--- Forwarded Message from "Carol H. Reitan" <[log in to unmask]> ---

>Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 08:53:26 -0800 (PST)
>From: "Carol H. Reitan" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: Language Learning and Technology International Information Forum    <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: #6397 Course Management Technology
>In-Reply-To: <[log in to unmask]>

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Hi Carol,

Our institution chose WebCT. I wasn't involved in the process, but have
heard that some feel that WebCT can "do more" than Blackboard. I'm not
familiar with Blackboard as a user, but can speak a bit about WebCT. I've
been using it this semester to prepare for an online course to be offered
next semester.I've found WebCT to be very clunky and counterintuitive. We
are using it via the WebCT server in Boston and it is often extremely slow
out here by the Pacific. Also, there are many little annoying quirks.
Changes made in WebCT take awhile to show up (perhaps because we're using
the Boston server?). Often I have to close my browser, reopen it, and log
in again in order to see a change.(I empty the cache, etc., to no avail) 

One of our Chinese instructors tells me that the chat does not accommodate
Chinese characters, although at our webct training, we were able to get
them to show up in the discussion board area.

It's possible to include audio, but students are sent to a separate
"audio" page, where all they see is a list of audio files. I solved this
by putting up pages to which students link. Then they can see/read
whatever I want them to see while listening. You can embed the audio, but
that's another extra step. With WebCT, the fewer things you use, the less
can go wrong. (For student audio, we'll be using "Remote Collaboration", a
separate app, which has some neat and fairly reliable features, including
white board, chat, sound file exchange, and more. Find out more
at:http://davinci.cs.ucdavis.edu/).

One final annoyance, many of our instructors use Respondus to make quizzes
and tests in webct. It's an application one can use to create quizzes and
exams from a text file and upload to webct, thus avoiding the webct quiz
function which i've been told is very lengthy and clunky. Our big problem
as language teachers is that Respondus recognizes diacritical marks as
text (input using ALT commands), then webct transforms them into html
code. So the correct answer then turns up marked wrong. Respondus is
expecting ALT+0233, while webct expects &eacute;. One must go in and
change each question that contains a diacritical mark in the answer. One
instructor uses the latest version of Hot Potatoes which can also make a
webct format quiz. He says it's great.

I haven't yet used WebCT with students although colleagues have. Some like
the private discussion and mail capabilities. Many have complained about
the quiz function and the chat functions. One colleague likes the student
web page area.

Finally, putting my course in webct takes about 6 times as long as it
would take me to just put up some web pages. I haven't tried Blackboard,
so cannot compare. 

Good luck! 

Carol Reitan

> 
> Dear Friends - Our college is planning to change its course management
> technology from Web Course in a Box to either - WebCt, Prometheus or
> Blackboard.  I attended a session on this at our conference in Houston
> this summer but only took away an uneasy feeling about WebCt and a page
> of oddly indecipherable notes.  I'm wondering if any of these systems
> has particularly fine applications for language teaching????  Any
> warnings or recommendations you could pass along????
> Thanks,
> 
> Carol Copenhagen
> Associate Professor of Spanish and Language Coordinator
> Saint Mary's College
> Moraga, Ca.  94575
> Tel:  925 631-4044
> 

___________________________
Carol H. Reitan, Language Center
City College of San Francisco
[log in to unmask]
http://fog.ccsf.cc.ca.us/~creitan
http://www.ccsf.cc.ca.us/Departments/Language_Lab
____________________________________________________