Building Exemplary Courses: Bb Free Webinar

Blackboard Webinar: Building Exemplary Courses
Tuesday, February 7, 1:00 PM EST; Noon CST

Are you ready to move your online instructional practices and courses to the next level? Using the Blackboard ECP rubric as a guide, this webinar will help participants prepare to develop quality online instructional practices and courses and evaluate existing ones. We will explore the ECP rubric and highlight some examples from the 2011 ECP winners. You will also learn how to successfully prepare a submission for the 2012 ECP.

Blackboard Catalyst Awards

Get recognized for your innovation at the 2012 Blackboard Catalyst Awards! Take advantage of a wonderful professional development opportunity and nominate your course or program for a Catalyst Award. We will be accepting nominations through February 29, 2012. To get started, visit www.blackboard.com/catalyst. There are six categories to consider:

Innovative Development - Recognizes those who give back to the community by sharing their development expertise with others

Community Collaboration - Recognizes those who share advice, insight, and best practices with others as they approach key challenges and opportunities in e-learning

Mobile Innovation - Recognizes those who have embraced the use of mobile technology to positively impact the educational experience at their institution

Staff Development - Recognizes those who use Blackboard solutions to support and enhance faculty and staff development skills that provide a better learning experience for students and faculty themselves

Communications Strategy – Recognizes those who use one or more Blackboard tools to support teaching and learning or campus engagement with innovative communications strategies

Exemplary Course - honors those course creators whose courses demonstrate best practices in four major areas: Course Design, Interaction & Collaboration, Assessment and Learner Support.  A group of voluntary of Course Reviewers will use the ECP rubric to evaluate submitted courses.

No matter if you win or not, participants receive valuable feedback that gives them insight on how to better engage with students and elevate their teaching experiences. Past participants have reported that the experiences of evaluating their courses using the rubric improved their courses and made them stronger course designers.

Consider becoming a volunteer Course Reviewer to

·      Explore in-depth a variety of different online courses and get ideas and inspiration for your own online courses

·      Apply lessons learned from the Exemplary Course Rubric to your own courses or those you are helping to develop

·      Share your knowledge and experience with others by providing feedback on their course designs

If you have any questions about the program, please send an email to community@blackboard.com.

Two Free Webinars in February

The first webinar, on February 9th, is titled Best Web 2.0 Tools for Teachers. That webinar is part of a series hosted by EdTechTeacher.org.

The second webinar in February is titled Discovery, Discussion, and Demonstration. That webinar will hosted by the University of Maryland, Baltimore County on February 20th.

KCTCS Distance Learning Proctor Resource Center

The new KCTCS Distance Learning Proctor Resource Center is now fully online and available on thePoint site. Instructors should use this new database to to store exam information.