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The project encouraged academics/teachers to embed new and innovative technologies into their
curriculum to support learning and teaching for a global audience, building creative solutions that
transform the future of teaching and learning at RMIT.
This project showed that all RMIT staff, across all three colleges, can support a global, connected
and responsive university by developing policies, processes and professional development, to
support academics/teachers to deliver excellent education and research. It also aligned with the
academic/teacher plan to improve the student cohort experience.
1 Executive summary
The Beyond Blackboard Course Shells: What on Earth are they Using? project arose out of
numbers from the the RMIT University Office of the Dean for Learning and Teaching (ODLT)
indicating hits per student per course in Blackboard course shells. These numbers indicated that
the college of Design and Social Context (DSC) had significantly lower numbers than for the other
two university colleges, Science, Education and Healtth (SEH) or Business. Anecdotal evidence
suggested that an equivalent amount of online learning, if not more, was occurring. Much work was
known to be occurring in program based shells or non-award (NONA) shells in Blackboard, for
Vocatioal Education (VE) delivery and vertical studios. Additionally the use of tools other than
Blackboard was known to be prominent. Notwithstanding that numbers of hits in no way represents
any quality of design or quality of student experience, questions were raised as to what might be
occurring. Numbers can be made to appear as statistics, or worse, various guises of analytics,
ending up on board room tables of the university decision makers. As a result it was decided the
matter required further investigation, hence the question inferable from the title of this project.
This project set out to use contacts within the college of DSC and the other two colleges, to initially,
via word of mouth, uncover stories of how lecturers were using Blackboard and other tools. Good
practice examples were sought and interviews were conducted which were recorded, usually as
videos. Interviews were written up into blog posts with the aim of reporting on and contextualising
the projects activity within the RMIT community and beyond. Out of the earlier blog posts and
conversations emerging around these posts, a series of six workshops were conducted for the
purposes of further amplifying the context of diversifying online practice, networking across
disciplines and providing professional development. Later in the year a university wide staff survey
was conducted to further explore the extent of the use of Blackboard and other tools. Interviews
and online tool usage data from Vietnam was also included.
The ‘Whatonearth’ project was an unprecedented success in terms of awareness raising, cross
college collaboration and generating much better understanding of the use of online education
tools at RMIT. Workshop attendance numbers from staff were consistently high with a lively
audience participation in each event. Survey results confirmed that while Blackboard usage may
not be as high as in other colleges, the use of other tools, whilst occurring in all schools, is clearly
greater in DSC. Preliminary outcomes from the project were reported at the Ascilite 2015
conference.The blog will continue and it is hoped that the data emerging from the surveys and
interviews will be further analysed toward another conference paper.
The project team would like to thank the ODLT for funding the project and we look forward to
hopefully fulfilling the high expectations of our forthcoming learner analytics project.
2 Outcomes
Blog Results
The project blog (www.whatonearth14.wordpress.com) was established to collect and curate
examples of good practice.
Blog Hits
The blog was viewed 2485 times which is low by blog standards. Reasons for this are discussed in
part 2.
Number of posts 35
Number of interviews 26
total comments 21
http://whatonearth14.wordpress.com/2014/06/2 266
3/google-sites-lms-everything-in-one-place/
http://whatonearth14.wordpress.com/2014/08/2 115
6/michael-fedyk-on-flickr/
http://whatonearth14.wordpress.com/2014/08/1 99
3/samantha-vardanedga-on-getting-started-wit
h-youtube/
http://whatonearth14.wordpress.com/2014/09/1 97
5/samantha-vardanega-get-started-with-google
-sites-and-blogger/
http://whatonearth14.wordpress.com/2014/08/0 82
6/joyce-seitzinger-on-personal-learning-networ
ks/
http://whatonearth14.wordpress.com/2014/10/0 77
8/twitter-for-strategic-management/
http://whatonearth14.wordpress.com/2014/07/1 60
6/student-peer-assessment-with-google-forms/
http://whatonearth14.wordpress.com/2014/06/1 56
9/naomi-herzog-on-engagement-facebook-and
-juxtapost/
http://whatonearth14.wordpress.com/2014/10/0 52
3/view-from-vietnam/
http://whatonearth14.wordpress.com/2014/10/2 51
9/photography-on-facebook-immediate-social-
global/
Workshops
6 Workshops were conducted around the use of Blackboard and other tools during 2014.
Get Started with Google Sites & Blogger Wed, 8 Oct Attended by 60
Samantha Vardanega 1.00 - 2.00 pm teaching and
iSimplify Solutions professional staff
twitter feed:
https://storify.com/RoseyChang/samantha-vardanega-get
-started-on-google-sites-and
Jason Downes
Claire Beale
twitter feed:
https://storify.com/RoseyChang/going-beyond
Survey results
The survey was conducted between September and November 2014 with over 120 responses
across three colleges. The project demonstrate widespread use of other tools. In particular it both
reflects the current differences in Blackboard usage between colleges and differences in use of
other tools between colleges.
