Comments on: ScholarPress in the “Classroom”

By: Mark Long

Mark Long — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 14:23:18 +0000

I thought long and hard about FERPA before deciding to take my courses out of Blackboard, and would love to talk about that this weekend. My final conclusion was that it was fine to do so, obviously, but not without hesitation. We can also talk about technical solutions (in my case, within WordPress) for dealing with the potential complications that arise.

By: brucejanz

brucejanz — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 21:42:11 +0000

I think FERPA can be dealt with, if handled carefully. For instance, I use an outside wiki pretty extensively (pbworks). Students upload work, and I make comments on their work on the wiki itself. The grade, though, goes in the MyUCF tool. I can imagine the same thing working for blogs or other tools as well. We used Glogster last term, and did the same thing there.

By: leclaire

leclaire — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 19:20:51 +0000

I agree that there are multiple better options – such as e-portfolios – which have the added advantage of continuing beyond an individual course and building as the student moves through their program.

However, one concern that I hear frequently from the Administration perspective is FERPA considerations. I would be interested in hearing everyone’s thoughts about this.

By: amyfoster

amyfoster — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 18:49:39 +0000

I know I would demand more written work on exams from my students (and I’d like to believe I could make them better writers) if there were an easier way to grade it other than that d*!# comment box in Webcourses. But I still want to have timed exams with written components. I don’t know of a better way to do that outside of Blackboard.

By: brucejanz

brucejanz — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 18:24:47 +0000

I have many annoyances about Blackboard, and in fact came up with a document called “Things Blackboard Can’t Do” when I was going through the training. So yes, going outside of its limited capabilities is something I’m interested in as well.