Audio file
Blackboard Support_mixdown.mp3
Transcript
00:00:03 Camie
With Halloween just around the corner, I've been revisiting some of my favorite scary movies.
00:00:09 Camie
Today on the pedagogy toolkit, Abi Moser joins us to talk about who you turn to when things get scary in your blackboard course.
00:00:36 Camie
So Abi you.
00:00:39 Camie
Oversee, manage.
00:00:50 Camie
So you manage the blackboard support team
00:00:56 Camie
What can
00:00:58 Camie
an instructor expect when they call in. What should they e-mail or call in for? Because there are lots of ways to reach.
00:01:05 Camie
You at this point.
00:01:07 Abi
Yes, So we help.
00:01:08 Abi
Both faculty and students, right? So we.
00:01:11 Abi
Often we have instructors that will tell their.
00:01:13 Abi
Students just reach.
00:01:14 Abi
Out to Blackboard they can fix everything.
00:01:17 Abi
We would love.
00:01:18 Abi
To be those humans. Oh, my gosh, wouldn't that be?
00:01:20 Abi
Great. But also we.
00:01:22 Abi
Aren't going to make changes to instructors courses without their permission, right?
00:01:27 Abi
If we did that, we would have students calling us every day saying, Oh no, no, professor Jones told me that I could take the test tomorrow. Can you have set up that extension?
00:01:37 Abi
We can't do that.
00:01:39 Abi
Because they would take advantage of us. So we always ask instructors anytime they want us to make changes, anything that we can help with that it comes from the instructors, University of Arkansas account so that we don't have somebody that comes to us and says why did you make this change in my course and we say no we got.
00:01:58 Abi
An e-mail from you and they say.
00:01:59 Abi
That's that's a Gmail account. Anybody could have created that. You know I'm. I'm Joe Jones. This was Joe under score Jones, right.
00:02:08 Abi
So we want to make all kinds of changes for instructors and we will totally help them.
00:02:12 Abi
Do that, but we have to.
00:02:13 Abi
Have real clear valid.
00:02:16 Abi
Authentication that it's from an instructor.
00:02:18 Abi
So the things that will help students with and by all means tell your students to reach out to us. They can e-mail us. It's just B help like boy, boy, help@uw.edu. They can do a chat, they can.
00:02:29 Abi
Call us all the.
00:02:30 Abi
Things like we can help students turn in their work. We can help them record things. We can help them, you know, restart their computer because again, be the expert in your world and just tell your students to try turning it off.
00:02:44 Abi
And on again.
00:02:45 Abi
Because that is.
00:02:46 Abi
The answer to over 75% of all IT issues.
00:02:50 Abi
Right. So we can help them with so many technical aspects.
00:02:54 Abi
We will have students so that will call us.
00:02:56 Abi
And say.
00:02:57 Abi
I need help creating this thing. What should I do? Should I do a PowerPoint? Should I do this and?
00:03:03 Abi
We have to.
00:03:03 Abi
Say that's more up to how your instructor wants to do that work. So as long as we can look at something in Blackboard and say, oh, your instructor posted an example of this, did you see this under this tab and they go?
00:03:15 Abi
Oh my goodness.
00:03:16 Abi
I forgot that they have the.
00:03:18 Abi
We love it whenever we can just help them find a thing again. We want it to be organized well enough that students can find it for themselves, but sometimes they get into the weeds and they get. They get nervous about.
00:03:28 Abi
The project and.
00:03:29 Abi
They don't scroll right? It's not that they're not looking for it, but they're.
00:03:35 Abi
Frantic, they are stressed and they need an extra set of eyes. Looking at things will totally help students do that.
00:03:43 Abi
Now for instructors.
00:03:44 Abi
We want.
00:03:45 Abi
To teach you to.
00:03:46 Abi
Fish. But we will also give you.
00:03:48 Abi
A fish in an emergency.
00:03:50 Abi
OK, so if you have a test that's coming up in an hour and you need somebody to do the.
00:03:59 Abi
Test availability exceptions for that.
00:04:02
Test right?
00:04:03 Abi
And you need.
00:04:04 Abi
You forgot that you had a CEA student in that class that has an hour and a half to do the test instead of an hour.
00:04:10 Abi
We don't ever want a student to suffer because you're driving somewhere.
