Experiences of common module delivery using blackboard

This paper examines issues arising from the delivery of modules of the vocational initial
teacher training curriculum in the UK, Finland, Portugal and Hungary. The modules were
developed as part of the Virtual Electronic Learning in Vocational Initial Teacher Training
(VELVITT) project which is exploring how Virtual Learning Environments can be used to
support vocational teacher training and in particular international collaboration in curriculum
reform and development of teaching methods using electronic methods. Key theoretical ideas
about collaborative learning and communities of practice are explored in relation to vocational
teacher training and computer mediated learning. The paper describes the three modules which
were developed and then evaluates the success, from both pedagogic and technological
viewpoints, of the module delivery using the Blackboard Virtual Learning Platform. The paper
then moves to a summary of findings about Blackboard as a tool for collaborative learning in
vocational teacher training and draws some conclusions about the future for this work.