To be honest, my ‘flight path’ for this course is still very much in its infancy. In my role as a sessional instructor in psychology at a few different universities, I’ve had the opportunity to interact with both Blackboard and D2L (Brightspace) LMS systems, though I’ve explored neither in great detail. I’ve primarily used a course LMS as a place to upload copies of class notes (mostly PDFs of powerpoint lectures), allow for assignment submissions (via Dropbox), create marking rubrics, and post grades, and although I have posted discussion boards, they were not well-used.
I’m very interested in creating more opportunities for students to interact online in a ‘blended’ format, especially in large classrooms, and I’ve experimented with some free tools such as Kahoot or Mentimeter for in-class quizzes, polling, and backchannel discussions, with varying degrees of success. Ultimately, I am hoping in this course to learn to use an LMS ‘better’; to make it a place where students can interact with the material, and each other, in ways that build on the content discussed in class, and the tools I use there. Some of this will be purely technology-based, but I am also hoping to learn better online design principles, and how to create better integrated online content for an LMS. I’m also hoping this course will teach me how to integrate some of the types of tools I like to use in the classroom (backchannels and quizzes in particular) with the course web page, and provide me with some (evidence-based?) tips on how to integrate this technology effectively in a blended university classroom.