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[a canadian]

Hello folks,
   At the beginning of the term, I did something *innovative* as a new professor, something none of the other profs in my department have ventured to try out yet, as we are all a stodgy bunch of 'textualists' in the humanities.  I set up webct for my course, a course which is potentially the most turgid of all courses from the undergraduate perspective.   Now that it is October, let me share the joy.  It is working beautifully.  The webct has made a huge difference in the course, so that everyone is reading more carefully, listening more closely and asking better questions.  Even better, what anxieties existed at first about taking notes have dissipated.  

   I am no longer a Luddite [sic]!

[State School PhD]

Do these companies really think that they're fooling us with thinly disguised ads like this? Begone, advertising troll!

[Untenured]

What traction could WebCT possible obtain by posting on the Chronicle forums?   Usually ad copy is more slick than that post.

Personally, I believe WebCT is a horribly coded, massively inefficient, notoriously inflexible piece of garbarge, but some may find webCT useful.

Try Blackboard, it's much better.

Untenured

P.S. I do not work for Blackboard.

[Lan]

Untenured wrote:

rsonally, I believe WebCT is a horribly coded, massively
> inefficient, notoriously inflexible piece of garbarge, but some
> may find webCT useful.
>
> Try Blackboard, it's much better.

Blackboard is only better if you don't want to do very much with the course site. WebCT has some serious design and usability problems but it has more features and options than Blackboard.  Of course, my friends in the know tell me that future really belongs to a couple of up-and-coming platforms Sakai (sp?) and Desire2Learn.  There's lots of money to be made in supplying these systems, so continued improvements and competition are to be expected.

[blackboard_user]

I use Blackboard to augment my courses, and I'm very pleased with it.  My students love being able to access course notes and their grades.  I love the gradebook, the digital dropbox, the message board, and being able to post announcements and course materials.  At my former institution, I used  WebCT, but I don't remember having any major problems with it.  Anyway, I'm happy that the original poster has had such a positive experience with WebCT.  

The rest of you should cut him/her some slack.  Someone starts a thread here to express enthusiasm over doing something fun and innovative in his/her courses, and you immediately find something negative in the situation.

[B.F.]

a canadian,

What features of WebCT are you using with your course that you have found successful?

[Dale]

The Sakai Project (www.sakaiproject.org) is a great thing and has changed how classes are run at my institution.  Students (especially of traditional age) are embracing technology to communicate with faculty and each other.  The open nature of the project means that multiple constituencies can be represented and the end product can meet a multitude of needs.  In a word, it's awesome!

[Prytania]

I like WebCT much better than Blackboard. What does the CT stand for anyway? I used to think it was short for Web Connecticut; then, I found out it was used other places. Who knew?

As for Blackboard (BBBB) , it is publicly traded on the Nasdaq and closed up Friday at 25.01.

Hey, I haven't given you folks a stock quote in a long time.

[a canadian]

B.F., I like the fact that on the webct, one can set up a glossary, and then students can use this as a study-guide for possible short identification questions on the exam.  This is especially useful for the courses I teach, where the readings are full of non-European terminology and technical terms.  I also like the fact that web-links can be created for on-line articles.  Then these on-line articles can be used as supplementary readings for those students who do not have any background in a certain subject area.  With these features on the webct, students don't resort to 'google' if they feel they need to double-check something or if they have never heard of, for example, the Sasanian capital of Ctesiphon.  And so forth...

By the way, if I were an "advertising troll", I would be probably sitting somewhere in California, where it is warm and sunny, overlooking the ocean, rather than nervously glancing at the weather reports that are predicting snow flurries (yes, this is true) early next week.


Cheers,
a.c.

[mathematician]

I use blackboard. And I mean an old-fashioned smooth, black panel that goes very well with chalk. Best pedagogical invention ever.

[moose]

I use a custom software I rolled in about a week of work: there is basically a password-protected blog with comments, file upload/download areas, and few others bells+whistles. I would use a specialized piece of courseware if it was not so restrictive; I do strange things in class on occasion like graded online discussions which would be a pain to set up in WebCT. I also do written evaluations instead of grades (I'll give a letter-grade when the university forces me to but I think written feedback is a much better learning tool) - and grading packages don't let you readily do that.

One of these days, I'll put together a few programmers and take my tool commercial - the biggest feature would be endless customization of everything.

[TBD]

I taught about eight classes using a Lotus Notes platform.  Far, far superior to Blackboard, the only other program I've used.  Nice graphics, and enhanced capabilities.  Not entirely web-based, you had to tell it to replicate frequently when you logged on and off.  But you (and the students) could also access it over the web from any location.

[Boris]

This is my second year using WebCT, and although I'm not software expert, it's the clunkiest, worst-designed software I've used. It's inefficient - it takes about 6 steps to post a pdf file for students - and slow - it usually takes me at least 10 minutes to put one document on the course site.

It could be slower and clunkier because I use a Mac, but compared to any other software used for any other purpose, it reminds me of programs written in the early 90's - unintuitive, frustrating, and slow. You'd think it would be (a) drag, and (b) drop. (c) done.

[to Prytania]

How about Communication Tool, or Communication for Teaching?



Prytania wrote:

> I like WebCT much better than Blackboard. What does the CT
> stand for anyway? I used to think it was short for Web
> Connecticut; then, I found out it was used other places. Who
> knew?

[melba]

Course Tools, I seem to recall. But oddly enough, I can' t find any answers on their very own website.