Friday, July 24, 2020

Moving Forward with Blackboard

Last week we rolled out the exciting news that our 4K-12 system would be using a common Learning Management System, BB9, in the upcoming school year. While we know there will be new learning that will have to take place to get up and running with this platform, in the long run, this is going to be a decision that will serve in the best interest of our students, staff, and families. Many of you have reached out around how you can begin to prepare yourself for this shift. Below are the milestones we hope to reach by September 1st. 


September 1st Milestones:

  • Teachers can create classes, enroll learners, add a blank shell template (which has the universal navigation toolbar), and transfer content between Blackboard classes if needed.. The blank shell template is different from a course shell.

  • Enrollment of administrators, instructional coach(es), library media specialist,  etc. to the course as a student within the course. 

  • Integration of district resources (ex. Matific, EPIC, Sora, Gizmos, Google classroom, etc.) within the Blackboard course.

  • The ability to post key content for end-users to access for learning during and beyond the traditional school day. 

 

Throughout the 2020-2021 school year, our director team will be working with teams of teachers to create course shells in Bb9. The Bb9 course shells are intended to be a launchpad for all teachers to the course, and they will house essential information around curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Course shells can be “layered” as time progresses, and they can easily be copied, so that every teacher has a starting point to use with their learners. Course shells are not designed to provide day-to-day instructional materials. Teachers will continue to adjust their daily plans based on the needs of their learners. This will be a big undertaking, and we know we will have hiccups along the way, but in the end, we will have a common platform to house our curriculum and instructional materials. 

 

Over the course of the next few weeks, building administrators will be working to determine what level of professional development will be necessary to meet the milestones outlined above as each building is in a different place around their implementation of Bb9. No teacher will be in this alone. In fact, the beauty of a common platform is that we can work collaboratively as we are all using the same tool. Stay tuned for a professional development plan around building your capacity to use this tool. As a reminder, the district does also have self-paced, virtual, Bb9 courses that you can enroll in to learn about the Bb9 platform. There are also a variety of other resources that are available as we look to grow in our use of this tool across our system. 

 

 

 


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