00:04:14 Abi
And you needed help, right?
00:04:16 Abi
So we'll ask you, hey, I'm going to make all these notes. Can you send me an e-mail real quick from?
00:04:20 Abi
Your York account so I can verify that it's really the instructor asking me to do this, but then we'll go in and make that change for you and we'll send you instructions on.
00:04:29 Abi
How to do it next time?
00:04:31 Abi
Right.
00:04:31 Abi
So we aren't the person that you call and say, hey, you want to create a test for me. That's not what we do. We will help you create a test, but.
00:04:43 Abi
We really want.
00:04:44 Abi
To teach you that.
00:04:46 Abi
Instead of just giving it to you.
00:04:48 Abi
You know, sometimes that can get complicated, but in general most people, because again, this is a learning institution, we very rarely come across anybody that says I never want to learn how to do.
00:05:00 Abi
Any of this, they say, hey, I'm.
00:05:03 Abi
Real rushed, can you?
00:05:04 Abi
Help me do it this time and explain to me while you while you're doing it what?
00:05:08 Abi
We're doing.
00:05:09 Abi
And we love that color. So we want.
00:05:12 Abi
People to reach out to us.
00:05:14 Abi
Early in their process, right?
00:05:17 Abi
I tell this to students and tell us the fact.
00:05:20 Abi
15 minutes should be about the time limit on how long you look for the answer for something.
00:05:26 Abi
If you're Googling for longer than 15 minutes, you probably just don't have the right word, and once you get the right word or that basic description of what you're looking for, Oh my goodness, you'll find so many articles, we probably have an article you just don't know exactly what it is you're looking for yet, right? If you're creating a test and you want students to get.
00:05:47 Abi
You know, 50 questions based on a a group of 100 questions. You may not know that that's called a question.
00:05:55 Abi
Right. That's just something that once you know it, you go oh, OK. It's a question pool.
00:06:01 Abi
Fine, but you didn't.
00:06:02 Abi
Know how to.
00:06:03 Abi
Google that so.
00:06:04 Abi
15 minutes for you and your students before you call us. I want people to look things up.
00:06:09 Abi
And learn because it's.
00:06:11 Abi
Always more satisfying, I think whenever you find the answer for yourself.
00:06:14 Abi
But also call us because it could be a two second phone call.
00:06:19 Abi
Instead of a four hour Google.
00:06:21 Abi
And we all have busy days. So 4 hours is a long time and people will call us saying I've been working on this all.
00:06:27 Abi
Weekend, we say.
00:06:28 Abi
Why? Ohh, honey. No, we.
00:06:32 Abi
We're here on the weekend.
00:06:33 Abi
Well, I know I.
00:06:34 Abi
Just didn't want to bother you and well.
00:06:37 Abi
What do you? That's what we get paid for. Come on.
00:06:40 Camie
Sweetie, get paid to be bothered.
00:06:42 Abi
Yeah, it's not a bother. It's honestly, especially whenever you're asking the question you're asking, it's a really easy one that makes me feel really satisfied in my job.
00:06:51 Camie
Right. And please as you've solved.
00:06:51 Abi
Which let me answer that, yes.
00:06:52 Camie
The problem that you had the answer to.
00:06:55 Abi
I I also love whenever somebody calls and it's something we haven't seen before and we kind of get to go on a little journey of discovery together.
00:07:03 Abi
Right.
00:07:04 Abi
I say, oh, I have never been asked that question before and somebody go well. I love being special and new.
00:07:10 Abi
And I say.
00:07:11 Abi
Well, we're going to do a lot of experimenting today. Say, how long do you have to do this to say about 10 minutes and say, well, we're not going to experiment together. I'm going to experiment and.
00:07:20 Abi
You're going to go teach.
00:07:21 Abi
Your next class and I will.
00:07:22 Abi
Send you an e-mail with some possible answers.
00:07:25 Abi
So everybody comes at things with different needs, different expectations of time.
00:07:30 Abi
I will say we're pretty fast on our turn around on things, but it is still humans we are.
00:07:37 Abi
Sadly, guys that the AI has not taken over the blackboard.
00:07:40 Abi
Support world we.
00:07:42 Abi
Are just human sitting at computers helping you?
00:07:44 Abi
Out so sometimes there is a.
