Cycle 1
Purpose of my Action Research
The purpose of my Action Research Project is to discover an efficient method of disseminating training on our technology-related systems at Keystone College to the entire campus. This entails finding a means of providing information to students, faculty, and administration on what they need to know to operate our Learning Management System(LMS), Content Management System(CMS), E-mail system, and several other in-house technologies that we employ. In the past these operational issues were addressed via a face-to-face training class, in an interdisciplinary studies course, or on a case-by-case basis via email or our issue management system. All of these methods were increasingly incapable of keeping up with the volume of inquisitions per semester, and the balance of available person-hours required to handle these issues was stretched thin.
The solution I am proposing through my Action Research work is the development of a CMS devoted to training materials specifically associated with the technology that Keystone College uses. This management system allows our department to develop multimedia training and export it for delivery on the Media Services Website, providing an easy-to-use, and easy-to-locate, source of information.
Targeted Audience
There are several different factions of users that I am attempting to address with this management system. The first and foremost is our faculty. Providing training on the use of curriculum-enhancing software’s like Blackboard may ease some of the anxiety associated with utilizing an LMS in the classroom. The next set of users that I hope will benefit from this system is the students. From new incoming freshmen to seniors whom have not yet used our LMS, CMS, or other systems, I hope that Media Services training website can provide quick and easy lessons so that students can incorporate these technologies into their educational experience. The final set of users that could potentially use this system would be our administration and staff. The technology systems that we utilize on campus are not strictly academic, and I feel that employee’s could use the Media Services system to learn how to place a work-order request, or to get an issue resolved.
Instructional Goal
The instructional goal of this program was to introduce users to the training system, while also providing training on our LMS system. In this way the users would be able to revisit the training website for additional training as needed.
Learning Domains
This research is primarily based in the Cognitive Domain of Bloom’s Taxonomy (Forehand, 2010), with elements of psychomotor skills involved. The idea behind the development of this Action Research project was to allow the learner to become familiar with the procedures required to navigate and operate the Blackboard LMS.
Learning Objectives
At the end of the training session the learner would be able to locate training materials on the Media Services website. The learner would need to have computer access to the Internet, use a browser that supports the Adobe Flash Player and Javascript, and the ability to access the URL, http://mediaservices.keystone.edu. The tutorials required for this portion of the training are found on the site, under the applicable topic heading. By the end of the training the user must be able to locate the training materials, and be capable of performing the following checklist of skills in Blackboard:
•Able to login into the Blackboard system, and navigate the My Institution page
•Able to enter a Virtual Class Shell
•Able to enroll students
•Able to post Announcements
•Able to post items to a Content Area
•Able to create an Assignment
•Able to create a Test
•Able to use the Discussion Board
•Able to use the Grade Center
•Understands the use of the Collaboration Tools
•Able to perform a course copy
•Able to export or archive their course
Instructional Approach
For the first cycle of my research project I tried our system out on a faculty demographic in the context of Blackboard training. During the first two weeks of June, I ran a two-part Blackboard Learn 9 training seminar using the Media Services website to teach. All of the attendees of the training were instructors from various divisions at Keystone who wanted to become more familiar with the use of our Blackboard LMS. The training was conducted in a computer-lab with fourteen workstations in it. The trainees were given headsets, and instructed to login into their Blackboard accounts and enroll as student users into the “Blackboard Training” virtual classroom. Within this training classroom there where two learning modules. The first learning module contained a list of topics to be covered for introductory use of the Blackboard system. The second module was designed for more advanced lessons. As directed by each lesson, the learner would click a hyperlink to open the Media Services website and locate the tutorials specific to the lesson. After watching all the videos in the lesson, the learners were asked to take a short ten-question survey regarding their satisfaction with the type of training. The results of the survey will assist in guiding the next direction of this project. I hope that the feedback will provide new insights as to the effectiveness of training in this way.
References
Forehand, M. (2010). Bloom’s Taxonomy. Retrieved July 1, 2010 from
http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php?title=Bloom%27s_Taxonomy#What_is_Bloom.27s_Taxonomy.3F
