Bye-bye blackboard

http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/blackboard/introduction.htm

by yitchelle • 11 years ago

81 89 11 years ago

mhs.ox.ac.uk

tluyben2• 11 years ago

I was hoping this was about the Blackboard software; some of the worst product I had the displeasure of working with in my life.

pathy• 11 years ago

This was my initial reaction as well but I was pleasantly surprised. This is a lot more interesting than any replacement software for BB.

almightysmudge• 11 years ago

Even the install is a mishmash of voodoo and arcane knowledge. Horrible horrible thing.

danso• 11 years ago

I came here just to say the same exact thing.

hippich7• 11 years ago

A lot of issues were because of laws/policies required to install software on the premises... And making such complex software to perform well, when school sysadmin manages it, can be hard to make bulletproof. As laws and mindset changes, Blackboard moves to SaaS model with much more precise control over configuration, deployment, etc.

As for software itself, if you are interested, google "new learning experience blackboard". This is 1 year old initiative to bring friendlier UI and as much as possible focus on student, instead of schools. And with acquisition of MyEdu there is push towards students owning their data, not schools. It is hard from both political (schools hate idea of not owning data) and technical standpoints, but we are slowly getting there :)

jules6• 11 years ago

I just watched their promo video, and it's still terrible, but with a less ancient looking skin. Interesting how they can so completely miss the point.

vinceyuan• 11 years ago

I am surprised to see the bad comments about Blackboard software. I never use it. But my ex-manager and several ex-colleagues (software developers and QA) are now working for Blackboard. They are confident in their company's future.

hnal943• 11 years ago

That doesn't mean that they make good software.

niels_olson• 11 years ago

That's because blackboard is a lot like Oracle they have more lawyers than programmers.

megaman22• 11 years ago

Blackboard has wicked lock-in, and contracts with the kinds of organizations that just keep paying their support and maintenance contracts for year after year after year. They could sit on their hands for the next half-decade and have a bright future.

tdaltonc4• 11 years ago

I spent a lot of time a few years ago trying to build a BB replacement [0] that we ended up abandoning. Here's what I learned:

The LMS (learning management system) sales decision in made by either the university administration or the office for information technology (using a checklist made by the administration). Neither of these groups have significant contact with the UX, so they don't really care about it. And the people that do have contact with the UX (teachers/students) all want different things, but have no way of having their concerns heard by the decision makers.

One of the very important checklists items is that there be thorough documentation provided on how to preform every course relevant action. This is so that the computer illiterate art teacher can be hander a 500 page manual and be told that he now has no excuse not to use the LMS. This has the side effect of making UX improvement basically impossible, because the improvement would likely break the manual (that no one actually uses) and thereby violate the terms of the sale contract.

From the perspective of a UX designer, working in this space has all of the downsides of designing for enterprise plus all of the downsides of designing for multiple user groups that all want different things. I really wish I had understood this when I started that project.

EDIT: I got an email asking if there are any ways to make this market work from a designers perspective. One that I've seen work quite well is to borrow the textbook business model: Ignore the administration, cater to faculty, fuck the students. TopHat [1] has had a lot of success with this model. Just like with text books, a teacher deicides to use a tool, and then forces all of the students to pay for it. Your 2 users personas are tech-savvy teachers and college students. Both of these groups are prepared for frequent UX tweaks and UX improvements are rewarded with more repeat business instead of indifference. So it's a big win from a designers perspective. The business model is borderline immoral, but the more I learn about the higher ed market, the more convinced I become that it is the least bad option for operating in a very broken system.

[0] http://rootlearn.com/

[1] https://tophat.com/

arenaninja• 11 years ago

Ahhh yes. The joys of not being to make UX improvements because the manual already printed @_@

jules6• 11 years ago

The best option for Blackboard higher education is, IMO, fuck the decision makers, ignore the faculty, cater to the students. Let students edit all the info, faculty will get on board when they see students using it, decision makers want control when faculty and students are using it -> $$$.

The reason is teachers only care about Blackboard insofar as they are forced to use it by the administration. They don't really get anything out of it. This is different than interactive lecture software like TopHat, which teachers like. Students on the other hand do get something out of a working Blackboard: they get info they want to see such as homework due dates, what to study for exams, homework help from other students, etc. Unlike with TopHat there is also a strong network effect necessary, which you would get out of focusing on students.