The vast majority of survey respondents (92.7%) reported using Blackboard. All respondents from
SEH and Business reported using Blackboard while there is a small number of DSC staff who
reported they did not use Blackboard. Where usage was highest, 100% for announcements
(Business) and document distributing (SEH), usage in other areas of Blackboard drops off in other
areas.This could indicate a choice to use Blackboard as an organising rather than a teaching and
learning space. It may also indicate that the low useability of the current Blackboard results in
some users putting learning content elsewhere.
Jane uses several Blackboard functions (announcements, group emails, online assignment
marking, and social tools). She also reported providing videos and web links to students via
Blackboard. Despite perceived difficulties with Blackboard, Jane is reluctant to use other
tools, due to concerns about potentially overwhelming students:
“Blackboard has a range of annoying limitations but I have not found anything to replace it
although I did quite a bit of research into this. I also don't like confusing students with too
many different tools.”
Many staff reported using YouTube as an additional educational tool. Perry* is a 46-55 year
old Senior Teacher within the DSC College. He has been employed at RMIT for more than
15 years, and rates his comfort with technology as extremely high (10/10).
He reports using Blackboard only for distributing documents, such as lecture notes. Beyond
Blackboard, he uses GoogleDocs, SMS (text messages), Dropbox, and YouTube.
Perry uses YouTube because it is easy to use, and “unlike Blackboard, it works!” He uses it
to place instructional materials online, and also uploads lectures for students to watch in
their own time. Perry reports that YouTube is congruent with student expectations and
allows students to have a collaborative role in their own learning:
“Students not only access Youtube but they can share, subscribe etc. Teaching is more
effective if the forums are relevant to the student.”
Michael was introduced to Google Sites when Gmail was installed several years ago. He
notes it is “easy [to] access and can be made visible to all students, not just those enrolled
in a course.” He notes the lack of wider access as a limitation of Blackboard.
The benefits of Google Sites for Michael are ease of use, good functionality, intuitive
design, fewer technical problems, and the ability to control the content directly. Michael
believes it offers an improvement on Blackboard, in that there is “more flexibility and
formatting options.” However, he continues to use Blackboard concurrently, as “it is an
alternative to Blackboard for distributing material but doesn't have the full functionality of
Blackboard.”
12 7 25 21
Staff are predominantly choosing other tools for the presentation of content, because of the ease of
use, the better design and presentation options, and time saving. Social learning and collaborative
functionality also features amongst tools raised.
The comments contributed to the survey regarding reasons for choice of platform have been
categorised into the following areas with summary extractions:
This research question leads to the question, why the college of DSC is the leading user of other
tools? Blog interviews and anecdotal evidence suggests that lecturers with a design focus also like
to create and deliver online learning with what they perceive as good design. This means both
creating attractive online spaces as well as having exceptional functionality. As innovators,
designers like to be up to date with the latest tools and online trends, as well as modelling design
thinking in their teaching design and delivery.
The capabilities for online social collaboration delivered in tools other than Blackboard, would also
suggest that lecturers valuing ‘social context’ in online delivery will choose tools with strong social
networking capabilities.
3.2.2 Participation
As well as in public and online conversation and numbers at workshops, project participants were
very keen to participate often volunteering to be interviewed having heard about the project by
word of mouth or through the blog. Not all stepping forward could be interviewed and and it is
hoped the blog will continue beyond the project.
3.2.3 Voice
In an environment where it can often take years before the arrival of new functionality, it is
important to give a voice to innovations occurring in the mean time. Many lecturers spoke of
immense frustration with the current standard operating environment and it was an unexpected
outcome of the project to have to some extent relieved this ‘pressure valve’.
3.2.3 Uptake of innovative good practice
The project has lead to better use of online delivery regardless of platform. In working as education
developers we are often sharing examples of the blog and at times have had good practices from
the project quoted when being asked about online design. This includes efforts to develop ways to
help lecturers provide more meaningful practices in Blackboard than often currently exist.
The project has created a wider awareness of choosing the best platform for the required learning
task. As Geoff Crisp stated during a project meeting “Blackboard is a learning management
system, and not a teaching system.” Lecturers as a result of this project think differently when
going online as they understand options are available.
