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RESOURCES|Spotlights Ted Greene Using A Course Management System
Many college-age youth across the country have grown up in an environment that literally surrounds them with technology. As educators of higher learning, we owe it to our students as well as ourselves to embrace the available technology and utilize it to the best possible advantage. After all, if technology can help us communicate with our students in a manner that is efficient for us, convenient for them, and is a useful means for exchanging information, then it can truly represent a win-win situation. One example of technology in education is the use of a course management system (CMS) such as Blackboard or WebCT. Having left industry only a few yeasr ago to pursue a career here at WIT, I was quite familiar with how technology is used in industry, but the educational side was an unknown. As a member of a pilot group who worked with both WebCT and Blackboard, I had the opportunity to find out first-hand what a CMS is, and how it can be used. As with any software package, the capability of a CMS spans a much wider spectrum of functionality than what is typically used. In my particular case, I used the CMS for online quizzes, homework assignments, homework solutions, exchanging group laboratory data, and posting lecture materials. One of the greatest benefits to a CMS as compared to a personal web site is that the CMS is username and password protected. In this way, personal lecture material as well as other sensitive information can be made available only to students who are currently enrolled in the course. This option is not typically available on standard web sites. The student reactions to the course management system were mixed, though most were in support of continued and expanded use of the CMS. The main benefit the students enjoyed was the after-hours, 24/7 availability of the posted information. Believe it or not, students do not operate on an 8:00 to 4:30 schedule any more than we as faculty, spouses, parents, etc. do. The flexibility for students to take a quiz when they have a block of free time, or review lecture materials that they may have missed is certainly a benefit of these systems. For faculty, the ability to utilize materials across various sections as well as rollover to subsequent semesters can be a great time savings. Just as some of us may have resisted the transition to a PC from the trusted pen and paper, we are often hesitant to changes especially when there are unknowns. Many of our students however have already experienced the use of a CMS at their local high school and are more than wiling to embrace whatever technology comes their way.
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After pondering this question for a short while, I realized that many of today's most popular technology devices are intended to facilitate information and communication. Whether it is verbal or visual, one-way or two-way, the goal is an exchange of information. Cell phones, personal computers, PDAs, two way radios, MP3 players, GPS navigation systems, and even the programmable timer on a VCR are all common examples of technologically advanced devices. The main purpose of several of these devices is to offer the user additional convenience, efficiency, or both. Whether or not these benefits are realized depends to a large extent on how the device ends up being used.