How the integrated use of blogs and Blackboard can improve a university public relations class: A case study
Ric Jensen, PhD
Instructor, Journalism Department
Northwestern State University, Natchitoches, Louisiana
http://www.ricjensen.blogspot.com
This case study discusses how the integrated use of blogs and Blackboard can improve a distance learning-based public relations class taught through Northwestern State University. In addition to scheduled web chats and message board discussions within Blackboard, students are provided supplemental information in a blog, which has the added benefit of exposing the instructor’s thoughts to a wider audience. This presentation describes how presenting information about blogging is essential to public relations students, since blogs are becoming increasingly recognized as a new public relations medium. At the same time, students will need to know the skills needed to succcessfully develop and implement blogs as part of their public relations toolkits, since many clients will want blogs created as part of PR campaigns.
View the screencast (21:22); will load directly in a Flash-enabled browser.
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Tags: Blogging, PR, Public Relations, higheredblogcon
April 4th, 2006 at 7:07 am
Really enjoyed your presentation Ric. I was wondering, if you had a usable, well-presented, public facing blog in your VLE would you use it instead? Or perhaps you prefer the separate identity your current blog has?
Also you might be interested in reading this recent discussion at Moodle: Blogs, Forums and the nature of discussion
http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=27338
Matt
April 4th, 2006 at 12:26 pm
It seems that a lot of the frustrations that this presenter talks about would be alleviated by a basic Blackboard training session. The interface is a lot more flexible than he gives it credit for. Blackboard (and most other Course Management systems are simply repositories or matrices that aggregate content and
In this case, he should go into the Control Panel for his course, click on “Manage Course Menu” and add an External Link that points to his blog. From this point on he can simply work in Blogger for adding content to his course (or send email to blogger and not even log in), simplifying the workflow for him, and eliminating confusion on the part of his students. Additionally, he could set the blog to be his course entry point so that it’s the first thing that students see when they log in to the course. If he finds the Bb discussion board to be less useful for the way that he wants to teach, turn it off and use the comments in Blogger for discussion.
Another benefit he may see in this approach would be that students could subscribe to the RSS feed from Blogger and have the benefit of content “from their Bb course” being pushed to their RSS reader.
As this presenter learns more about the medium, that would make an interesting presentation.
April 4th, 2006 at 12:29 pm
Apologies, something got messed up in the above post… first paragraph should have read as follows:
It seems that a lot of the frustrations that this presenter talks about would be alleviated by a basic Blackboard training session. The interface is a lot more flexible than he gives it credit for. Blackboard (and most other Course Management systems) are simply repositories or matrices that aggregate content and wrap other collaborative tools around them like discussion, etc. as well as provide a common interface across all courses. Ideally, this allows students (and faculty) to focus on the content rather than the interface.
April 4th, 2006 at 12:56 pm
Ric-Nice job!
I’ve been planning on starting a blog and you have served as the impetus to finally just create one.
April 5th, 2006 at 9:25 am
Thanks for all the very kind posts!
I am in the rather odd situtation of working full time for a campus—Texas A&M–that does Not support Blackboard, while teaching part-time for another university–Northwestern State–that is totally dedicated to Blackboard.
We have NO Blackboard support at TAMU, thus I am self-taught at Blackboard & I have a lot to learn! I especially like the comment on linking my blog to Blackboard & I will try that very soon.
Thanks for the Great Comments!
Ric
April 5th, 2006 at 11:59 am
Glad it helps, and thanks again for putting this presentation out there. If you’re interested in training, lots of schools have a wealth of self-paced materials out for their faculty that are open to everyone. Check UNL’s for one example.
April 10th, 2006 at 8:45 pm
This is a great piece on the workings of both of these mediums. I myself am very new at using Blackboard so find your presentation extremely interesting. My colleague and I are making a presentation for the WASC conference on Thursday that is dealing with the use of a variety of technologies in post and undergraduate college programs. If it is okay with you we would like to just show our audience some of the comments you make about the combination of technologies. Thank you again Laurie Walters
April 12th, 2006 at 10:51 am
More focused use of blogging may be one way to increase participation. One good example you used was getting students involved by making the extra credit through the blog site. I’ve seen instructors in Penn State use it for communications with good results. One example is assignment submission. Students were given video projects and posted the links on the class blog. There they received feedback from both peers and the instructor. Cool stuff.
April 13th, 2006 at 10:53 am
Ric, nicely done! We have die-hard WebCT users at Atlantic Cape CC, who are wondering what all the fuss is about blogging, when they are perfectly happy with their discussion boards and topics. Your presentation showed some of the advantages of stepping out of traditional CMS’s and into the blogosphere. Thank you!
June 4th, 2006 at 6:57 am
I found the screencast an interesting view from a professional person who is now teaching and is confronted by the huge range of tools currently available to distance learning tutors.
I have to agree with other commenters that an orientation session or package on Blackboard would have helped to reduce the confusion.
I personally am encouraging colleagues to set up ‘blogger’ based blogs as a simple way of engaging pre-University students with e-learning. Later in full time programs we are experimenting with adding links from the blog to a VLE ‘course’ with handouts and guided discussion.
In my view, new facilities and tools must be added step by step to avoid the kinds of confusion that Ric documents among the students.