✅We want to hear from you! - Improving onboarding/PD for the LMS

Ben Leddy
Ben Leddy
Fourth Anniversary Kudos 3 Name Dropper Participant
in Blackbaud Learning Management System™

Hi all,

Ben from the LMS team here! As the school year gets started, we know many of you are hard at work compiling, creating, and presenting resources for your school community on how to use the LMS and what's new in terms of functionality.

We've tried some new approaches this fall, such as the announcement and video link on the My Day page regarding Gradebook and Assignment Details, as well as our Back to School Guide for Teachers. We'd love to know what's most helpful in terms of these resources moving forward so we can best support smooth onboarding and ongoing user education.

So we'd love to hear - when it comes to orienting teachers to the LMS:

  • Which resources are most helpful?
  • What's most challenging?
  • What new resources or approaches would you like to see?

We'll be following this thread, but also, feel free to email me at ben.leddy@blackbaud.com if you're up for a video chat on the topic. We'd love to hear from you!

Comments

  • Brian Hoyt
    Brian Hoyt
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 Name Dropper Participant

    You should talk to colleagues who go back to the Whipple Hill days. In the old days there was pre-recorded sessions available on demand. When the Blackbaud acquisition went through all training was put behind the Blackbaud University paywall. Temporarily BU was made free not sure of ongoing plans though.

  • Jess Moxsky
    Jess Moxsky
    Kudos 5 Fourth Anniversary Name Dropper Participant

    It can be really difficult to onboard teachers because we have found the need to recreate so much documentation in-house for teacher use. I would LOVE to be able to send my teachers to more official BBU training where they can utilize a sample environment and practice what they need before school begins, but the BBU offerings for faculty are extremely limited.

    We have limited “power users” and a great many “normies,” and there really is a dearth of training within BBU for folks who will not be using any of the Managerial roles.

    I'd personally love to see more training that is specifically for the daily-use pieces of the system faculty frequent, and sessions geared towards teachers who are truly technological novices. I LOVE evangelizing BBU to our staff members for whom there is appropriate training, but it seems to be a big blind spot in the LMS training resources.

  • Jessica Ott
    Jessica Ott
    Third Anniversary Facilitator 1

    Hey there! Wondering if you have come across any new teacher training resources since this post? Or created any yourself. Our school is new to Blackbaud and we are trying to figure out the best way to onboard our teachers….by August!

  • Lorrie Neuharth
    Lorrie Neuharth
    Third Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Participant

    Teachers will need to know the tool and how the tool is used in their school.

    We are going to share these tutorials as points of reference. Prior to our professional devleopment, we are going to ask our teachers to go through some BBU courses (TBD).

    We have paid for LMS Remote Faculty training (3 hour training). We will receive a recording of the training for future use as well.

    The YouTube Channel is helpful as well.

  • Gian Toyos
    Gian Toyos
    Sixth Anniversary Name Dropper Participant Facilitator 1

    Hello. Based on our experience, BB needs to make sure to distinguish the PD resources available between managers and teachers. There are many courses at BBU that I can't use with my faculty because they either don't have admin access or (most importantly) it doesn't fall under their responsibility. I've seen myself completing BBU courses and "filtering" the information that I will be presenting to my faculty in August for them to use on a daily basis. The Help Center is the most useful tool for me. But I wonder, how come on the left side menu there's no tab for Faculty? Again mixing manager actions with what the Faculty do on a daily basis is very different. It will be very helpful to have a section just for the Faculty where I can send them if they want to review any concept after my PDs.

    Thanks for “listening”.

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