ScottBurson• 11 years ago

In case anyone else is wondering, the comments are evidently referring to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackboard_Inc.

and not this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackboard_system

tmwh91• 11 years ago

We use this:

https://www.learnium.com/about/

amyjess• 11 years ago

I've encountered worse. When I was in college, we used WebCT.

I'm fairly sure students could've written a better tool as a senior project.

(edit: oh, hey, Blackboard bought WebCT a while back. Eww.)

justinmk• 11 years ago

Meanwhile, Blackboard software[1] continues to infect universities with its half-baked cash-grab approach to UX (slop on a nominal manifestation of a "feature" so that it can be listed in a sales-pitch checklist, then let it languish for years and move on to our next anti-interpretation of a UI fad we heard about 5 degrees removed). It is obvious why their HQ is located in Washington, D.C.

[1] http://www.blackboard.com

TazeTSchnitzel• 11 years ago

I've used two other Virtual Learning Environments (Fronter, GLOW) and they were equally bad. Fronter, interestingly, has a very serious XSS vulnerability that my school got mad at me for pointing out.

tjl3• 11 years ago

My university switched to DesireToLearn's software. It was terrible, especially when I was trying to enter grades. It was simpler and faster to export the grades, bring them into Excel, make the changes and then upload the new grades rather than deal with their horrid interface.

acdha2• 11 years ago

You've just described basically all enterprise software. This is the somewhat inevitable outcome of a process where very large deals depend on a checklist but neither the implementers nor the buyers personally use the product.

ssharp2• 11 years ago

So is this an effect of byers not having to use the product, or the fact that the checklist is huge and the software has to fit a ton of distinct use-cases that ultimately makes the software bad. I've never worked on enterprise software like that, so I'm honestly not sure.

At a previous job, I had to bend Blackboard a little to do what I needed it to do and this was my only exposure to Blackboard from the admin/instructor side. I had interacted with it as a student and found it sufficient.

From the admin side, it was certainly unintuitive, like most other enterprise software. However, also like most other enterprise software, once you used it enough and/or did the necessary training, it did make more sense.

I'd be curious to know examples of enterprise software that is easy to learn and use without having to build experience or go through training.

drzaiusapelord• 11 years ago

My understanding is that its hard to be competitive in this space because Blackboard is very patent litigious. Patent 6,988,138 “Internet-based education support system and methods” is considered overly-broad and has been used against competitors.

An East Texas jury gave Blackboard 2.5m in damages in a suit against a competitor in 2008 using this patent. Read the patent, it a complete cockup, by the already low standards of the USPTO. The abstract is laughable because its so broad:

A system and methods for implementing education online by providing institutions with the means for allowing the creation of courses to be taken by students online, the courses including assignments, announcements, course materials, chat and whiteboard facilities, and the like, all of which are available to the students over a network such as the Internet. Various levels of functionality are provided through a three-tiered licensing program that suits the needs of the institution offering the program. In addition, an open platform system is provided such that anyone with access to the Internet can create, manage, and offer a course to anyone else with access to the Internet without the need for an affiliation with an institution, thus enabling the virtual classroom to extend worldwide.

hippich7• 11 years ago

I believe about 3 years ago, a lot of top management of Blackboard was changed. And focus right now, at least how employees see it, is on quality of software.

pbhjpbhj• 11 years ago

Abstracts don't define the patent, claims do.

In the UK the abstract is part of the patentee's submission, but examiners would redraft them as needed to make them useful. IIRC the USPTO doesn't spend any resources on abstract re-drafting(?) and so abstracts are very poor.

