How might Benoît go about deciding whether to go with Moodle or Blackboard Learn? What questions might he ask himself? Come up with one specific question; be sure to explain why this is an important question.
Without (reasonable) access to the Help Desk, do I have the confidence and intuition to take on learning Blackboard Learn?
If I was in Benoît’s position, I think one of the first questions I would ask myself is to judge my ability to take on such a task. Often when I am introduced to a new type of technology, I like to google it and watch related videos on Youtube to see what others have to say about it. There are numerous tutorials available. I don’t know if this would be the case with Blackboard Learn but this is a starting point that I often use.
How much development time (in weeks) would you estimate Benoît would need to develop Business Writing, the online version? Be sure to explain how you came up with this number.
If Benoît teaches a 13 week course, I assume that compiling each week of the course would take 2-4 hours. The range takes into account the length of time it takes him when he first begins developing versus once he has put together a few weeks, I assume that with time he would become more comfortable and perhaps quicker. The range could also comes into play if some weeks of the course, such as the first week, require less building or have less (or more) content.
Total time to development (average) 39 hours, but considering the range development time could be as little as 26 hours and as much as 52 hours.
It’s ironic that Benoit’s university has wide IT support for its official LMS (Blackboard) but that the help desk is difficult to get a hold of and is not reliable at responding to email. On the other hand, Moodle has no no support whatsoever. So what should Benoit do? I suggested that he use the Bates model, SECTION in order to determine which LMS platform to use. I like your suggestion that if he were to choose Moodle that he use his own tools available such as Youtube videos and online tutorials. More and more people these days search “Do it yourself” tutorials so I can see him going down this route too. He will also have the support of his colleagues since most of the English department use this platform.
Hi Heather,
I’m finding it interesting to see the differences in estimated time between each person in our group. It is especially difficult to do without knowing some more specifics about the scenario, like how much content Benoit might have to build from scratch versus what he already has compiled. Certainly, creating media content is extremely time-consuming, whereas curation can be less so. Additionally, his understandings of the affordances and the constraints of the tools, and ability to figure out work-arounds if necessary, might take more time.