Welcome – Page 2

By Nancy Pitts
Assistant Dean, International
Associate Professor, Analytical Food Chemistry
Faculty of Agriculture, Dalhousie University

They say hindsight is 20/20. Here is some of my ‘hindsight wisdom’ which I offer hoping it helps other colleagues prepare for their initial use of BrightSpace.

Having adopted and used 4 different LMS (webct, Moodle, Blackboard, BrightSpace) in the last half decade, many of us at the Faculty of Agriculture have a certain level of ‘experience’ in adopting a new LMS.

My personal number 1 is to gain access to a “sandbox” and just ‘play around’ until you develop an intuitive sense of capability and function. (Unfortunately ‘sandboxes’ were not initially available in the summer of 2015 as we were approaching the move to BrightSpace. I understand that these are available from the outset for the next Faculties to transition.)

Number 2: Take the 2-3 hour Foundations training session. Have your computer with you, scribble notes to remind you months later of ‘nuggets’, and play around in your sandbox. (It sounds simplistic, but the time I spent exploring in my sandbox was time that paid back as I started to work on my course.)

Number 3: Recognize that the widget system and menu organization still results in a linear presentation of course information (oh, for icon-based LMS that are more student-click compatible and intuitive for them; oh, for the days of webct!)

Number 4: Having fondly remembered webct, nevertheless, I state without reservation that BrightSpace is the next most instructor and student-friendly LMS I have experienced. I hope you find that too as you adopt it.

Number 5: I learned quickly to use the widgets and prefer the widget selection list organized by Name and not Category (the categories did not resonate with me).

Number 6: From previous experiences adopting a new LMS, I reminded myself to start realistically and don’t try to re-vamp the total course design the first year of adoption. Slow and easy; be ready yourself for the first day in front of the students. Be real and admit that you are learning alongside of the class! (Next year is time to take advantage of different capability of the LMS.)

Number 7: Migration – I opted to have just my files and folders moved into BrightSpace and I chose to design my own Course Content menu and front page. That decision was founded on my emerging level of comfort and confidence (yeah, sandbox!).

Number 8: Loving Widgets; Wishing for Gnomes…. But that is the next blog entry!

By Doug Rogers
Project Manager, Technology Enabled Learning: LMS Implementation

It has been a busy few months for the technology-enabled learning LMS (Learning Management System) implementation project.

From April-June 2015, the project team worked with D2L (the company behind Brightspace) to configure Dalhousie’s instance of Brightspace. During this time, Dal’s trainers, including Instructional Designers, Systems Administrators and Faculty Support staff, received core training from D2L. We also began development of training and curriculum materials (these efforts are on-going).

In May, phase one participants were chosen and invited to participate in the implementation of Brightspace. They include:

Faculty of Agriculture
Faculty of Architecture and Planning
School of Social Work
Centre for Advanced Management Education

These programs were chosen because of their self-contained nature which would limit the number of faculty and students using two systems. Each early adopter group was invited to a Needs Analysis in mid-June, after which, a training program was developed and implemented for each group. Training began mid summer, and is still taking place.

Course migrations for phase one participants took place over a three-week period beginning in early July. During this time, a snapshot of each course in Blackboard was taken, so that the migrated course in Brightspace could be cleaned up and matched to the Blackboard course. Course migrations have gone smoothly and the project team is actually ahead of schedule. Phase one adopters have also had their January 2016 courses migrated from Bblearn to Brightspace.

This summer has been a learning experience for everyone involved in phase one of the pilot. The LMS will officially launch on September 1^st when the Centre for Advanced Management Education begin their live classes in the new system. It has been a collective effort throughout the summer and we are prepared for the launch of Brightspace at Dalhousie.

You can find out more about the TEL LMS implementation project by visiting dal.ca/elearning.

Please contact the Project Manager, Doug.Rogers@dal.ca if you have any questions.