View video of Monday's conference welcome, introductions, and Mr. Pittinsky's keynote address
Thank you to Duquesne's Schools of Pharmacy and Nursing for use of their equipment to capture Monday's opening and keynote presentations.

Blackboard, Inc. Chairman and Co-Founder Matthew Serbin Pittinsky was the keynote speaker on Monday November 21st. Mr. Pittinsky's talk was on "The Wired Tower: Perspectives on eLearning." He will discuss the impact of the Internet on higher education. 

Trained as a social studies teacher, Blackboard Inc. Chairman Matthew Pittinsky comes from a family of educators. A leading executive in the field of e-Learning, Matthew co-founded Blackboard in 1997 with a mission to "transform the Internet into a powerful environment for teaching and learning." Today, with 2,200 client institutions, 500 employees, and approximately 12 million end-users, Blackboard is considered by most industry analysts to be the leading provider of e-Education systems around the world.

As Chairman, Matthew leads Blackboard's corporate and product strategy from an educator’s perspective. He also serves as Blackboard's chief spokesperson to the academic and financial communities.

Prior to co-founding Blackboard, Matthew worked as a consultant in KPMG Consulting's Higher Education practice, where he was an early participant in the EDUCAUSE IMS standards project.

In addition to his full time responsibilities at Blackboard, Matthew is a Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University Teacher’s College studying classmate composition effects in TC's sociology of education department. He has already completed one book project on e-Education as editor of The Wired Tower (Prentice Hall: 2002), and serves as a contributor or commentator to numerous print, radio and television media.

In addition to chairing the Blackboard board of directors, he serves on the Advisory Board of LearningTimes, an eLearning electronic journal, and the advisory board of SMARTHINKING, an online tutoring company.   He also serves on the Board of Trustees of American University.

View video of introduction and keynote
Thank you to Sonic Foundry/Media Site Live and Duquesne's Schools of Pharmacy and Nursing for use of their equipment to capture the opening session and keynotes.

Technology-infused teaching and learning can lead to great successes in and out of the classroom. In her keynote, Melissa Anderson of Pepperdine University and Sr. Pedagogical Advisor for Blackboard will discuss research and best practices that can connect the use of technology with often-desired pedagogical outcomes, from addressing multiple learning styles and meeting the needs of the Net Generation to assessing learner outcomes in a collaboration-rich environment. Even the smallest change in practice, not theory or approach, can lead to pedagogical success.

Melissa Anderson has worked with Blackboard and other educational technologies for the past seven years as a director of education technology at both NYU and Pepperdine University. In these roles, she was responsible for both the technical management of the system as well as the training and support of faculty, staff, and students.

Melissa has her MA in Educational Policy and MBA in Management, both from Columbia University. She is currently completing her doctrorate in educational technology at Pepperdine University, with dissertation work focused on collaborative learning. As Senior Pedagogical Advisor for Blackboard, Melissa works with institutions throughout the world in utilizing the Blackboard platform to support academic goals. Melissa is also a faculty member in the Masters in Educational Technology program at Pepperdine University, where she teaches two courses: Managing Technology for Change and Team Leadership.

Benefit Assessment of Blackboard in Marketing Research Instruction

Presenter: Dr. Conway Lackman, Duquesne University

11:00 a.m., Monday, Room 101, Bayer Hall

The purpose of this study is to assess the benefits in student learning measured by student ratings in a post- Blackboard5 (BB5) marketing research course compared with the same pre-BB5 course.

Two major benefits emerged: improvements in organizational structure and student team performance. These benefits were delivered in the three major activities in the courses: lessons, cases, and projects. Benefits were delivered in all three areas with projects realizing the largest benefits.

Learning-on-the-Go: Reaching Students Through Mobile Learning

Presenters: Dr. Janet Zellmann and Mary Jane Snyder, Duquesne University

11:00 a.m., Monday, Room 102, Bayer Hall

The challenge of attending classes while deployed demand not only dedication and motivation on the part of the student, but also challenges the faculty to continually discover ways to generate and maintain interest. Hear about the collaborative work among the program administrator, instructor and student currently attending classes while deployed as they address the challenges and successes of Learning-on-the-Go.

Justification and Application of Universal Design for Learning in Blackboard

Presenter: Dr. Debbie Ciesielka, Clarion University of Pennsylvania

11:00 a.m., Monday, Room 103, Bayer Hall

While embracing distance technology to remain competitive, faculty remain responsible for meeting the educational needs of an increasingly diverse and nontraditional student body. This session will describe a grant-funded initiative inspired by the collective experience of faculty of a distance-based collaborative graduate nursing program seeking ways to maximize the success of a diverse community of learners. Described will be a paradigm for teaching called Universal Design for Learning (UDL), a strategy that anticipates classroom diversity yet is adaptable to the Blackboard platform.

