Blackboard

I have not had much personal experience with distance learning. My only experience has been with course management systems (first Blackboard and now ANGEL), which I suppose is how distance learning works, except all the time (but maybe not?). I am not particularly fond of course management systems. My main gripe is that they always seem outdated, and the rest of the problems stem from there.

If the functionality of a course management system can be better achieved with something like a Google group, then I have a hard time seeing the point of using a proprietary system. Most of my interactions with course management systems have been overly convoluted, requiring unintuitive navigation through an inane labyrinth of sections designed by someone who seems to have never used the Internet, let alone taught a college class with it.

Once I got out of entry level classes, most of my undergraduate professors used their own websites instead of Blackboard, if they used the Internet at all for their class. And those that did use Blackboard only used it as a repository of course documents, not for its more marketable features, like discussion boards or other student interactions.

I think the main reason for this was how hard it is to get a pre-made system to do what you want it to do. And Blackboard (which now owns ANGEL) more or less has the market covered, requiring little innovation on their part. The system is simply not flexible.

All of my experiences with instructor-made websites have been significantly better than with a course management system. I think if an entire course were to be taught online, it would require a more flexible and complex system than Blackboard or ANGEL. Students would need to be able to interact with the instructor and with each other more than simply through written text.