Online Learning Website (Ch4)

As the text describe, the discussion forum provide users with a place to post our opinions and reply to others’ thoughts. In this way, teachers can use it to inspire students to online communicate with one other at certain topic after class.

http://www.blackboard.com

Here is a commercial courseware package, Backboard. The website not only supplies users with academic suite, but also commerce suite. And it offers users Blackboard training to make Blackboard even easier to use by sharing best practices for teaching and learning online. Next, the website gives users a look for how this suite enables education institutions to get with this current of innovative way in communication and collaboration through the world by the way of posting related case studies and testimonials.

Furthermore, there is a place to let users post their suggestions for Blackboard, and make this package more perfect and useful. Extending the Blackboard using, users can follow information that others share their software experience to build users their own. Certainly, this website has a huge support of knowledge in using Blackboard for users.

Above mentioned are the basic aid this package offers in the Blackboard system and in the Blackboard content. Now we are ready to see how really Blackboard Academic Suite does work.

http://bb.ncu.edu.tw/

On seeing this website, we must login in to browse through its designs. In Blackboard, there are four different links, “My Institution,” “Course,” “ebrary,” and “Scholar.” In the “My Institution” part, users can briefly view what courses he or she take, and what announcements have been posted. On the left-hand column, Blackboard provides us users with some tools, like calendar, task and email to help us in learning. For example, using task tool, it will give should do things priority for you. Once you are used to check the list of priority this tool offers, you are hard to get rid of doing things on time. And in this part, I almost clearly see the information about Blackboard Academic Suite from company. It has many animated guides to teach not only teachers how to create new teaching materials in promoting broad learning methods but also students how to manipulate these learning systems.
Another part is “Course.” Here is course catalog to browse your all courses in using Blackboard period, and you just click in one of courses to get more details about this course. The left-hand column has nine clicks to further enter, like Announcements, Course Information, Staff Information, Course Documents, Assignments, Communication, Discussion Board, External Links and Tools. Among these items, “Communication” and “Discussion Board” are the most feasible learning systems in communication and collaboration. In “Communication,” we students have Lecture Hall and Office Hours to online finish group project together and anytime send-receive email to get the first-hand information. And in “Discussion Board,” we students really use it thoroughly. Students are required to post their thoughts on Discussion Board after class, and also make a comment on other classmates’ opinions to finish a complete communication and interaction process.

The third and fourth parts are “ebrary” and “Scholar.” They both belong to provide users another broad database to search more information about what users learn. We just type key words to find relevant resources, save and classify our searches as well as share resources with our classmates and teachers by using them.

With the development of Internet, we has explored some innovative ways to reach communication and collaboration goals. Students just sit in front of computer, get it online, right away communicate with others from other cultures around the world, and absorb in knowledge immense Internet offers. Therefore, this Blackboard system of course is a good initiation into being active for us students.