The ProjectWe were assigned a project to research

technology here at Suffolk UniversityThe question was open ended and we

could choose the subject matter that we studied.

Our PurposeTo find out how students feel about

Blackboard, blogs, and wikis.

Investigate how prepared students felt to use Blackboard, blogs, and wikis.

Asks students how blackboard, blogs, and wikis could be improved.

To find out we polled students with a survey

 

What is Blackboard?Blackboard Inc. is a global leader in

enterprise technology and innovative solutions that improve the experience of millions of students and learners around the world every day.

Blackboard allows corporate, and government organizations to extend teaching and learning online

What is a ?“The abbreviated version of “weblog”

The term used to describe web sites that maintain an ongoing chronicle of information.

Topics range from;Personal to politicalOne narrow subject to a whole range of

subjects

Blogs can be used as;Personal online diaryNews postCommentary

Blogs cont.Suffolk  University started to promote

using blogs as a pilot 2 years agoWebsite “Blogs @ Suffolk ”Backed up by Academic Technology 

Currently about 20-25  courses use blogsInformation portal

Optional syllabusCourse materials

Posting course related assignments

What is a Wiki?A “wiki” is to an open, collaborative community

website.

Wikis can be used for personal note-taking to collaborating online, assembling an online community, and managing a traditional website.

In the classroom a teacher can post something, and ask students their thoughts. Each student can elaborate on the previous student’s post, as well as adding their own ideas.

MethodsWe handed out 20 surveys for each technology to

classmates in various classesWe collected the surveys distributed and tallied the

resultsThe respondents for each survey were from a

different classes, but we did poll our SCI183 class for both blogs and blackboard

The WIKI survey was only handed out to one class, MKT210

We put the technologies into comprehensive graphs so we could compare them

We also posted these graphs on our website which can be found here:

http://blogs.cas.suffolk.edu/bugjuice/

Which classes do you use blackboard for?

N=20

N=20

N=20

Blogs Survey Results N=20

Blogs Survey Results N=20

Blogs Survey Results N=20

Blogs Survey Results N=20

CommentsDiscussionMore interactive use

Post with other mediaMoviesPodcastsLinks

WIKISN=18

N=18

N=18

N=18

N=18

Conclusions-BlackBoardBlackboard is mostly used for homework,

syllabus, and grades. The whole communication aspect of blackboard is not being utilized.

Most students made the suggestion that it should take less clicks to get there.

Many student also commented that even professors who do not use blackboard should at least be required to upload the syllabus

Students also suggested that blackboard should be integrated into MySuffolk

Conclusion-BlogsStudents need to learn how to use blogsUse options, tools, functions efficiently

Our group’s suggestionsBlogs @ Suffolk should be integrated into

MySuffolkMix with other multimedia

RSS FeedbackMicroblogging services

Conclusion-WikisWe found that most students we polled

weren’t sure whether they would like to use wikis again.

This lead us to conclude that students are unsure how useful wikis are to their learning, but that could be due largely to the fact that the class we polled were using wikis for the first time.

Amy Campbell is a junior at Suffolk University and is an applied legal studies major.

Alicia Palleschi is a junior at Suffolk University and is

studing sociology and Spanish.

Ian Woods is a senior at Suffolk University and is a film studies major.

Mayumi Togawa is an exchange student from Japan and is currently a sophomore at Suffolk University and is majoring in international relations.