00:07:46 Camie
Delay and we are grateful for that delay because we know we will get a correct answer when.
00:07:51 Camie
You send.
00:07:52 Camie
This is very much the goal.
00:07:54 Abi
So we try especially with something new, we'll test.
00:07:58 Abi
It you know over.
00:07:59 Abi
We'll go into one of our little sandbox courses and we'll play with it and see. Can we break it? If you reach out to us and?
00:08:05 Abi
Say this isn't working.
00:08:06 Abi
In my class, we aren't just going to go.
00:08:09 Abi
Oh well, that's not great. We're going to. We're going to try to make it break in other ways, so that's not always going to be a 2 minute turn around on something we're going to reach out to Blackboard. We're going to reach out to our administrators, we're going to test it. We're going to look at all the articles you may.
00:08:25 Abi
End up getting an e-mail from us that just goes. Yep, that's broken.
00:08:30 Abi
And hopefully it'll be fixed soon, but trust us, we tested 100 things before you got the e-mail. That said, Yep, you found a broken thing. But we'll also say here's an option for how you could work around that used to be my middle name, work around to add the workaround. Moser.
00:08:49 Abi
We try and not actually solve the problems instead of just having workarounds, so that's the new step in blackboard that we actually tell them about an issue instead of just living with it and making the best of it.
00:09:01 Abi
It's been a change.
00:09:07 Camie
Oh my goodness, that has lots.
00:09:08 Camie
Of fun right there.
00:09:13
Things have changed this.
00:09:15 Abi
Is also part of the blackboard helped us to experience right. This started out as we just realized at the university that there was nobody that was just doing Blackboard right. There's and most universities don't.
00:09:28 Abi
Have that at all.
00:09:29 Abi
We get calls all the time.
00:09:32 Abi
From students at other universities.
00:09:34 Abi
Calls from instructors at other universities that don't have any support. They they have their IT and somebody can help them, you know, download Microsoft 360.
00:09:43 Abi
Microsoft 365.
00:09:45 Camie
360-5360 I don't know.
00:09:47 Abi
I don't know either. Somebody will help them download the software to their computer, but they don't have anybody that can help you.
00:09:56 Abi
With any specifics and so.
00:09:58 Abi
We have students and instructors call us from all over the country all over the world that find our articles and say.
00:10:05 Camie
Oh, here is the expert in.
00:10:08 Abi
How to add a kaltura video to a discussion board post and they?
00:10:12 Abi
They need a little bit of extra.
00:10:14 Abi
Help. So we're.
00:10:16 Abi
Pretty lucky at the university that they listened whenever we said that we needed.
00:10:21 Abi
A help desk for this.
00:10:22 Abi
And been around for a while now and.
00:10:24 Abi
People just kind of.
00:10:25 Abi
Expect that that's a help desk that exists.
00:10:28 Abi
And they'll go to other universities, and that support isn't there.
00:10:32 Abi
You know there isn't an entity like Global Campus that's helping somebody develop their online courses. There isn't a robust help desk system that is responsive to them.
00:10:43 Camie
Well, and also people have to keep in mind that while you all are very available on a regular basis during the crunch time, the end of semester finals, we, you know, they get very, very busy. So try to take care of your things ahead of time. It's not always, you know, it doesn't always work out that way.
00:11:03 Abi
Right.
00:11:03 Camie
Sometimes there are emergencies beyond our control, even if we have the best laid plans and organization systems.
00:11:10 Camie
But if you can try to get to them ahead of time because it does get harder in those little crunchy times. Yes, because everyone stuff is breaking right then, and it's all an emergency because everyone's making finals.
00:11:21 Abi
And it is, it is all an emergency.
00:11:25 Camie
And 365 for the record.
00:11:26 Abi
Awesome. Thank you.
00:11:28 Abi
And one thing that I will say.
00:11:29 Abi
That helps instructors.
00:11:31 Abi
Is thinking about when those busy times are right. Sometimes you can't help but a final exam is when a final exam is.
00:11:37 Abi
But I wouldn't ever actually make work due at 11:35 on Sunday night. I would make my work due at 7:15 on Sunday night so that students can't procrastinate.
00:11:49 Abi
Until the last second.
00:11:51 Abi
Right.
00:11:52 Abi
And we're here for.