Using Blackboard to Promote Constructivist Learning in Physical Science

Presenter: Dr. Paul Ashcraft, Indiana University of Pennsylvania

11:00 a.m., Monday, Room 204, Canevin Hall

A university physical science, physics and astronomy, course for non-science majors used Blackboard to respond to different types of questions, which were discussed in class. Many non-science majors perceive science as a body of knowledge that needs to be memorized until they take their examination.

Assignments on Blackboard asked students to recall experiences from their own lives that were related in class to the course’s content. This constructivist teaching technique helped students to understand the relevance of the course s curriculum to their lives and the challenges of our changing world.

Making the Transition From the Traditional Classroom to Distance Education

Presenter: Dr. Mary Jane Kuffner Hirt, Indiana University of Pennsylvania

1 p.m., Monday, Room 101, Bayer Hall

This presentation focuses on the questions and considerations associated with the translation of a graduate level course previously taught in a traditional class room setting to an on-line course.

It should be most beneficial to those who have no or limited experience with on-line instruction and are interested in developing a strategy which effectively integrates the capacity of Blackboard, their previous experience with the course and the standards set by the school which offers the course.

Hand-held Computers, Blackboard and E-learning in the Health Sciences

Presenters: Dr. Bridget Calhoun, David Nolfi, Lenore Resick, Dr. Hildegarde Berdine, Duquesne University

1 p.m., Monday, Room 102, Bayer Hall

Physician assistant, pharmacy, and nurse practitioner students complete the final phases of their education off campus in varied clinical settings. Their need to quickly retrieve health-related information within these clinical settings is crucial. The Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) for Healthcare Students project at Duquesne University provided 10 students from each of the above-named disciplines with PDAs to study how hand-held computers and access to electronic resources enhanced their clinical education.

Because students were off campus completing required clinical experiences, a Blackboard site proved the most effective and practical way to maintain communication between students and University faculty, the health sciences librarian, computing services, and software vendors. In addition to facilitating discussions, the site also provided opportunities to collect data regarding outcomes of the project, including a synchronous chat focus group. This project was partially supported by funds from the Federal Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) administered by the Office of Commonwealth Libraries.

Using Blackboard to Support a Service-learning Course

Presenter: Dr. Evan Stoddard, Duquesne University

2 p.m., Monday, Room 101, Bayer Hall

Blackboard’s groups and communication features provided nearly ideal means of coordinating the planning and execution of a community service-learning project in an undergraduate Honors College seminar at Duquesne University called Community and University in spring 2005. In contrast, because Blackboard’s grade book assignment features do not currently permit exchange of multiple drafts of written assignments before assignment of a grade,

Blackboard was less helpful in supporting preparation of reports and abstracts for publication on the Web in this writing-intensive course. In an effort to compensate for this limitation the instructor adapted Blackboard's group discussion board for exchange of drafts and comments with individual students.

Vision Learning with Blackboard

Presenter: Dr. Leelavati Murthy, Community College of Allegheny County

2 p.m., Monday, Room 102, Bayer Hall

Vision learning is an asset to students to enhance learning. Conventional learning procedures such as audio learning through classroom lectures and reading of textbook do not meet the learning strategies of all students. Some student learning strategies need to be supplemented with vision learning through access to blackboard and e-learning including internet sites relevant to the content area of the course under study.

How I Baby-Stepped My Way Into Blackboard

Presenter: Dr. Diane Sims, Carlow University

3:05 p.m., Monday, Room 101, Bayer Hall

Unable or unwilling to fully utilize all of Blackboard’s potential in one great technological leap, one electronically-challenged English instructor gradually introduced the use of Blackboard into her face-to-face classes in small increments over the course of several semesters. She hopes that her story will help encourage others who have hesitated to approach the task of learning yet another computer program.

Nola Coulson (my Instructional Technology guru at Carlow) has encouraged me to share the story of how I have gradually learned to use Blackboard by taking the workshops available on our campus at Carlow, by playing with and experimenting with the various features of Blackboard, and by adding additional tools to my Blackboard repertoire each semester. The presentation is basic and simple and is intended to encourage faculty members who may be feeling overwhelmed or intimidated by new technology. I illustrate my presentation with the extended metaphor of a baby learning to take those tentative first steps. I emphasize the benefits of the discussion board as an adjunct to classroom participation and the expediency of using the assignment function and gradebook.

Extending Student Learning During Field Placements

Presenter: Dr. George Szymanski, Duquesne University

3:05 p.m., Monday, Room 201, Canevin Hall

Professional Preparation Programs often require a field component. Students sometimes feel disconnected with the university/school during this semester of work-study or professional experience. Blackboard is a very useful way to keep connected with your students, provide support, and serve as a depository for student work.

