Virtual Classroom

Class organization

• Important information for students and parents
• Calendar and timetables
• Unit overviews
• Student grade/mark book and criteria sheets
• Student homepages

Virtual Classrooms (or private courses) are not listed on the Learning Place. The only participants are your own students or the staff at your school or place of work.

Virtual Classrooms are not quality assured by the Learning Place. This means that the content and design is chosen at the local level. The copyright and IP should be checked at the local level to ensure all material is clear of infringement.

Why use a Blackboard Virtual Classroom?

Many of the activities listed here are possible to provide in other online contexts. School websites, school intranets, and personal websites are all places where staff and students can access online content. So, why use Blackboard?

• You do not need web authoring skills. Content such as lesson overviews, assessment tasks, criteria sheets, links to web resources, downloadable files, worksheets, tutorials and mark books can all be easily created through the site control area of Blackboard using templates.
• Curriculum resources for students are available during and outside school hours, unlike most school intranets.
• Students can only access their own Virtual Classroom via a unique Learning Place username and password.
• Teachers absent on sick leave or attending a professional development activity can leave work for their students in their Virtual Classroom and check progress. Students on holidays can also check in with their class.
• Assessment items can be tracked through the use of self-marking quizzes and short answer items in the grade book.
• Students' progress during collaborative projects can be tracked. Students can work together conveniently after class hours.
• Students can submit drafts, plans and assessment items through the digital drop box.
• Promote substantive conversations and deeper understanding through discussion with invited guests.

Why wasn't this available before?

During the first year in operation, The Learning Place Blackboard licence was limited. Education Queensland was committed to ensuring that online learning was developed in a supportive learning environment and our Online Learning Coordinators facilitated hundreds of courses in Writing online courses. The licence has increased, as there are now over 21,000 registered users in the Learning Place.

It has become clear that many teachers do not want to develop full online learning courses. They would however, like to use the internet to support student learning and create clear and open forms of communication between the school, students, parents and community members. An Open House Trial was successfully run in Term 3, 2003 with over 120 teachers participating. Many teachers just wanted to explore Blackboard and see how this e-learning environment could support what they do in the classroom.