I created lots of screencasts to help students, and I haven’t had too many questions about how to do things. I haven’t had too many complaints yet either. Only time will tell. In my next post I’ll talk more about how I’m collecting assignments and doling out quizzes and grades.
Saying Goodbye to Blackboard – Part I
Ah, free! It’s a great feeling to be free of the closed course management system. I could say tons about why I wanted, craved this freedom, but I have enough to say with how I freed myself. So this post will focus solely on that -How I said goodbye to Blackboard for good.
First off, let’s discuss what I’m currently using. WordPress recently came out with the latest version, 3.0, which added the old WordPress MU install into the regular installation. What this does is provide the opportunity to create a network setup where you can have a blog as a hub, and then have students’ blogs branch out from the hub to create a network or class. So you have a class site (hub) that students are all users, and each of the users (students) has their own blog. For a writing class this is a perfect set up. Students have space to write and collaborate with classmates. So WordPress replaces the main CMS function of housing course content and student interaction (blogs, groups, discussions), but I needed some other tools to replace the other functions of a CMS like gradebook, dropbox, and quizzes. I will talk about these functions in a later post.
Setting up WordPress is actually quite easy, but if schools adopted this method, the most challenging part can be done by IT departments before a faculty member even signs on for this adventure. This part involves installing WordPress on a server and setting up the network. Since I don’t have help from my IT department, I did this myself. Most hosting companies have one-button install, are cheap, reliable and optimized for your WordPress blog. I currently use HostGator and Siteground to host my blogs. For my three classes this semester I’m paying $6 month to host all three sites on HostGator, and HostGator has one click install.
Adding the network part is a little more difficult, but not impossible. You just have to follow directions and know how to edit the wp-config file. You also have to be familiar with FTP programs. I followed the directions straight from the WordPress site – Create a Network, and I used the FireFTP addon for FireFox to upload files to and from the server and Notepad on a PC to edit the wp-config file. This is the part that IT professionals could do in support of faculty if a college chose to support this. If that were the case, then faculty could start the process with choosing a theme and adding course content.
WordPress lets you create pages and blog posts for adding content. I use the blog posts for announcements and weekly activities (semester specific content), and I use pages for permanent course content (assignments, etc.). If you choose the right theme, you can have nestled pages with dropdown menus. I’m using the Mystique theme by digitalnature for all three courses. See photo below. This provides easy navigation for students. You have to really think about how you want to organize your content for this to work. It helps if you have modules. I can also set the default front page to be a specific page (i.e. syllabus) or my blog posts. I use my blog posts for announcements, so that is my default front page. Once students log in, they are dumped into the front page where they can read any new announcements before moving on to access the course content. This is where we see the first advantage over Blackboard. Since the announcements are now individual blog posts, if a student has a question about the announcement, they can quickly hit Add a Comment and leave their question. All students can see the question and any subsequent answer I provide.
Once you figure out how you want to add your content, doing so is quite simple. You can type directly into the page edit window in either Visual (WYSIWYG) or HTML. You can also cut and paste from Word documents using the Paste from Word option. This cuts out all the crappy Word code that you normally get. Mark that up as another advantage over Bb which takes your Word code and mangles it, making it almost impossible to edit. You can also set up page templates to help customize your content pages. Templates help remove the sidebars if you need to so you can have a bigger column for showing movies or just to have less distraction on the page. My current theme came with built in templates, so I’m current just using those.
For my discussion forums, I had a few options. I started out with a plug-in called Mingle Forum, and it worked well, but there was something missing. Can’t remember what. So instead, I decided to just use blog posts for discussions since they have threaded comments built in. In order to get them to show up on a page and not just in the blog post (announcement) page, I had to install the Page Links To plug-in, which allows you to create a page that links to a URL. So what I did was created a category for discussions and added each discussion question post to that category. Then when I click on the category tag it takes me to a page with all the posts in that category. I grabbed the URL and add that to the Discussion page I create. Now when students click on the Discussion tab they see all the discussions in one place. To participate in a discussion, you can just leave a comment. Commenting in WordPress is threaded, so students can comment to each other, and it’s very easy to follow the conversation – another plus over Bb. Also their profile pictures show up next to their post so it adds a little personalization to the discussion. I can turn off commenting on any post at any time, in effect closing a discussion. So far it works great.
In my next posts I will talk about adding users (students) and user blogs to the main site. I will also share with you how I replaced the other aspects of the course management system, like gradebook, dropbox, and quizzing.
Are Online Classes Right for You?
If you have registered for ENG101 or ENG102 Online, you have come to the correct place. These sections of ENG101 and ENG102 are taught completely online, and we will be using Blackboard as the course management system. To participate in this class, you will need to successfully log-in to Blackboard and learn to use the system.
If you already know your Blackboard Username (MEID) and Password, log in to Bb and complete the course orientation in the START HERE tab. If you don’t know your MEID, visit https://eims.maricopa.edu/MAW/SPAT.html and choose the option: Forgot Your MEID? If it’s not your first visit, and you know your MEID but you’ve simply forgotten your password, you can look up your password if you have forgotten it, by choosing: Forgot Your Password?
Class begins January 19th for the Spring 2010 Semester. The Blackboad site will be available by the 11th. You must enter Blackboard and begin the class by Wednesday, January 20th or you will be dropped for no show.
When you enter Blackboard, read the current Announcements and complete all the orientation activities. (If you need help navigating around Blackboard, watch any of the first six orientation video clips: http://www.maricopa.edu/blackboard/help.html
If you have any questions, call or email Dr. Cooper at or 602-325-3259.
Distance Learning Facts
1. Distance Learning students sometimes can end up neglecting their course work because of personal or professional circumstances, unless they have compelling reasons for taking the course.
2. Some students prefer the independence of Distance Learning; others find it uncomfortable.
3. Distance Learning gives students greater freedom of scheduling, but it can require more self-discipline than on-campus classes.
4. Some people learn best by interacting with other students and instructors, but Distance Learning may not provide much opportunity for this interaction.
5. Distance Learning requires you to work from written directions without face-to-face instructions.
6. It may take as long as two or three days to get comments back by e-mail from your instructor (such as over a weekend or holiday).
7. Distance Learning requires at least as much time as on-campus courses and in many instances up to three times as much.
8. Distance Learning uses computers and other technology for teaching and communication.
9. Printed and/or online materials are the primary source of directions and information in Distance Learning.
10. Distance Learning classes often require written assignments and projects.
11. Students who have dropped a college class often don’t have the self-discipline or motivation to work independently and complete an online course.
Based on IS ELI FOR ME? by Bob Loser, Joan Trabandit, Barbara Hatheway, and Teresa Donell.
©1989, 1998, Extended Learning Institute, Northern Virginia Community College.