Planning and Designing a Clinical Nursing Faculty Development Site Using Blackboard

Presenters: Dr. Joan Such Lockhart, Diane Colizza, Carolyn Griffin and Debbie Lewis, Duquesne University

10:45 p.m., Tuesday, Room 103, Bayer Hall

This presentation describes the planning and design of Blackboard site used in the development of Clinical Nursing Faculty. The current and projected shortage of clinical nursing faculty compounded with a dramatic increase in undergraduate nursing student enrollment have posed a challenge for schools of nursing as they not only attempt to recruit part-time (PT) clinical faculty, but retain them.

While PT clinical faculty is expert clinicians, an increasing number of faculty applicants have little experience in the clinical educator role. In an attempt to remedy this dilemma, Duquesne University School of Nursing has implemented a variety of strategies designed to not only recruit and retain PT clinical faculty, but to help them in this transition to the clinical educator role.

This presentation will focus on the planning and design phases of a Clinical Faculty Development Blackboard Site at the School of Nursing. This site will not only serve as the primary location of all faculty development activities and resources, but provide a forum for clinical faculty to discuss issues related to their role.

Analysis of Class Dialogue: Mapping Asynchronous Discussion Threads

Presenters: Dr Barbara Frey and Dr. Millie Sass, University of Pittsburgh

10:45 a.m., Tuesday, Room 102, Bayer Hall

This presentation offers findings from a formative evaluation of online discussions used within a Library and Information Science online course. The methodology used to visualize and to analyze the interactions is presented along with recommendations for “good practices” associated with asynchronous discussions.

Addressing the Pharmacist Shortage: The Online Refresher Program

Presenter: Dr. Marsha McFalls-Stringert, Duquesne University

1 p.m., Tuesday, Room 101, Bayer Hall

The Pharmacy Manpower Project has concluded that the supply of pharmacists will not meet the need by the year 2020. An estimated 417,000 pharmacists will be required to fill a variety of positions, whereas only 260,000 will be supplied by our nation’s pharmacy schools. In an effect to be part of the solution to the problem, Duquesne University has developed a Pharmacist Refresher Program.

The Pharmacist Refresher Program is a 13-week, comprehensive, online program whose goal is to reinforce and enhance the participant’s pharmacy background and apply it to current pharmacy practice through online lectures and discussion boards in “Blackboard.” Pharmacy experts in their respective fields were asked to put together a Power Point presentation of their lecture material. Each presenter met with the coordinator of the Program, and utilizing “Camtasia” Technology, produced a presentation consisting of the lecture material and the presenters voice-over. Students then complete activities and self-assessments on Blackboard.

This presentation will discuss the pedagogical as well as content development changes and opportunities posed by this methodology and program goal.

Blackboard Discussion Management

Presenter: Dr. Mary Ann Thurkettle, Duquesne University

2 p.m., Tuesday, Room 101, Bayer Hall

Blackboard contains many features which facilitate student time accessibility and faculty provision of resource materials, communication between the two. At the same time, Blackboard can become addictive and can soon take charge of the faculty member’s professional and private time.

This session will focus on the time demands of Blackboard course delivery, including discussion of course design and management of course discussion boards. Topics will include purpose, discussion parameters, asynchronous and synchronous discussion management, thematic organization, archiving, channeling, establishing a topic file, off-line communication, system quirks, and cross-course management.

Bb 6 App Pack 3: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Presenter: Cindy Lu, University of Pittsburgh

1 p.m., Monday, Room 201, Canevin Hall

The University of Pittsburgh rolled out Blackboard Application Pack 3 in August of 2005 in order to address some of the known problems existing in the older version and to provide what was viewed as significant new pedagogical functionality to faculty. This presentation summarizes the changes and reports on the implementation problems and benefits, as well as the associated training and support implications for the Faculty Instructional Development Lab.

Getting Faculty on "Board" From Blackboard to Smartboards

Presenters: Nola Coulson, Denise King and Karen Sturgeon, Carlow University

1 p.m., Monday, Room 204, Canevin Hall

In the summer of 2005, Carlow University launched a faculty and staff technology development initiative to integrate more technology in the classroom and across campus. One of the goals was to increase Blackboard usage and the skills associated with various software applications. Data was collected using a technology interest survey. Different modes of training were selected including a series of training workshops entitled, Computer Café: Information Technology in Byte Size Pieces.

This panel discussion will explain how Carlow planned and implemented faculty and staff technology development across campus and highlight the challenges faced along the way. Participants will able to discuss how they might incorporate similar modes of technology development at their institutions.

