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Our goal is to communicate the latest news related to UC’s eLearning ecosystem, Canopy. If you have input, please email us at ucitpio@ucmail.uc.edu. View past publications of the Canopy Newsletter in our newsletter archive at uc.edu/canopy.
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blackboard: a key to higher education
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As universities across the country must try to adapt and include new ways of learning, online Learning Management Systems (LMS) such as Blackboard are becoming crucial.
There are over 11,000 Blackboard courses for UC’s spring semester, with 57,000 unique users who have logged on since the start of the semester.
“Blackboard – and eLearning in general – is important for higher education because it makes learning accessible and convenient,” Chris Harding, system administrator on the UCIT Blackboard Support Team, said. “Thanks to Blackboard, students and faculty can interact and participate in courses anytime from anywhere in the world, provided they have an internet connection.”
Blackboard is a central online hub of information that drives student and faculty interaction. Students go there for course information and to submit assignments, but some courses even host online discussions and tests on the site.
But it’s not only an all-inclusive package of course information. Blackboard allows wider access to continuous learning experiences. It benefits online-only courses, and it serves as a classroom away from the classroom for face-to-face courses.
Many professors use Blackboard to deepen the learning experience and impart more knowledge than an hour-long class can provide.
Over the past year, different members of the UC community have been highlighted as eLearning Champions - many of them professors who deliver a unique and diverse learning experience to their students through Blackboard.
Anton Harfmann, an architecture professor in DAAP, posts videos of his lectures to Blackboard, so students can review complicated material at their leisure.
Christine Colella, a clinical nursing professor in the College of Nursing, posts learning modules to Blackboard, so her students can gain hands-on experience – even though the class is entirely online.
And this edition's eLearning Champion Greg Lloyd, a part-time student in CECH's School of IT and full-time UCIT staff member, focused his IT capstone project on bettering UCIT's Blackboard monitoring system and won the Virtualization and System Administration category at the School of IT's 2015 IT Expo.
On weekdays, Blackboard averages 1,500 active connections at any given moment. That number has jumped to 5,000 during peak times like the start of the semester, according to Harding.
“With the proliferation of the Internet and mobile broadband, eLearning is the next frontier for higher education,” Harding said. “I’m very pleased to see that UC has taken the initiative to invest in and develop its eLearning ecosystem. Investing in eLearning and embracing change is key to positioning UC for success today and in the future.”
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