00:11:52 Abi
Support, but the default date when things are due in Blackboard.
00:11:57 Abi
Is Sunday at end of day, so a lot of instructors will keep that as their default date. So if there is one class that has.
00:12:06 Abi
One assignment that has a problem, and it's all due at 11:59 on Sunday. That time slot of students having.
00:12:15 Abi
Issues is full.
00:12:17 Abi
Right. So they call and.
00:12:18 Abi
There's just one of us working.
00:12:20 Abi
Most of the time, so if we're on.
00:12:21 Abi
The phone with the student.
00:12:23 Abi
That's the person we're able to help at that moment. So if you give them that cushion so that you say it's due at 8:00 Blackboard support is there until midnight. So if you have an issue, you know, we can still do things, but they're here all day Sunday.
00:12:37 Abi
Let's make sure we get our work turned.
00:12:39 Abi
In before 8, right so.
00:12:41 Abi
You can tell your students.
00:12:43 Abi
It's due at.
00:12:43 Abi
8 and keep it open until midnight.
00:12:47 Abi
But they the due date is 8.
00:12:49 Abi
O'clock and anything.
00:12:50 Abi
After that is late, but they can still.
00:12:52 Abi
Turn it in.
00:12:53 Abi
Right. So they can still have that support, but they know when they're supposed to.
00:12:56 Abi
Do it.
00:12:58 Abi
Do that for yourself as well As for your students, because as humans, we procrastinate. It is not that somebody's a bad human because they waited till the last minute.
00:13:07 Abi
It's just how people's brains.
00:13:09 Abi
Work we we wait until we get that push. It's the same with getting the zero in the grade center. If you don't have that thing pushing you, a lot of people don't have that. Like, I've got to do it right now feel until they've got to do it right.
00:13:22 Abi
Now Blackboard support is.
00:13:26 Abi
For students, the thing I say to them consistently is.
00:13:29 Abi
We are your ally, not your alibi.
00:13:32 Abi
We will have students that try.
00:13:33 Abi
To use Blackboard as the excuse for why.
00:13:35 Abi
Things couldn't be done.
00:13:37 Abi
Now, I won't deny that sometimes the Internet is not your friend.
00:13:42 Abi
Right.
00:13:43 Abi
Recently there have been DNS server attacks and different systems have had to reset and that means that from people's computers have had to reset all kinds of things that are the trickle down of.
00:13:57 Abi
Internet bad news.
00:13:59 Abi
Right.
00:13:59 Abi
But that's why we try to encourage people not to procrastinate, so that if that issue occurs, whenever you only have an hour left to take a test, there's not a lot we can do about that. Right. So we try to encourage people to take things ahead, work ahead, can't always do that. But Blackboard will serve as an.
00:14:20 Abi
Ally for you with your instructor.
00:14:22 Abi
If you reach out.
00:14:23 Abi
To us and say, hey, it's two hours till my test is due. I'm trying to log in. It's not working. We say you're right. Blackboard and the Internet in general are having a bad time right now.
00:14:37 Abi
We will. If you'd like. We can reach out to your instructor and include you on that e-mail so that they know that you did contact us and that this was the issue.
00:14:45 Abi
That was occurring.
00:14:46 Abi
Right. Sometimes that's all you need. And we can say keep trying because your instructor does have a deadline. We can't say that your instructor will take this e-mail to mean that you get to do this test another day, but we are there to be the person that says yes, the student was trying to access it. They were doing their best.
00:15:04 Abi
There was nothing we could do to resolve it.
00:15:06 Abi
At that moment.
00:15:07 Abi
But just so you know, here's all the information we have.
00:15:11 Abi
The thing that we aren't going to be is an alibi because students will try to pretend like they contacted us, or that blackboard was broken, or that, you know, the Internet was particularly cursed for them that day.
00:15:27 Abi
We log things, we can see how much a student is doing in Blackboard. We can see all of their clicks and blackboard.
00:15:34 Abi
Right.
00:15:35 Abi
So if student says no, I tried to take quiz one and starter will come to us and say did they try to take quiz one and we say we're not doing the week that it was open. So I I I don't know if maybe they looked at it the week before the week after but definitely not the week they could take it.
00:15:51 Abi
So we have students will try to do.
