Students have a more seamless transition/adoption of the new LMS program than the Algonquin faculty, according to Justin McCaffrey, Brightspace Ambassador Project coordinator.
Algonquin started the Brightspace Ambassador Program to help students teach people how to use Brightspace. In this program, students teach other students how to use the platform.
“Peer-to-peer learning is important in our college,” said McCaffrey.
The user interface of the software is easier to understand for students and according to Kevin Perkins, Brightspace ambassador and first-year computer system technician student, their biggest problem was logging into the platform.
“Logging in has been the most common issue,” said Perkins. “It’s mostly first-year students who don’t know where to get their username and password from.”
On the other hand, the faculty have a harder time adapting to the new LMS. There are many reasons, said McCaffrey: one of them is the adaptation process the professors have. Everything is different, from taking attendance to setting up assignments and quizzes.
“The faculty struggles the most setting up courses and transferring material from Blackboard,” said McCaffrey. “Some people are upset for the change before trying but once they use it, they like it better.”
There are still some problems students and faculty face when it comes to Brightspace so the Ambassador Program will continue Monday to Thursday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. until the end of January in the second floor of the new Dare District building.
The platform was chosen by the college to replace Blackboard for two main reasons, said McCaffrey. It is more intuitive than the outdated Blackboard and Desire2Learn, the company that developed Brightspace, is Ontario-based and therefore its software is more affordable for Canadian institutions.