Free, Better Blackboard/WebCT
Via Kairosnews I ran into eoffice hours today. Basically this is a free version of WebCT of Blackbaord. You can sign up at the site and they will host the online portions of your class. You can have discussion boards, assignments, syllabus, all of the things you are used to with the other online course management systems. If you are looking for a way to host online materials for a class and a blog is not enough (for many I think a blog works, click here to see a write up I did on that) this might be a good option. While there is nothing particularly webtastic about this site (nothing fancy or gorgeous looking) it seems to have most of what educators would want. This strikes me as really useful for smaller schools that don’t want to fork out money for WebCT or Blackboard, or for schools where the administration is not very tech forward. You can see a sample class they set up and see if it meets your needs. In the end it seems far easier than writing your own.
November 16th, 2006 at 3:44 pm
How does it compare with http://moodle.org/ ? Isn’t there an organization somewhere that offers free hosting of Moodle sites for non-profits or small educational ventures?
November 16th, 2006 at 4:22 pm
My experience with Moodle (granted limited) was that I was not all that impressed. It seems rough around the edges to me. For one the interface looks geared towards primary or secondary education rather than higher ed. There are places that offer free Moodle hosting as you point out, I couldn’t find any on a quick search, but you can click here for hosting options. What I liked about eOffice is that it is built to capitalize on all of the Web 2.0 features. That is it didn’t feel like I was looking through a course management system as much as Blackboard or WebCt, probably the advantage of coming later to the game. When Moodle, BlackBoard and WebCT, first came out they were before blogs, wikis, etc, and the idea of a course management series of sites was hard to imagine, but now it is relatively easy to do. And with eOffice you wouldn’t have to worry about someone managing and hosting software they did not develop. That having been said, ideologically I am a big supporter of open source projects like Moodle, and Sakai.
December 14th, 2006 at 3:52 pm
The main advantage of Blackboard (and Moodle) is that they offer surveying/testing features that I didn’t see in eOffice Hours. If I want to make a quiz, test, or homework assignment that consists of mult. choice, fill in blank, T/F, etc questions (which can be automatically graded AND give the students feedback) then I have to go with one of those more robust solutions. The test will even allow for essay answers. Although they can’t be graded automatically, the student response and my feedback is always there for us to refer to. I don’t have to go to a separat source to create digital testing material. Additionally, the results of those tests are fed directly into the student’s gradebook.
On the other hand, schools who DON’t need the testing, chatting features of Blackboard and are on a tight budget should look seriously at eOffice Hours
February 6th, 2007 at 7:53 am
Thanks for all the great comments guys! I actually started E-Office Hours a couple of years ago, and as you have all pointed out, its meant to offer a real alternative to BlackBoard and WebCT. I agree that Moodle and other such services are really great alternatives, but as Dave said, its just not as accessible to the teacher on a low budget, short time table, and without much technical know how. We have been very successful in attracting teachers who would otherwise be turned away by this type of technology, and also with teachers who have openly embraced technology. The system is designed to give you flexibility, and if fully utilized, can really do some amazing things. However a working, interactive website can be set up in under 5 minutes. I also wanted to let everyone here know that we are currently working on a quiz building tool for teachers to build interactive tests that will tie in automatically with our grade book feature, and give both students and teachers automatic feedback and grading. This feature, along with many more, will be released in the next few months. Please feel free to check out my blog at http://eofficehours.blogspot.com.