US6988138 is "EXPIRED DUE TO FAILURE TO PAY MAINTENANCE FEE" as of 2014; note that in 2010 it was "EXPIRED DUE TO REEXAMINATION WHICH CANCELED ALL CLAIMS"!

nso95• 11 years ago

The UX makes no sense, they obviously don't use their own software or do any sort of user testing.

dang• 11 years ago

Ouch, please let's not go off topic like this. Whimsical asides are one thing, but tangents of indignation are coal to Newcastle.

jiantastic• 11 years ago

Thought this was referring to the Blackboard software. From the comments it seems that people agree with me :)

reustle• 11 years ago

I think those are the people who didn't open the article

andreiw• 11 years ago

Yeah, having graduated in '08 I still have way too vivid recollections of dealing with this horrible-horrible web app...

jerf• 11 years ago

Is the blackboard really disappearing, though? First, while there are some subtly-different affordances between a whiteboard and a blackboard, they're not that different. Second, where powerpoint and presentations and slides are making inroads are in places where the blackboard was already simply being used for slide delivery. A professor can get up in front of a 500-person class and say whatever words they like about how they want this to be an interactive experience, but it's still by-and-large a bulk slide dispensing class by necessity. (I say this as one of the lunatics who would participate even so, so yes, I know it's possible. But on average, 496 people are passively sitting there.)

Once you clear away the essentially non-interactive uses, is it really "disappearing"? Except for maybe a few whiteboards instead of blackboards, it's not going anywhere any time soon, I think. I've never seen a digital replacement that even comes close.

All the blackboards they show that are plausibly snapshots from real classes (as opposed to the three or four that are being used just a political polemics) would still be blackboard-based today, quite likely.

protomyth2• 11 years ago

I don't really see blackboards disappearing. They just evolved into dry erase boards, then smart boards. The successors are still blackboards in function and form, but they are just better, cleaner technology. Now, my blackboard can be viewed in different places and at different times.

detaro2• 11 years ago

I've yet to see a board that actually is better. Different, yes, but not better.

baldfat3• 11 years ago

I went on a classroom tour at Princeton. I was there for a confrence of Librarians. On the tour there was construction happening in all the classrooms.

Princeton removed all their white boards and replaced them with black boards. Reason the professors kept using permanent markers on them and the person in-charge replaced all of them that summer. (2007)

bpyne• 11 years ago

Our professors used markers on our smart boards. Very expensive mistakes.

LgWoodenBadger• 11 years ago

All you have to do is trace over the permanent marker with a dry-erase marker, and then erase. Comes off as if it was all dry-erase ink. Works on a variety of surfaces (I removed permanent marker from a stainless steel coffee mug that I inherited using this technique)

wldcordeiro• 11 years ago

I always found that blackboards were easier to read, there's a better contrast between the writing and the board and they're less prone to glare unlike whiteboards.

nickysielicki• 11 years ago

Once you clear away the essentially non-interactive uses, is it really "disappearing"? Except for maybe a few whiteboards instead of blackboards, it's not going anywhere any time soon, I think. I've never seen a digital replacement that even comes close.

Using powerpoint slides to set up the problem and then a microsoft surface to work through it is what one of my current professors does. It's amazing. I used to feel the same way you did, but it is going away. To be able to record this with his voice is what makes it special.

monochromatic• 11 years ago

I may be turning into an old fart, but I'll always prefer a blackboard for doing math. I'm not sure why, but whiteboards just feel... wrong.

gadders• 11 years ago

This is a bit old - Bobby Robson died in 2009.

throwaway049• 11 years ago

On the intro page it mentions the guest blackboards were prepared in early 2005.

jordigh4• 11 years ago

I hope the maths departments still cherish chalk boards. When I was teaching in 2007, I specifically requested a blackboard when all of my colleagues preferred whiteboards.

the_real_nfm• 11 years ago

My math professors all preferred blackboards because chalk is an order of magnitude cheaper than markers. Of course, all of our classrooms had whiteboards. :)

tjr• 11 years ago

I have fond memories of my favorite math professor, always looking somewhat disheveled, and often with streaks of chalk on his clothes or in his hair. Whiteboards just aren't the same.

LukeShu• 11 years ago

Apparently there was a preferred chalk of mathematicians; but Hagoromo chalk just went out of business. A chemistry professor of one of my classes read an article in some journal bemoaning this, so he decided to pick up and try some while he still could, see what all mathematicians were in to.

sjy• 11 years ago

It's interesting that blackboards are almost exclusively used to teach mathematics these days (at least in my experience at university). It's still much easier to do maths by hand than with a keyboard. Is that just a side effect of the way our keyboards are designed, or is there something deeper going on?

nathancahill• 11 years ago

Try typing something as simple as a fraction. You'll quickly discover that it's not the keyboard, but our convention of formatting text in lines. LaTeX and now MathJax solve this for writing papers, but to quickly write math expressions, you have to do it by hand.

kraig• 11 years ago

this is something mathcad had done very well imo. it provided you with a blank page where you could write anywhere and the equations nearly looked like they had been written with latex. even better, all changes to variables were live and you could tweak things anywhere to see how it effected your numbers. miss it a lot. calca is similar to it now on the mac, but not nearly as pretty and you still end up with lines of text and no equations.

derefr• 11 years ago

It's brain damage from a 30-year period of effectively WISIWYG monospace TTYs (sure, we had compose keys, but otherwise it was pretty much one key-press : one on-screen character).

