LIB 4900 – Social Informatics – Fall 2015

Title: A Study of the Effectiveness of Blackboard Collaborate for conducting synchronous Courses at Multiple Locations
MLA Citation: Tonsmann, Guillermo. “A Study of the Effectiveness of Blackboard Collaborate for Conducting Synchronous Courses at Multiple Locations.” Insight: A Journal of Scholarly Teaching 9 (2014): 54-63. Web. 21 Oct. 2015.
Research Question: How effective is the videoconferencing software Blackboard Collaborate for carrying out instructions at college level to students attending classes synchronously at multiple locations.
Methodology: The paper reviews and analyzes the author’s experience in teaching the college course “Discrete Mathematics’ using a tool called Blackboard collaborate (a videoconferencing software). This tool allows students to take part in live regular class sessions from different places in the United States. The method entailed the author directing class sessions from his office in Park university Campus in Austin Texas, while the students attended sessions from various locations; Austin, Texas, Minot, North Dakota and Charleston South Carolina. Every participant had full duplex audio and video communications and the course was an 8 week term between October and December, with 2 classes per week. All class sessions were recorded by the Blackboard Collaborate system and all students had access afterwards. There were power point lessons and final exams were held on site. Most importantly, “Students were polled at various stages of the presentation to gauge the level of understanding and engagement with the class”.
Extent of Social Informatics Approach to the Research Study: The author Guillermo had a very scientific/empirical approach to his research question because he followed the general layout and stepped out the process of the experiment, as well as look at the motivation and analyzed the data. In the end he even allowed for student feedback and a page for recommendations to what he found most useful after his experiment style question was answered. He also chose a big subject and narrowed down his results and created a solid question with answer, pertaining to one particular feature of a course management tool (Blackboard).