00:15:52 Abi
That so big part of that is we're an ally for it. We're not an alibi. You can't say that blackboard ate your homework. There's.
00:16:00 Abi
The blackboard isn't hungry in that way. If you turn it in and you get the verification e-mail, then it's turned in.
00:16:07 Abi
It just isn't what Blackboard.
00:16:08 Camie
Does Blackboard is hungry not for your.
00:16:11 Abi
Homework. It's hungry for knowledge, but not.
00:16:13 Abi
For stealing your.
00:16:14 Abi
Papers not for so.
00:16:16 Abi
We, you know, we have to do those trainings for. We remind students that, you know, you got to give space for yourself on Blackboard. You don't turn in papers and immediately close your.
00:16:25 Abi
All of those things wait until you get verifications of things. Same with instructors when you add.
00:16:29 Abi
New material make.
00:16:30 Abi
Sure, you wait until you see it's on the page before you don't, you know, completely exit out, maybe refresh it, make sure it's loaded properly. All those kind of things, good Internet.
00:16:39 Speaker 3
It's just.
00:16:41 Abi
Not etiquette Internet.
00:16:45 Abi
Skill usage.
00:16:48 Camie
Skill usage.
00:16:50 Abi
Skills. What up with the Z? Yeah.
00:16:52 Camie
Skills is a small with AZ.
00:16:54 Abi
Isn't even from. Is it even like a thing?
00:17:05 Camie
Please do not drop the.
00:17:05 Abi
Mic. This is very expensive. Do not do not drop.
00:17:08 Abi
The mic only have three men.
00:17:12 Camie
There were three things about supporting students through Blackboard that instructors needed to know what would those three things be?
00:17:21 Abi
The first one is that organization. For me, it's all organization all the time. Delete what you don't use tidy up what you do have. Make it so clear to students where things are.
00:17:34 Abi
It will help you. It helps us as long as you keep them up to date on where things are. They won't have as much need for support, right? That is the built in support. That's the structural support within the class that makes it easier for them to succeed.
00:17:50 Abi
Right. So first thing, organization, second thing that you are keeping them.
00:17:55 Abi
Up to date on how they're doing.
00:17:57 Abi
Right. So that means going back to that timely.
00:18:00 Abi
Feedback that our RSI.
00:18:03 Abi
Ohh so close.
00:18:05 Abi
That goes back to the RSI that whenever they don't do work, when they do work, whenever you are grading that, they know how things are going at that moment, they never feel lost on what's expected of them in the class.
00:18:20 Abi
Right. So we're organizing, we're giving them consistent feedback. And the last thing for me is to try to understand where they're coming from, right? Giving them that real. I'm a real human. You're a real human. This is the kind of troubles we're going to experience. This is the kind of joys we're going to experience.
00:18:39 Abi
That goes into all of that, giving them the videos, giving them the.
00:18:46 Abi
Giving them the understanding of how work is going to be done, especially when we're talking.
00:18:51 Abi
About non traditional.
00:18:51 Abi
Students, right, even traditional students, have weird schedules, right? So we have to build that into our conversations. The way that we build our.
00:19:00 Abi
Courses that we say.
00:19:02 Abi
I know that this test is going to be a big one and I know that this week is huge.
00:19:08 Abi
So I'm going to make sure that this test is open for 24 hours of.
00:19:11 Abi
Access instead of one hour of access.
00:19:14 Abi
Whatever it is that you've got going on that you can be responsive with your students is going to make a huge difference to them and it makes them better students. It gives them more comfort in your class. They're going to learn better in your class because the goal isn't for them to learn how to access Blackboard and learn how to do the technology.
00:19:34 Abi
That you're giving them, right? That's always so a good thing, you know, learning to use zoom helps them in the future, but the goal is for them to learn, learn the course material. It's not to learn the technology.
00:19:47 Abi
So you can always.
00:19:49 Abi
Make that easier for them by planning ahead organizing, giving them that feedback, and being understanding of how they're accessing all of your material.
00:19:59 Speaker 3
So when there's something strange in your blackboard course, who you gonna call? Blackboard Support.
00:20:08 Camie
A huge thank you to Abi for taking time to talk with us about Blackboard support and all its new services. Thank you for joining us today on the Pedagogy toolkit. Don't forget to subscribe.