Educational Technology Facilitator
Grant MacEwan University

Reflection

Blackboard Learn Essentials is an introductory training manual, a companion training manual to the Blackboard Learn Essentials workshop developed and delivered at Grant MacEwan University.

In 2013, when the university community was transitioning from WebCT CE8 to Blackboard Learn, I was tasked to develop this manual.  In the past 3 years, I have also revised the manual many times based not only on my observations as an educator but also on the feedback from learners. While I have always strived to be a learner-centered educator, this manual’s development and revision processes have reconfirmed and fortified that belief. 

Throughout the process of designing and redesigning, I frequently reminded myself that my number one goal, for technical training, is to ensure the learners have plenty of hands-on practice that is relevant to the tasks they perform daily.  Therefore, learners attending this workshop are encouraged to bring their course materials to the workshop and build their course as part of the hands-on exercises (2.1). 

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In our M. Ed. program, we heard about the importance of active learning but in reality, it is often challenging to incorporate, especially for technical training as most of the learners are often too focused on memorizing the steps needed to perform certain tasks.  To incorporate active learning into my workshops, I have developed several games to accompany the workshop. One is an "icon bingo" game, designed to help learners become familiarized with the software interface, and be able to identify the various icons and their functions.  Instead of summarizing the items learned at the end of the workshop, I often divided the learners into groups and asked them to quiz each other on the concepts they learned (2.3).

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During the design and revision process of the manual, I did not anticipate that the instructional designers would be unable to follow the instructional design process sequentially.  For example, I was given very little time to conduct the analysis, design, and development phases yet I was expected to take the training material provided by the vendor and deliver it to the learners without much customization to fit the university community (2.7).

Currently, the challenge I face is to find a tool to measure the learners’ learning.  Despite the high satisfaction rate learners reported via the workshop evaluation, most learners required additional assistance throughout the academic year.  In other words, the workshop evaluation survey does not measure learners’ retention of the knowledge acquired during the workshop.  This training manual currently includes a self-guided checklist.  I am exploring the possibility of using it as an evolutionary activity, where participants anonymously complete it, and I can use the results for insights into the level of learning that have taken place.

In addition, certain knowledge delivered in the workshop is irrelevant to the learners’ current workload.  For example, the steps to copy course content from one course shell to another, generally occur at the end of the academic term.  As a result, due to the lack of opportunity to practice what they have learned and put it in context, this knowledge has proven to be more difficult for learners to retain (2.6).​  During the manual’s subsequent redesign phase, I will have to take these challenges into consideration.