Extending Your Blackboard Course: Engaging Learners with New Technology Tools

Presenters: Jeanne Vilberg and Darla Ausel, Clarion University of Pennsylvania

2 p.m., Monday, Room 201, Canevin Hall

Online courses are viewed by some as text-based, non-interactive experiences. In this presentation you will learn how technology can be incorporated into your course to address different learning styles and more effectively engage learners.

Topics for this session include: Welcome Messages and Communication Using Audio, Video Integrating External Content through RSS Feeds and Learning Objects Instructional Blogging Imaging with PowerPoint and QuickTime.

Remodeling Instruction: Moving to the Next Generation

Presenters: Dr. Marilyn Harhai and Andrea Miller, Clarion University of Pennsylvania

10:45 a.m., Tuesday, Room 101, Bayer Hall

The presenters will share their insights into faculty-to-faculty training based on workshops conducted in the university community. Highlights of the presentation will include the utilization of the central vocabulary of Blackboard and E-learning technology, the differentiation between the social affordance of an online community of learners and a face-to-face community of learners, and the identification of technologies available for remodeling course content for delivery in a next generation online environment.

Technologies to be discussed include Sonic Foundry Media, Camtasia, Respondus, Classroom Live, Turnitin, and specific features of Blackboard. The presenters will also share responses on the advantages of utilizing faculty to move their peers forward into the next generation of teaching in an online environment.

Making Technology Transparent

Presenter: Lisa T. Byrnes, Mount Aloyius College

1 p.m., Tuesday, Room 102, Bayer Hall

How do you teach a course using technology but make the technology transparent? And what does making technology transparent mean anyway? During this session, participants will get a first hand look at strategies that can be incorporated into a Blackboard course to help users focus on the content and not the technology, thus making the technology transparent. Come to this session, and learn some excellent techniques that have already been tested and put into practice!

Using Blackboard to Create the Student Production Support Website

Presenter: Fred Angiolieri, Point Park College

11 a.m., Monday, Room 201, Canevin Hall

A presentation on how Blackboard was extended beyond classroom use to create a student & faculty website for the Student Production Support department at Point Park University. The SPS department is responsible for managing the TV studio, edit suites and field equipment office.

The SPS website provides information and technical support to the students and faculty in the Broadcast Journalism and Cinema & Digital Arts departments that use these resources. The website provides information such as office hours, an online equipment catalog, downloadable user manuals, TV studio schedule and much more.

Blackboard’s Integrated ePortfolio Solution: Hype or Useful Tool

Presenter: Richard Oravetz, University of Pittsburgh

2 p.m., Monday, Room 204, Canevin Hall

This presentation assesses the Blackboard ePortfolio system as an integrated component of the Blackboard Content System. It reports on a term-long study by the University of Pittsburgh to explore the capabilities, limitations, usability, and potential benefits of an integrated approach to ePortfolios.

The Pitt assessment measures the Blackboard ePortfolio system against a detailed requirements document established by a faculty committee charged with researching the University s ePortfolio needs and potential enterprise ePortfolio solutions.

The presentation reports on the experience of using ePortfolios from the student, faculty and staff perspectives, and the resources required to support its implementation, and its benefits and limitations. It also offers recommendations to improve the product for academic use from a variety of perspectives.

Kicking the Tires: An Assessment of Blackboard’s Integrated Content System

Presenters: Dr. Nick Laudato and Dr. Barbara Frey, University of Pittsburgh

3 p.m., Monday, Room 102, Bayer Hall

Academic institutions face challenges evaluating the emerging applications of ePortfolios and content management systems while still adjusting to the demands of supporting evolving course management systems at the enterprise level.

This presentation reports the results of a hands-on assessment of Blackboard’s integrated course management, content management, library e-reserves, and ePortfolio systems, conducted during the summer term, 2005. Content management and ePortfolio systems are relatively new and emerging technologies that raise many questions of feasibility, manageability, scalability, costs, and benefits.

Learning-on-the-Go: Using Blackboard on Mobile Devices

Presenters: Boris Vilic, Bryan O’Black and Karen Mangis, Duquesne University

3 p.m., Monday, Room 204, Canevin Hall

Duquesne University is utilizing a custom Blackboard building block to deliver Blackboard-based online courses by providing a seamless interface between Blackboard and mobile devices (such as PDAs or laptops with sporadic Internet connectivity).

By attending this session, you will learn about technology utilized to deliver a two-way interface between Blackboard and mobile devices as well as the challenges of presenting Blackboard content (discussion boards, announcements, content items, etc.) in the PDA-only environment.

Blackboard and Building Work Communities

Presenter: Dr. Diane Maldonado, Community College of Allegheny County South

2 p.m., Tuesday, Room 102, Bayer Hall

This presentation will share information about how to use Blackboard to support actual working communities at CCAC. The presenter will share two specific work sites: Assessment of Student Learning Committee Blackboard Site and the CCAC South Campus English Department Site.