Following the Blackboard Conference on Twitter - has it fixed its major problem?

Last week I blogged about how I was following two teaching conferences in the UK by using Twitter - see "Lessons in learning: Don't do as I do, do as I say" - well, this week I am following the Blackboard* conference, which is currently being held in New Orleans, USA. The hash tag for the conference is #bbw12, and I must say I am seeing much more traffic from the US conference than I did from the two UK conferences last week combined.

Admittedly, following conferences remotely using Twitter is not the same as being there, but it does at least give you a feel for what is happening, and the picture that I am getting from the Blackboard conference is that there are some major changes on the way.

From what I can gather from the tweets Blackboard is really pushing into social learning, mobile learning (mLearning), active learning and the digital native (see Coming NOW to a school near you: The Active Learner and The Voice of the Active Learner) and also adding a lot of content from third parties (please feel free to correct this below). (And if you want to be really scared check out BbWorld 2012: Day 1 Recap).

Now, I think it is great that Blackboard is pushing in to these areas as I think that is where eLearning is going, however, I have one question, and that is: Has Blackboard fixed its major problems before it tries to jump on to the next bandwagon?

So what do I see as Blackboard biggest problem? Well, it can be summed up in one word – assessment! (Well, maybe two words assessment and feedback.) This is critical stuff as pretty much every student survey I have ever seen, from in-house data to the The National Student Survey in the UK, has flagged up lack of feedback on assessments as the major concern of the student. Plus, how do we, the lectures/teachers, measure how much our students have learnt? Assessment. (I did see some tweets saying that the assessment analytics in Blackboard have been improved, but nothing on improvements in feedback or on the type and style of assessment that can be used.)

In a blog post back in January 2011, I highlighted the problems with assessments in Blackboard. In the post I used an 'open book' assessment as an example, and discussed that as Blackboard feedback is limited to:

1. Give back nothing - no mark, no feedback.
2. Give back just a mark.
3. Give back everything - the mark, the right answers and the feedback.

That is, there was no mechanism by which the mark and feedback could be given.

After I wrote that post a colleague pointed out that students could actually get feedback on an 'open book' assessment if after the assessment period finished I returned to the assessment, made it available through Grade Center, and then e-mailed the students and told them that they could get their mark and feedback in their Grade Book. This was a solution, but a very complicated and involved solution, and far from ideal. Far too many clicks from my liking!

But, if Blackboard has really embraced active learning, then surely they must have improved the assessment and feedback system within Blackboard, but have they? I certainly haven't seen any evidence on twitter that they have.

Are you at the Blackboard conference? Do you know any different? Have they improved the assessment and feedback system? If you do, then please share your information below.

* Blackboard is a virtual learning environment (VLE) – see "Do you speak my language: V is for Volume, Vapourware, Virus, VoIP, VNC, VPN, VLE, Virtual Campus" - that is used in a lot of schools, colleges and universities.

Image: A blackboard used by Albert Einstein in a 1931 lecture in Oxford. The last three lines give numerical values for the density (ρ), radius (P), and age of the universe. The blackboard is on permanent display in the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford - link