What's this about Blackboard? Throughout the calendar year 2008 Wheaton will be phasing out our online course management program, WebCT, in favor of the much stronger and full featured Blackboard software. The first basic level orientations will be Thursday and Friday, May 15 and 16. Other workshops will be scheduled throughout the summer. Faculty who are trained early will have the advantage of being able to develop their online Blackboard courses throughout the summer.

Why are we switching to Blackboard? In 2006 Blackboard purchased WebCT, and they have notified all WebCT colleges that they will not support the software (with security updates, bug fixes, etc.) after January 1, 2009. This deadline has given us impetus to make the switch now to what is a much better online course management program. The advantage for Wheaton is that we will get a much better program to work with, but the disadvantage is that everyone will have to learn a new program. Different orientations are planned for different uses of the software, but the basic orientation will take about 3-4 hours.

Please contact Jean Bultema at x5061 to register for any workshops. All of these workshops will be held in the Media Resources suite on the lower level of the Billy Graham Center, either in Room B-13 or the Media Lab Room B-22.

In addition, individual orientations are also offered on the following, upon request:

+Scantron. Learn to use this computer-assisted device for scoring test forms. 1 hour. Call David Kletzing (x5172) for an appointment.

+Smart Classroom Technology. Contact Jean Bultema to request a smart classroom orientation. X5061