Please note that next week I will be going into your courses to check for 50% completion next. I will be out of the office Wednesday, December 24th and Thursday, December 25th, but will be back in the office on Friday, December 26th.
Blackboard 8.0:
On December 24th we will be converting to Blackboard 8.0. This version includes a "Grade Center" instead of the Grade book. The new Grade Center is more robust and contains more features. I have e-mailed out the "how to" document on the new Grade Center so be sure to read through it so that you are familiar with it for the remainder of your development.
**Please refrain from doing any of your development work on December 24th and December 25th. Because the conversion will be during this time we would like to keep Blackboard usage to a minimum to help ensure that the rollover is a success.
Ten Week Summers:
Starting with Summer Quarter 2009 Globe Education Network will offer summer quarters on a 10 week schedule instead of a 12 week schedule. We have done this to improve summer retention and offer our students a more desirable summer break. This means that for every master course we create, we need to have a 12 week shell and a 10 week shell.
When you complete your development I will copy your course into a new master labeled
When combining the curriculum you will want to think of the course as a whole to keep the "flow" of the curriculum while fitting into 10 weeks. You may want to consider:
- Is there a midterm/final?
- Is there a group project?
- Are there assignments that build on each other?
- Keep the course objectives in mind, what assignments might be eliminated, added, enhanced, or combined to make the 10 unit course as cohesive as the 12 unit course
Whether you keep all 12 discussion boards depends on the content of the discussion boards and if the content can be combined. Some courses will work better to double up on discussion boards in a unit (Discussion Board A & Discussion Board B) and some courses will be able to combine the content of two discussion boards into one discussion board while still reaching the same outcome.
Be sure to look at all areas of the course: Announcements, tests, assignments, discussion boards, unit introductions, and external links all mention unit names. Be sure to rename items so that they fit into your 10 week structure. The course calendar will also need to be converted to a 10 unit format.
HTML codes for the dates are currently in the unit folders so that they can be updated every quarter. When you have completed your 10 week/unit conversion you will need to go through each unit folder and make sure the HTML code is correct. The "how to" document on this will be coming in the next couple of weeks.
Although it creates an extra step we are very excited to be offering 10 week quarters in the summer with the expectation that more of our students will enjoy the three week break, and then persist through the summer quarter, rather than taking the quarter off. On the annual survey there was an overwhelming support from our students to offer the 10 week summer quarter.
Thanks everyone! As always please let me know if you have any questions.
Have a great week!
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