they appeared to be repetitive of the blogs students had already completed. However, students will be
given an hour and fifteen minutes (an extra half an hour after the course officially ends) to complete the
quiz, in order to provide students with the opportunity to take more time to reflect and critique each book.
In addition, the instructor has taken additional Blackboard Vista web-enhanced refresher training to make
sure she is able to clearly explain to students how to use this powerful tool effectively.
In a Blackboard Vista web-enhanced class teachers can, as Wilcox and Wojnar (2000) suggest,
change their teaching roles from instructors to facilitators. When the students take the lead and monitor
and manage their own learning they become professionals in their field. Engaged learning results when
learners become empowered to think for themselves to become better teachers in their own classrooms.
The School of Education’s conceptual framework and vision is to provide a world of life-long learners who
have goals of becoming knowledgeable learners, informed instructors, responsive educators, and reflective
collaborators and the dispositions to understand and respect themselves and others and become involved
in the professional community. This vision of goals and dispositions becomes evident in both the face-toface classroom situations as well as the online postings from students. A Blackboard web-enhanced class
that incorporates both onsite and online learning can help teacher use technology as tools that help them
provide best practice.
References
Daniels, H & Bizar, M. (1998). Methods that matter: Six structures for best practice classrooms. York, ME:
Stenhouse Publishers.
Bolter, J. (1998). Hypertext and the question of visual literacy in Handbook of literacy and technology:
Transformations in a post-typographic world. Reinking, D. McKenna, M, Labbo, L.D. Kieffer, R.D.,
(eds). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Fulwiler, T. (1998). The journal book. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Wiggins,G. and McTighe J. (1998). Understanding by design. Alexandria, VA: Association of Supervision
and Curriculum Development.
Wilcox, B.L. and Tome, L. (1998). Professional portfolios for teachers. Norwood, MA: Christopher Gordon.
Wilcox, B.L., & Wojnar, L.C. (2000, August). Best practice goes online. Reading Online, 4(2). Available:
http://www.readingonline.org/articles/art_index.asp?HREF=/articles/wilcox/Index/htm
Zemelman, S., Daniels, H. Hyde, A. (1998). Best practice: New standards for teaching and learning in
America’s schools. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
The Missouri Reader
Vol. 33, No. 2
Spring 2009
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