Modal styling (ala WordStar and all its descendants—tools requiring you to break flow to find the Bold button), and markup languages like LaTeX or SGML, are crutches to deal with the limited interaction model the TTY + keyboard setup gave us.

There's another, very different interaction model for entering text, though—the IME, where the OS keeps a buffer of keys, presents menus, retargets modifier keypresses to itself, and delivers its own synthesized objects (which don't have to be characters, but usually are) to the application in place of your typing. The TTY brain damage has caused us to think of the IME as merely a domain-specific tool for entering international characters, and sometimes for accessibility. (Or, in a maddeningly singular out-of-domain use, for entering identifiers into IDEs.)

But a "math IME"[1]—or a "rich-text IME"[2], or an "AST IME"[3]—would be much simpler to wrangle than a markup language, or a styling mode. You could stay in flow, in about the same way Emacs' Paredit and Outline modes keep you in flow.

---

[1] As an aside, the program Mathematica acts like a "math IME"—but it's an illusion, and only works for the "text" that stays within its confines. It isn't using your input to directly manipulate a sequence of real Unicode characters (or MathML, or whatever) that happen to render through the OS as a mathematical expression, which you could copy and paste into and out of the program as you please and so forth. It's just using your input to shape an internal tree structure, and then rendering that tree structure itself. It's more like a very clever WYSIWYG markup editor, like LyX.

[2] I've noticed lately that Tumblr's post editor (of all things) is half-way to a rich-text IME given that it can do inline menu-driven text replacement. But it doesn't do the key thing: buffer the user's direct text input at the "menu-driven" layer. Yes, if they did this, and the user was using an OS IME, this would result in a sort of "IME stack", where the user's IME resolved into text in the application's IME buffer, which you would then tell the application to resolve. It works, but it'd be much better if the application could just hand off a descriptor file or plug-in of some sort to extend the OS's own IME with the application's formatting options. (Where browsers could then expose that capability as an HTML5 API, etc etc.)

[3] Seems crazy that it's editors, and not IMEs, that automatically balance bracket pairs, no? Picture a Unicode codepoint for "enclosure of list of length N" for all reasonable N, and a set of combining characters to tell it what kind of list it is (S-expression, vector, set, dictionary literal, etc.) If your IME can intelligently insert those, and your text-rendering system understands circumfix/interfix combining characters, then you get your brackets (and probably commas or whatever else) for free, and it becomes literally impossible to have unpaired brackets or invalid lists, because at the character level, what you have is a prefix-length serialized tree. And modern OSes would handle that fine! (And, most fascinating of all, the difference in such a system between rendering a function call as "(a b)" and "a(b)", or a list as "[a b]" vs "[a, b]" comes down to your font choice.)

tdaltonc4• 11 years ago

I think that it has a lot to do with embodied cognition [0]. But every mathematician I've explained that too find the idea repugnant.

[0] http://www.amazon.com/Where-Mathematics-Come-From-Embodied/d...

dschep• 11 years ago

I've even found that to be the case before digitization. Everyone else switched to white(dry erease)boards. Mathematicians just love chalk.

jagger27• 11 years ago

FWIW, all of the lecture halls and most of the tutorial rooms at Carleton University still have blackboards. A few labs have whiteboards, every room has a projector or two, but the blackboard is still ever present here.

kzhahou• 11 years ago

For those that didn't get the title reference, it borrows from the jazz standard Bye Bye Blackbird.

Here is Miles Davis on the great 1957 album, 'Round About Midnight:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KV2lNHfSXBQ

Someone• 11 years ago

yitchelle• 11 years ago

Thanks for sharing this. I learn a couple of new thing with that.

Bye-bye blackboard

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