Blackboard Learning System on College Campuses

Introduction

The arrival of web-based course design software programs such as Web CT, Blackboard, Mallard, eCollege, and Moodle into college campuses is changing teaching and learning (Derouza & Fleming, 2003; Fredrickson, 1999; Landry & Hartman, 2006; McCollum, 1997). Among these course software programs, Blackboard is by far the easiest interface for course creation (Fredrickson, 1999; Lim, 2001; Landry & Hartman, 2006; Rempel & McMillen, 2008) and for creating online groups across disciplines (Pinch & Graves, 2000; Taylor, 2004). The main focus of this chapter is the Blackboard Learning System (BLS), which was created in an academic setting. For more than a decade, Blackboard Inc. has been flexibly modifying their tools toward meeting the needs of adult learners (Blackboard Inc., 2009; DeNeui & Dodge, 2006; McCollum, 1997). The earlier versions of this software were known as Course Info releases (Blackboard Inc., 2001) and the new versions include Blackboard Academic Suite^TM Release 8.0 and Blackboard Learn^TM Release 9.0 (Blackboard Inc., 2009; Hwang & Arbaugh, 2009; Rempel & McMillen, 2008).

Some of these technology-based pedagogical tools are used to create online groups to increase interaction and mutual collaborations (Taylor, 2004; Wernet, Olliges, & Delicath, 2000). Web based discussion as a teaching strategy is growing in institutions of higher education (Dietz-Uhler & Bishop-Clark, 2001; Pinch & Graves, 2000; Gingerich, Abel, D’Aprix, Nordquist, & Riebschleger, 1999; Huff, 2001; McConnell, l994; Page, Jencius, Rehfuss, Dean, Petruzzi, Olson, & Sager, 2003). Online classroom groups are often formed to enhance subsequent traditional face-to-face meetings (Dietz-Uhler & Bishop-Clark, 2001; Wernet, Olliges, & Delicath, 2000) while others are formed to promote learning and collaboration in distance education classrooms (Johnson & Huff, 2000; Randolph & Krause, 2002). Electronic Bulletin Board (EBB) is most commonly used by educators in higher education (Pinch & Graves, 2000; Randolph & Krause, 2002; Taylor, 2004) to enhance learning and interaction (Page et al., 2003; Pinch & Graves, 2000; Taylor, 2004). Only Page et al. used PalTalk, which is audio conferencing software. Johnson and Huff (2000) used e-mail to interact with on-campus and distance education social work students. They found that students used e-mail more for practical reasons than for academic enrichment. All other studies identified in this section predominantly used text based discussion forums for online group discussions. Randolph and Krause (2002) found that both on-campus and distance education social work students are less likely to use the Internet for mutual support and more likely to use the online tools for individual problem solving and data sharing. Despite the benefits identified by several authors, there is very limited literature that recognizes a classroom as a group (Randolph & Krause, 2002). In addition, literature written on online group dynamics and group processes has been emerging only in recent years (Michinov, Michinov, & Toczek-Capelle, 2004). Therefore, a discussion of online groups is important as this article focuses on online technologies that expand the opportunities to interact and study the group formation, characteristics and dynamics of online classroom groups.