I’m not sure whether I’m going to be able to articulate this train of thought properly, but there’s been a series of issues that have been endlessly replaying in my head all morning that I need to externalise in order to gain some personal clarity.

Increasingly I’m becoming known as a staunch opponent and critic of the learning management system and a purveyor of the notion that it is hardly a nurturing environment that facilitates learning. I’ve made some blunt, cutting statements about the inadequacies of Blackboard – sometimes eloquently, sometimes profanely. To this day I stand by all of them.

Yet a core part of this new position – at least during the initial period of 3 to 4 months – is to assist in the migration from Vista to Blackboard, and as you might imagine there are elements of the situation that I’m having trouble reconciling with myself. In particular, the concern that I’m not being real or honest, that I’m hiding some deep dark secret, or compromising my idealism in some way.

Ultimately I want people to be able to trust what I say, and the recommendations that I make, and recognise that I don’t have any hidden agendas. I’ve definitely got a personal agenda on what I’d like to see happen in education, but it’s anything but hidden; I want to be up front about it. That way, even if people vehemently disagree with me, they will always know where they stand.

In many ways my growing exposure to academics and the issues they face is leading me to change my approach to the arguments on openness and the need – even moral obligation – for greater learner-control over the spaces, places and conditions where the learning process occurs.

My positions in these debates are as solid and unchanged as they ever were, but I’m beginning to realise that the reality of contemporary classroom structures and dynamics aren’t always based on philosophy. Frequently basic pragmatics and practicality are at the root of the situation.

For instance, I’m increasingly recognising that use of Blackboard by academics is often a symptom of several broader issues, rather than the outcome of a well considered selection process.

Lack of expertise, no awareness of the alternatives, lack of support and resources, lack of time, and especially workload accounting practices that fail to consider time spent facilitating online learning as part of the teaching load – all combine to put innovation in online learning in the too hard basket for many instructors.

Alternatively, when pressed to establish an online presence for their courses, instructors will naturally turn to the lowest hanging fruit. More often than not, this constitutes a stripped down syllabus and uploaded PDFs in the LMS.

This is a very different matter to a philosophical or pedagogical belief that the LMS is the best way to learn and teach online (though there will be those who believe that as well). So the approach to addressing and resolving the situation, and helping academics to expand their horizons needs to address the big picture.

So I don’t think it will be all that productive to endlessly throttle the deficiencies of Blackboad if that isn’t the real issue. The first time an instructor tries to incorporate RSS, get students to embed videos or export content from a Blackboard blog they’ll realise for themselves how insufficient it is as a learning tool – and how constraining it truly is.

I think my main role is to come up with creative solutions that facilitate more freedom and openness in the learning process, while addressing the acute issues and shortages that academics face on a daily basis. If I can resolve these problems, my hope is there will be far greater willingness to explore alternative avenues. Blackboard can dig its own grave, it doesn’t need any help from me.

Posted via email from Mike Bogle