WebCT: Thing of the past
Date: Apr 29th, 2009 • Categories: Administration, Campus News, News • 921 viewsBy:2008-2009, 2009-04-30, Quinten Plummer
Quinten Plummer
Staff Writer
qlplummer@valdosta.edu
As spring classes at Valdosta State University come to a close, the VSU Distance Learning Department, in conjunction with the information technology department, prepare to roll out a replacement to our currently outdated WebCT software.
“We’re moving to a newer version of WebCT because the entire University system [of Georgia] is upgrading” said Jon Sizemore, Assistant Director for Distance Learning. “Blackboard, WebCT’s vendor, will no longer support the version we have, so that’s another reason we have to upgrade,” Sizemore continued.
Technically, VSU is upgrading from version 3.7 of WebCT to version 8.
“It sounds like a big leap, but it’s not,” explains Sizemore. And as Sizemore explained it, VSU is really upgrading to version 4.3—but Blackboard decided to label its new release as “Version 8.”
“We want to make it part of the VSU brand,” said Sizemore. “The new version of WebCT for VSU will be called BlazeVIEW.” The “VIEW” is an acronym for “Vista Implementation Enterprise Wide.”
BlazeVIEW will be packed with new features and upgrades like a peer review capability, grading rubrics, and a profile area. BlazeVIEW will also feature journals—which can be kept private between the student and the instructor or shared with the whole class—and blogs for students to use.
Some VSU students already have experience with this system through eCore, which is the University System of Georgia’s online core curriculum program.
“I think it’ll be easy for the rest of the students at VSU to adjust to BlazeVIEW,” said Sizemore. “We have eCore students already using it and we haven’t received any complaints—and that’s a good thing, right?”
The Distance Learning Department hopes to have BlazeVIEW fully up and running by the June term this summer.
Maymester students will continue to use the current version of WebCT Vista. Currently, faculty members are adjusting to the new tools and are learning how they can implement them into lesson plans. And as with the current version of WebCT at VSU, instructors will have an option as towhether to use the tools or not.
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Do you think you will be moving over to Blackboard 9 once Vista is phased out or will you be looking at other VLEs?
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