William Jackson
Assistant Adjuct Professor
Pierce College, WA
I am most impressed with the flexibility of the Wiki and Blog features on CourseSites. These tools have enabled me to design group exercises, such as a collaborative construction of a time line, and will really support my student lead seminars. These seminars require students to post seminar questions, monitor seminar discussions and respond to questions by other students. While I have not been able to test it for a live class, I have been able to design and review the process and I am confident that the Blogs and Wikis will be very valuable tools for my students.
Audrey Carmosino
Science Teacher
Medford High School, MA
CourseSites has opened up many new windows of opportunity for me and my course. It has enabled me to expand my in-class course into more of a hybrid format, where I can expose my students to a wider array of learning experiences. This is extremely important at the high school level since college-bound students will be exposed more and more to online learning. Using CourseSites, my students can engage often with classmates using tools like Discussion Boards and Wikis. What’s been most helpful to me as a teacher is the opportunity to use the SafeAssign plagiarism prevention feature. Students are held to high expectations in regards to producing their own work and submitting it for an authenticity review. CourseSites also saves me a lot of time in terms of grading with the online assessments. Overall, it’s made my life as a teacher immeasurably better and I can’t imagine not having this amazing tool as part of my course
Miles McGeehan Watch Video
Master Teacher / Science Teacher
Vail Ski and Snowboard Academy, CO
Here at the Vail Ski & Snowboard Academy, CourseSites provides a seamless experience for our busy students to keep up and meet deadlines while traveling to competitions all over the world. Students are decisively more organized with the “To Do”, “Calendar”, and “Past Due Alert” reminders located on each Course Homepage. I love the new “Needs Attention” module reminding me of student work that needs to be graded. I especially appreciate the ease of incorporating YouTube mash–ups as a “hook” for the start of a lesson. Discussion boards, blogs, and digital journals provide a variety of unique communication mechanisms that enable every student to have a voice in my classroom –– from anywhere in the world! I am also very excited to explore building differentiated lessons through the simple design of content web pages using Blackboard’s partner SoftChalk™. CourseSites’ support team responds immediately to any of my needs – very impressive. A colleague recently asked, “What does Blackboard replace in the face–to–face classroom?” My response was, “It’s not what it replaces, it’s the imaginative opportunities it invents”. In the last decade, I’ve been an instructor and student in a variety of online platforms – but nothing compares to the opportunities Next Generation CourseSites creates!
Sean Bierle
Head Teacher
Alzar School, ID
The Alzar School has been using CourseSites for our school to help create the best possible learning experience for our students. We use CourseSites for Alzar to do some pre-course frontloading of material. Students watch YouTube videos that orient them to the mission of the school. They complete a discussion board assignment to get to know their "classmates" before they join us for an expedition. They select books about historic leaders to read during the course. Our instructors post the details of the post-course assignments on the class site and students submit reflective papers. It has been an extremely valuable resource.
The Alzar School is about to expand its programming so that students join us for an entire semester. We will be heavily utilizing Coursesites at that time. We will support all the students' traditional high school classes as hybrid courses (mostly in person, but students will complete some assignments online).
Additionally, when students finish their semester with us, they will be back in their home communities completing what we call their "Culminating Leadership Projects." While they each work on their projects in their home communities (students come from all over the country), they will have weekly check ins through Coursesites. We will have conference calls, online discussion board assignments, etc. that will help them realize that they have a support network to lean on when they work on these leadership projects.
The Alzar School has been extremely happy with its use of CourseSites so far. We are excited about continuing to utilize it in coming years.
Dr. Lou Tharp
Professor
Long Beach City College, CA
The new version opens up even far more possibilities. It has a host of new educational tools and communication vehicles. I taught in the traditional classroom for over 30 years and truly believe that my online course enables me to teach even more effectively than I could do “in person”. Actually, I still am teaching “in person” online – and I am more available than I was before, since students can contact me at any hour in any part of the world. Online education is the new millennium miracle. The smart phone is the new classroom – open 24/7/365 – worldwide. CourseSites is ready to move you into the future.
Nancy Mayer
Student Publications Adviser & Language–Arts Teacher
Long Beach City College, CA
I want to thank you and your staff for creating such a fine website and for providing it to K-12 teachers and students for free. My site is up and running, and it is a joy to use. I especially appreciate the flexibility the site has. I also love the test building area. I can use “correct” answers to elaborate on answers and “incorrect” answers to further teach students. I am incredibly grateful for your work. You have helped teachers and students throughout the world with this product. Thank you.
Debbie Purvines
Distance Learning Specialist, Adult Basic Education
Region 16 Education Service Center
CourseSites is being used for the first time by the Region 16 ESC online GED program which provides classes for adults preparing to take the GED test. Texas Learns approves and adopts all curriculum, but I wanted to develop a virtual classroom to encourage interactivity to increase student participation and success. CourseSites allows me to provide: additional resources and materials, synchronous sessions for direct instruction or one to one meetings, student journals for reflection, and discussion boards for interactive conversations. I use “Announcements” to post accomplishments and important class information much like a bulletin board in a classroom.
Ann Fontaine
Instructor
University of the South, TN
I am excited about the flexibility and creativity for online learning found in Next Generation CourseSites. Instructors and students can use the variety of tools to enhance the educational experience. Courses can be tailored to fit the instructional needs of each course. The inclusion of Wimba and Elluminate expands the opportunities for interaction in the online environment. So far my experience with CourseSites has been extremely positive with great support from Blackboard. I look forward to using CourseSites with my students and other instructors this year.
Jetmir Troshani
Training Coordinator, ISMD Department
LaGuardia Community College, NY
CourseSites has truly enhanced my capabilities as an instructor to teach my courses. There is a long list of aspects I like about it's platform, but let me touch on 5 features I like the most. I have been using CourseSites.com for few months now and I am very happy with the unparalleled experience it offers.
Mobile Learn
With Mobile Learn not only me but my students also can access the course on CourseSites from a variety of devices. I like the fact that my students are able to have access to the course on their Cellphone devices, where they can take quizzes, interact with discussion forums and learn on the go at their own paste.
Quizzes
Creating quizzes with CourseSites is quick and easy. My Students can access the interactive tutorials on CourseSites and then take the quizzes on the materials covered. I also use quizzes as an attendance point in my hybrid courses.
Forums
The Forums on CourseSites are new and improved. I use Forums as a platform for group work assignments. Students can interact with each other and follow-up on course discussions we had from face–to–face meetings.
Grade Center
On the Grade Center I love the Smart Views which help me easily access only those categories of columns I choose. Smart Views are easy to use and quick to create.
Instructor's Home Page
Instructor’s home page is where I can implement my own webpage, with personalized URL's, so my students can quickly access my courses, links, social networking and blog posts.
Over all CourseSites is my favor pick, I really do feel I am using the best possible on design & functionality. Lastly CourseSites makes it very easy to organize my courses with tons of course structures and color schemes to choose from.
And, did I mention that it is a free platform powered by Blackboard?
