Death to Unorganization

     I have talked about BlackBoard in previous posts, but before I discussed it's use as a communication tool. The greatest part about BlackBoard to me though, is the organization of class materials, grades, and courses. It allows for all of a student's classes, even from previous years, to be in one domain. The teachers can make any type of tab they would like on the side of their course page such as: Assignments, Course Library, Discussion Board (if it's used consistently), and so on. Different teachers use different tools in their classroom. For one, the Grades tab may need to be a main option for the student. Other teachers don't use BlackBoard for grades but they may assign homework to be turned into the Discussion Board tab. BlackBoard allows for flexibility while still keeping structure and organization. It's helpful for students because they don't have to search in numerous domains or pages for their classes. On the home page of BlackBoard, you have your current courses, access to your FSUID card, any recent announcements made by teachers, as well as the previous courses you've taken at Florida State. Overall, BlackBoard helps both students and teachers stay better organized.
     Though I have never been on the side of designing a course's page on BlackBoard, I feel that I could effectively create a page due to my constant use of this domain. I would like to explore other domains as well that are like BlackBoard, and see what options are out there. It would take a little getting used to to know how to create tabs and add documents to the page, but I firmly believe I would be more than capable of doing so.
     Blogger is a technology that I didn't think of as a teaching tool before this past year at Florida State. During the fall semester, one of my teachers created a blog and had us post two times a week. This was fun, and more like the blog side of it. This Spring semester though, I've had a teacher that had all assignments, group discussions, and group project discussions all on a blog that she created. This use of Blogger made it more than just a blog. It made it into a tool that was effective for keeping the class organized and gave more flexibility than even BlackBoard. Having our daily assignments posted ahead of time on the blog was extremely helpful for me as a student, and Bogger is easy to navigate. I would most definitely use this domain as a way to keep my students up to date on assignments and for engaging with them in discussion when not in the classroom.