Blackboard: The new teacher
By Jessica Carver
IV Leader Staff, Oct. 19, 2006
You go to class the first day and receive a syllabus. The
teacher puts up a PowerPoint presentation for the notes; you copy them down. The
teacher comments on the notes. An assignment is passed out. You leave the class.
You go home and complete the assignment, and check your syllabus for upcoming
quizzes, tests and projects.
This sounds like a typical college class, right? Wrong!
More and more classes are being taught by Blackboard than by
the teachers who are being paid to teach the courses.
A friend of mine, who wishes to remain unnamed, has a teacher
exactly like this. She walked into the class on the first day and did not even
receive a tangible syllabus. She had to print it off Blackboard herself. It did
not list any of the assignments or tests.
The subsequent classes consisted of the teacher reading off
the notes on Blackboard, which the student also had to print off herself. Then
she had to take her first test. This was not tangible either; she took this on a
computer.
Teachers may have justifiable reasons for conducting their
classes like this, but from a student’s perspective, this makes them come off as
lazy and apathetic about fulfilling the duties of their job.
There is a big difference between integrating technology in
the classroom and being a lazy teacher.
I view Blackboard as a learning supplement, not a replacement
for teaching.