A school without borders

Blackboard and National Defense University team to provide training anywhere

Whether stationed in Washington or deployed in the Middle East, students at the National Defense University need class times that are flexible and courses that can be delivered anywhere.

Online learning is the only solution for the university’s mission, and it is a big reason NDU is a trailblazer with the technology, which it has used since 1994.

Now, rather than focusing on online distance learning, the university is moving to a blended learning model that supplements or replaces traditional classroom instruction by using a Web-based solution from Washington-based Blackboard Inc.

“For the last three or four years, the resident students have enjoyed using Blackboard to access our online library resources,” said Michael Miller, NDU’s chief information offi- cer. “Now all the resident courses are going to move into having online course sites, not just to support the classroom teaching but in the case of a continuity-of-operations situation. When, for whatever reasons, students might not be able to come to the university, we would use the online system to continue to support learning.”

Blackboard is an e-learning technology that focuses on course management, content distribution and community. Organizations use it to put courses online, measure outcomes, and manage massive amounts of the content typical in any kind of learning environment.

Online learning has been available for years, but the newer versions of the technology better integrate with a wider array of file formats, such as streaming video, interactive 3-D modeling and gaming technology. Blackboard manages that content, so much of it is off-line and does not clog an institution’s servers.

NDU is a graduate institution that is part of the Defense Department. Its students cover a spectrum of the federal government, including both DOD military and civilian employees, as well as students from other federal agencies, countries and the private sector.

As is the case at most universities, the courses and curriculum at NDU have focused on classroom learning for years. To meet the needs of its students, the organization is quickly shifting from its physical classroom focus.

“The federal government has seen it makes a lot more sense to deliver that instruction, that certification, that training via courses online,” said Tim Hill, Blackboard’s president of professional education solutions. “So our technology allows the instructor to put her syllabus, course content, tests, discussion boards, projects, streaming media and all kinds of other content online.”

Blackboard enables students to work at their own pace, within the prescribed limits of the instructor.

Various DOD entities are using it for officer training, war strategy training and training for specific pieces of equipment, for example.

Blackboard is Web-based for both instructors and students. When an instructor builds an online course, it’s all done with a drag-and-drop interface.

“It can be a syllabus in Microsoft Word, photographs of charts in Adobe Photoshop, or you could author something yourself right on the system,” Hill said. “Instructors can drag in a streaming video clip from the DOD, or you can also incorporate textbook content that you would use to teach a class if you were in front of students.”

Military and intelligence agencies continue to adopt the technology because it allows them to augment the classroom experience with an online component. That is especially helpful for people in the armed forces and intelligence officials, because their jobs do not allow them to be in a classroom 100 percent of the time.

“A good example is if somebody is stationed in Iraq and she’s an officer continuing her training, she can still continue that coursework while they’re in the field serving the country because they can do it online,” Hill said. “And then when she comes back to her regular post in the United States, she can go right back to the classroom.”

Blackboard offers online learning technology via an application service provider platform. The company will also host the applications, or institutions can host it themselves.

“Some prefer to host it themselves because they get better integration with their back-office systems,” Hill said. “Others don’t want to be in the IT business, so they’d rather have someone else host it.”

NDU’s Information Resources Management College and the Joint Forces Staff College are two of the major adopters of online learning. In both of those cases, there are many students who cannot come to the Washington area for classes. Some students are civilians assigned worldwide or service members who are in reserve units living in their home areas. Others are deployed soldiers.

“We have people that cannot come to the campus who need the benefit of the educational experiences that we provide,” Miller said. “Some students have taken the entire program for the Chief Information Officer and information assurance [certificates] and they have never had to step foot in the university. They’ve been able to do that online.”

The biggest challenge in making the transition to online learning has been determining what elements make for a good course.

“The online learning wave has challenged us to examine our teaching and learning model, and it’s helping us improve what’s in the classroom as well as what’s online,” Miller said. “So introducing this at the university has really made us sit back and [ask], ‘What does quality teaching and learning mean, regardless of where it is?’”