School reopenings -current plan WAS McHugh's plan

Sorry. You have to watch your back with them. Little darlings !

we wont need (educational licence) for zoom sure we will all no matter what be back In the classroom ...

teachinggal123 wrote: »

Zoom, Skype, MS Teams or any of those other ‘commercial’ level videoconferencing platforms won’t work in secondary or primary.

The Blackboard learning platform have a virtual classroom called collaborate ultra. This is specifically designed for teaching and is the only platform that will work for us. The problem is that Blackboard is expensive and there is a learning curve for teachers .... both technically and pedagogically ... which will be a hard sell.

The answer might be for the Dept to get a license which can be available to all schools. This needs to be supported by training for teachers. There will also need to be time for teachers to transfer all material to PowerPoint etc.

Finally, this has to be compulsory. No exceptions. No excuses. Teachers have to use this if schools are closed. If students don’t engage that’s their issue. Any student recording the sessions etc will be sanctioned ... zero tolerance for idiocy and messing.

Anything less than that won’t work.

No chance of any of that happening tho.

Why is blackboard the *only* one that will work?

I've used blackboard extensively in the past and personally found it an absolutely terrible platform. It was a number of years back and may be much better now. Plenty of other people have a different view on it and thought it was brilliant.

There's a whole host of different platforms available. There are pros and cons to each one. For example, there's no reason why Zoom and Google Classroom won't work. If I was given the choice, it would be what I would lean towards.

teachinggal123 wrote: »

I’m talking about a Blackboard add on called “collaborate ultra”. This is specifically designed for online/blended teaching ... Zoom and Skype are not.

There are also teaching tools baked in to collaborate ultra which Zoom & Skype don’t have.

There are plenty of YouTube videos for anyone not familiar with the platform.

I'm familiar with collaborate ultra. You've stated it is the *only* suitable platform but provide no justification for this.

From a teaching perspective, I can achieve everything needed with Zoom, Google Classroom and a wacom tablet to deliver a fully interactive class (not that this is what I actually want to deliver).

Blackboard is not the *only* solution, it is *a* solution. There are a whole host of other alternatives which will suit different needs. Each having their own pro's and con's.

Can you justify why this one specific software is the *only* solution?

Im not an expert and I’m just giving my opinion on BB collaborate. It is designed for teaching whereas the other platforms mentioned are not. It links with the material you put on BB. It links with all the other discussion boards, blogs and other teaching tools available on BB. It has security features for teaching that Zoom etc don’t have. It manages bandwidth effectively for slower connections. It has mobile apps for iPhone and android. It is the primary online collaborative teaching platform used by everyone from the top Ivy League Universities to smaller schools in Africa.

If anyone has other opinions and thinks there are better platforms for teaching that’s fine. As usual, I’m just giving my own opinion.


Edited to say that there is an open source (free) alternative to BB called Moodle. I don’t know if it has a collaborate ultra type option. Some ETBs have this ... I know KWETB definitely have ... so that might be another option.

As long is there is a plan that is consistent, that will work and that comes from the Dept I personally don’t care if we use tin cans and a piece of string. Anything is better than this disorganised disjointed and piecemeal approach that is left to each school to sort out. That is trouble.

I've used Moodle. It's not that great. I've used blackboard at University level. It's fine, not any better than 365 though. The Microsoft full suite has my vote due to the level of integration and the somewhat intuitive nature of the Microsoft platform. Integrated email, file storage, file sorting, Teams and my beloved assignments. Especially for junior classes I found the forms setup with the ease of tracking assessment of and for learning across time to be excellent. For LC the OneNote ended up being the star with the added benefit of smooth, fast compiling with Microsoft stream for demonstration videos. Phone apps are excellent too

The other thing that swayed the principal eventually to my pitch was the fact we are preparing kids for the real world ......Microsoft is the prevalent platform and operating system......makes sense for them to be comfortable with it in general.

teachinggal123 wrote: »

Im not an expert and I’m just giving my opinion on BB collaborate. It is designed for teaching whereas the other platforms mentioned are not. It links with the material you put on BB. It links with all the other discussion boards, blogs and other teaching tools available on BB. It has security features for teaching that Zoom etc don’t have. It manages bandwidth effectively for slower connections. It has mobile apps for iPhone and android. It is the primary online collaborative teaching platform used by everyone from the top Ivy League Universities to smaller schools in Africa.

