Whipping Web Services into Shape: Making them work for mainstream faculty and students
Facilitator: John Morrison
Room: EDB 260
Capacity: 25
Social software as a service, available through the LMS, solves practical challenges facing institutions and these tools are maturing. But challenges remain. While aggregation of networked user’s actions is clear to those involved with technology, it isn’t clear to regular faculty and students. Many students and faculty have not experienced such benefits; they remain abstract for them. This session will look at 3 different web services, integrated with the LMS and show how to address these issues with each. Participants will be presented with activities in a lab designed to present these web services as regular users initially experience them.
Obectives: Participants are able to see the use of the reviewed web services from the perspective of the average student and faculty members. Participants are able to return to their institutions and lead institution wide implementation of any or all of web services reviewed
Overview of issues:
John Morrison has taught in K-12, college and university settings and held various faculty support roles, primarily within educational technology. From 2000-2006 he ran WebCT Support in Canada before moving in the Fall of 2006 to Washington, DC, to join the Blackboard Beyond Initiative. John's role with Blackboard Beyond is to help institutions understand and get the best out of the series of web services that the Beyond team delivers.