As a result of DSC college PAR data two of the workshops were based around Google Sites and
Youtube as these were found to be the most widely used tools apart from Blackboard. These
workshops proved to be exceedingly popular, possibly filling the vacuum of options to learn about
these new tools at RMIT. Samantha Vardanega from iSimplify Solutions has since been employed
across other areas of the university as a consultant (for example at the SEH open day and in the
Media and Comms Connected Studios project). Samantha will continue training into 2015 through
DevelopMe.
Sally Parrot in a consultancy role for The ODLT interviewed project leader Howard Errey to gain a
wider understanding of how the use of tools other than Blackboard can be utilised in Work
Integrated Learning.
3.2.3 Twitter
Twitter was an active part of the project extending conversations outside of the university and
overseas. 2 hashtags were adopted #whatonearth14 and #beyondbb. Finding unique hashtags is a
common issue on Twitter and #whatonearth14 became the preferred project tag when we
discovered #beyondbb was also used by a cosmetics company. Twitter was invaluable for
promoting blog posts and expanding workshop activity including questions from twitter ‘observers’.
This was particularly interesting during the workshop with Gregor Kennedy and Travis Cox. A
primary school teacher on Twitter questioned about Melbourne University adopting Google Apps,
complaining that their placement students have no Google literacy. Gregor responded that apart
from Gmail, there are no plans to turn on any Google tools. The implication of this question and the
answer, suggests that having only a partial installation of Blackboard with other tools such as
Google to fill in the gaps, may be providing our students with more digital literacy and resilience
than the exemplary Blackboard implementation at Melbourne University, that we saw demonstrated
by Gregor and Travis.
Following PAR data indicating that Youtube was being used by 67% of DSC courses it was
decided to offer a workshop on Youtube with Samantha Vardanega. Concerns were raised by
some staff that it was inappropriate to be seen to be promoting a service not offered by the
university. There were also concerns with anything about Youtube that social media policy and
copyright implications need to be considered. In planning for the workshop the provision of
information about social media policy and copyright implications had already been covered. A
specific blog post
(http://whatonearth14.wordpress.com/2014/08/27/youtube-the-current-state-of-play/ ) was added to
allay these fears. It is curious that Youtube touched such a nerve within the university when the
issues raised about Youtube are essentially the same for any social media platform.
3.4.2 Resourcing
If anything the project was under-scoped financially. A lot more dissemination could have
occurred.There were many blog posts that were not completed within the time frame and more of
the interviews could have been transcribed for later research.
3.4.3 Fear of being caught
Some participants were fearful that making public their good practice in platforms other than
Blackboard would get them into trouble. On reviewing blog posts of their interview they sometimes
requested details not be disclosed. For example there were some using Google applications with
students outside of the RMIT Google suite. As RMIT only partly turns on a wide range of potential
Google in Education applications and functionalities, the integratable nature of the Google suite is
‘hamstrung’. Lecturers wanting to innovate are therefore required to use private Google accounts,
in particular with Youtube but also with Google Analytics and add-ons. Despite the fear of being
told to cease their good practice activities, there may be as with the SOE limitations, a context
where limitations (or perception of limitations) leads to innovation.
3.4.4 Analytics
Several participants were asked in their interviews if they used any data to inform the effectiveness
of their innovations. This would have been useful for quantifying use of other tools. While some
had dabbled with Google Analytics there was usually a more intuitive approach where
improvements were made rapidly as an ongoing conversation with students. As innovators many of
the interviewees are time poor when it comes to adding on extra activity. Fortunately this project
team has secured funding for a more analytics focused project in 2015.
6 Budget report
The budget ($32,000) was expended with a surplus of $1,155.80
Some re-organisation of the budget's actual items was done during the project, with less spent on
food and catering and more on PD and wages as per the attached report.
Appendix A
The project blog www.whatonearth14.wordpress.com
A full infographic of the key blog statistics can be found here:
http://whatonearth14.wordpress.com/2014/annual-report/
Survey results can be viewed in a summary presentation here http://bit.ly/1BSA5LW
Full Survey results can be viewed here http://bit.ly/1uyUD89
Ascilite presentation http://bit.ly/1vj1c1Z
Teaching Tomtom posts
http://teachingtomtom.com/2014/05/22/beyond-blackboard-course-shells-what-on-earth-are-they-u
sing/
http://teachingtomtom.com/2014/09/26/user-experience-design-ux-and-digital-literacy/
Posters and Postcard: