These Blackboard courses will be offered initially to teachers involved in the first-year Master’s degree programme at the Department of Aesthetics and Communication and the Department of Culture and Society. Before next semester starts (primarily in June and August), teachers will get the chance to sign up for various forms of short course run by the Centre for Teaching Development and Digital Media. Kirsten Lund (the project manager responsible for implementing the courses) explains:
 “Teachers can take part in various courses to meet their specific needs – including participating in an introductory course and taking an on-line course at home. You can also book a café meeting with some of your colleagues, or get individual support for your own courses.”

There will also be information meetings at both departments to introduce the system. At the Department of Education, where an older version of Blackboard is already in use, the same short courses will be on offer. You can sign up for these at the end of the year, before the new version of Blackboard is introduced in the spring of 2015.

 Do you need a course?

In addition to courses focusing on how to use Blackboard, there will also be three days of workshops during the semesters ahead with a view to ensuring the general development of competences in connection with the implementation of Educational IT. The faculty management team has allocated the resources needed to develop the competences of teachers: an initial workshop before the semester starts, a mid-semester seminar including sparring and support, and a knowledge-sharing workshop after the end of the semester. Teachers taking part in this process will be credited 22.5 hours of work. 

The course design will allow for teaching-related and subject-didactic discussions. Competence development processes can be tailor made for teams of teachers, focusing among other things on Blackboard and the support provided by digital media for study activities and new forms of teaching and learning. All full-time employees of the faculty (excluding assistant professors and PhD students) are expected to take part in the process during the next three years. It would be a good idea if teachers from the Department of Education who are already familiar with Blackboard started thinking about these courses already. 

For further information

• Read the course descriptions for teachers and administrative staff and sign up (The homepage is currently being translated)
• And read New joint learning management system for students and staff at the Faculty of Arts

Contact:

If you have any questions about the short educational courses, please feel free to contact:

Project manager Kirsten Lund

Mail: klund@tdm.au.dk

Mobile phone: 21551330

For questions about competence development, please contact

Coordinator Christian Winther Bech

Mail: cwbech@tdm.au.dk

Mobile phone: 21669706

Facts: Which students will be using Blackboard as their learning platform after the summer holiday?

 Phase 1: Autumn 2014: First-year Master’s students at the Department of Aesthetics and Communication and the Department of Culture and Society, apart from students of theology, archaeology and the international track for students of history entitled “International and Global History”.

Phase 2: Spring 2015: All other students at the Department of Aesthetics and Communication and the Department of Culture and Society, as well as all the students at the Department of Education.