If anyone has other opinions and thinks there are better platforms for teaching that’s fine. As usual, I’m just giving my own opinion.


Edited to say that there is an open source (free) alternative to BB called Moodle. I don’t know if it has a collaborate ultra type option. Some ETBs have this ... I know KWETB definitely have ... so that might be another option.

As long is there is a plan that is consistent, that will work and that comes from the Dept I personally don’t care if we use tin cans and a piece of string. Anything is better than this disorganised disjointed and piecemeal approach that is left to each school to sort out. That is trouble.

There's nothing you've stated there that cannot be achieved by Zoom linked with Google Classroom. BB doesn't handle slower connections efficiently, it's not optimized for that at all. It's strengths lie with it's interface and the management system behind it. Zoom or Skype which is specifically designed for conference calls are far better at handling poor connectivity.

My single point was with your use of the word only, nothing else. BB is an option, one I think that is quite poor. You've used the word *only* yet it appears you've just discovered Moodle, one of the most popular Learning Management Systems out there. The most popular world wide I believe. That tells me everything I need to know.

Blackboard uses Microsoft Teams to allow interactive classes through their courses. I don't know how much you know about these programs. 365 is a different beast to use in University because you have to pay. Secondary schools don't. Licensing issues but also the level of in house support required to run effectively play into this massively. I've never heard any ICT expert suggest blackboard to secondary. They are just quite different fundamentally

teachinggal123 wrote: »

How do you know BB doesn’t handle slower connections more effectively than Zoom etc?

If BB is “quite poor” as an option why do the best Universities and schools all around the world use it in preference to the platforms you claim are better?

Because I was asked to look into such applications as part of a committee last year for my University. I spoke to one of the reps and the conclusions drawn was Collaborate Ultra is a relatively poor piece of kit. We went with Zoom.

Blackboard and Moodle are used among Universities worldwide because there is relatively few options available. Google Classrooms and Teams work on a class or module level but do not work for very large institutions. Linking Moodle to a student information system so modules can be centrally created/destroyed and populated with new students as they register is relatively simple to do in Moodle/Blackboard. It can be done in Teams and Classrooms but they are not designed for this and, for this reason, don't do it very well. Hence why Moodle/Blackboard are heavily used.

For primary/secondary schools, Teams or Google Classrooms would seem to me to be by far the best fit. A lot of my peers run their lectures through Google Classrooms. That's my opinion. I questioned your use of the word *only* and nothing else.

lulublue22 wrote: »

I’ve no doubt things can and probably will change however it is still clear that the gov’s back to school plan hinges on the belief that students don’t transmit the disease to the same extent as adults nor are as adversely affected as adults otherwise they would not have countenanced a full return. Time will tell if it is the correct decision or not.

This naïve belief was neverore than wishful thinking.

Recent extensive studies of over 60,000 contacts in South Korea have shown over 10s are as likely to catch and transmit CoViD-19 as adults, if not more likely.¹

The outbreak in a Georgia,US camp² which infected 260 children and teens shows younger children to actually be at more likely to catch CoViD-19 than older children.

"The overall attack rate was 44% (260 of 597), 51% among those aged 6–10 years, 44% among those aged 11–17 years, and 33% among those aged 18–21 years"

If the government do not reassess their plans for reopening schools in the light of increasing evidence that children equally need to take similar public health measures as adults, then they are being negligent. If they don't they are either incompetent or dishonest.

The least they could do is be honest if they are making a conscious decision to place reopening schools (and hence the economy by allowing more parents back to work) above the public health risk.

At the moment their decisions don't appear to be based on sound science. I think it's only a question of how long before their plans come unstuck unless they rethink and incorporate greater public health measures.

¹ https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/18/health/coronavirus-children-schools.html

² https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6931e1.htm

Bobtheman wrote: »

The government needs to issue clear guidelines on online teaching. Guidelines that protect teachers legally. Not waffle.
But unfortunately the poor little children brigade will stop that happening.
The age of criminal intent is what 10? But seems like the law is either not applied to kids in school or there is no law stopping kids putting your video online.

What legal protections and guidelines are you looking for? I'm genuinely curious as opposed to criticising that view. At third level, I've zero issue with online teaching but I have much more control and the average age in my class is 21+. I can see it is very different at second level but what are the actual concerns?