Introduction to LENTEC teachers' courses in Blackboard This section contains student and teacher guides to Blackboard , material to help the teacher to design courses and three power point presentations to demonstrate what a BLACKBOARD course looks like. These courses were used when students and teachers from the LENTEC partner countries were working together in BLACKBOARD, the digital learning environment. You can read how they designed their courses below. A short training course Teachers needed to learn to use a Digital Learning Environment (DLE), in this case BLACKBOARD, before this was introduced to students. This was achieved in the following way: It was decided to delay the first face to face meeting between teachers for a month so that they could first of all experience getting to know each other through the virtual environment Teachers had to learn the practical competency of using a digital learning environment very quickly. This they did with the help of a guide in English (Short Guide to BLACKBOARD ). This can be found under this section ELO - BLACKBOARD on this site During this period and for the rest of the project we had the use of a technical and educational expert in the use of digital learning environments, which was an enormous help. The basic design of BLACKBOARD offers a user-friendly environment, divided up into a series of locations in which the student has access. These are accessible through the following buttons: Announcements Course information Staff information Course documents Assignments Communication (including for example email and student homepages under 'roster' Discussion Board External Internet links These functions were used during this initial period of a month as followed: The teachers were asked to complete three tasks, which were placed under Assignments: 1. Read the short guide to BLACKBOARD. 2. Design your homepage. 3. Send an email to the co-ordinator. By using the Short Guide to BLACKBOARD, teachers were guided through the options of BLACKBOARD. The guide was placed under Staff Information by the co-ordinator. Each teacher-student could design his/her homepage, giving information about themselves and their school, add a photo and a favourite link. These were added under Roster under Communication. By setting these tasks the co-ordinator could assess whether everyone had been able to login and take appropriate action if necessary. The email could be sent by accessing Communication. Teachers were set three further tasks but these were optional and concerned the use of the Language Portfolio and the project itself. One of the most important facilities on BLACKBOARD is the Discussion Board. Three forums were placed there: 1. Questions and Remarks about BLACKBOARD. 2. Is the vocational language portfolio interesting for LENTEC? 3. The World Cup (for relaxation) A fourth forum was opened during the first face-to-face meeting: 4. Developing a course for students Links to sites of interest (TENTEC; European sites on Language portfolios and the Common European Framework) were also added The area for Course documents was used for placing documents that were not directly linked to the set assignments. The project manager informed the teachers-students about the tasks through Announcements and email. The project co-ordinator and a BLACKBOARD expert were available to answer any queries or difficulties. A short evaluation form was developed using the quiz/survey possibilities of BLACKBOARD Most partners accessed the site more than 10 times during this period. Others had initial problems with their Internet connections or were using computers that were slow. Everyone completed tasks 1 and 3. Task 2 proved too daunting for some teachers but this was completed during the face-to-face training. Some partners felt that they were not computer literate enough to dare to place material (e.g. home page) in the site for all to see even though it was pointed out that they could also remove it again if it went wrong. Everyone agreed that it was good to be able to use BLACKBOARD virtually before the face-to-face training session although three felt that a face-to-face training session following this period was essential. One teacher suggested that 'trial and error" was an excellent way to learn and get to grips with the DLE. Everyone felt that it was an excellent medium for communication between students. One partner remarked that it would show us exactly what can be done virtually, in other words the (im)possibilities of the use of a DLE. The three tasks and the Short Guide to BLACKBOARD were considered suitable tasks for the students. The fact that the short guide is in English was not considered a problem and would create the first language task for the students. Students were told that they would be doing part of their English work together with students from another country as part of a European pilot project. They would be working on projects together and communicating through a virtual classroom. Tips Teachers need to be competent in the use of computers and to have some experience with Internet. Before choosing a specific Digital Learning Environment it may be worth enquiring among colleagues and national bodies whether one is generally in use and available Although teachers can run their own DLE course it is very useful to have a specialist on board. Teachers may find it useful to experiment individually with a DLE in a short project as an addition to their normal class routine. BLACKBOARD now offers a free period of 60 days (www.blackboard.com) This would enable teachers to get to know the basic possibilities and experiment with giving on-line support before embarking on a more ambitious project. This is very important if there is no DLE specialist in the project. In other circumstances it may be worthwhile setting up similar projects within your school between similar course classes or even between similar schools in the same country. Link to Courses in BLACKBOARD (slides in Power Point) Course Estonia and France Course Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden Course Slovenia Word documents BLACKBOARD instruction material Ten easy steps to designing your courses Tips for course-builders in LENTEC Explore BLACKBOARD as an instructor Functions in BLACKBOARD Student Guide to BLACKBOARD