Blackboard Exemplary Course Tour

I was recently chosen to record a tour of my Blackboard site for our local Exemplary Sites page, which highlights the "best" Blackboard sites in Central New York. I was very excited to get to do this, and pretty happy with how the final product came out. It is also a great resource to be able to view other outstanding tours and see first-hand how different educators have used Blackboard. I have all kinds of new ideas on what to do next! Click here to listen to my tour...and please, let me know what you think!

Public Speaking

I was asked to present to our School Board last week regarding my use of Blackboard in the library. This was my first time speaking in front of that kind of an audience and I was so nervous! I think it went pretty well -- they were asking all the right questions about privacy, creativity, maintenance, etc. I felt like I connected. Still, I couldn't help wishing I wasn't using Blackboard in the first place, as it's really not my favorite tool. It could be so much better, but you end up jumping through about 15 hoops each time you try to post something!


The most frustrating aspect right now is that I have trouble providing direct access to the course -- unless you have a login ID, you cannot always get to where you want to go! It makes it tough to get parents, teachers, and administrators the information they need. Regardless, my site is slowly but surely coming along. I have made as much of my own content as possible public, but have protected everything with student content. Check out what's available by clicking on the icon to the right Or you can find it via http://blackboard.ocmboces.org, using my course id: wg_koch.