Blackboard Overview

Blackboard Features

• Each course receives its own online space within Blackboard and only enrolled students have access to the course content.

• You can communicate online with your students via discussion board, real-time chat and email as well as upload learning and teaching materials.

• Tools can be customised and as many or as few can be used according to your preference.

Assessments

• This tool enables students to self-assess their learning and monitor their progress

• Allows for formative and summative assessment with immediate feedback.

• Questions can be drawn randomly from pools to present each student with a different set of questions.

• Tests are graded automatically by the system and students can receive their scores immediately.

Assignments

• An Assignment Dropbox allows students to securely submit assignments.

• A time stamp acts as proof of sending and receiving the files, using the Blackboard server time, not the sender or recipient's own PC clock.

Email & Chat

• Individual recipients may be chosen or a mail sent to all participants in the Blackboard course.

• The real-time chat allows staff and students to conduct synchronous communication online.

Discussions

• The Discussion Board (also called a forum, threaded discussion, bulletin board or message board) is a form of asynchronous communication.

• It allows a group of users (students and instructors) to exchange views while being in different places at different times.

• A person posts a message that is then available for others to read and post their own comments.

Group Features

• Students on a Blackboard course can be separated into different groups.

• Each group has its own Discussion Board, online File Exchange and Email function.

• Groups can be used for student team projects.

Documents and Files

• You do not need to have technical web-editing skills to use Blackboard.

• Content is added through the use of simple online forms.

• Files created in Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Video and Audio can be added directly into Blackboard by pressing a 'browse' button.

• This uploads the document from your PC to Blackboard.

eLearning sitehttp://elearning.cit.ie

Main Screen

Same as Web for Faculty

News Section

Featured Screencast

Lecturer Resources

Tutorials

Text Based Tutorials

Requires Acrobat Reader

Video Tutorials

Six video tutorials currently available

Student Resources

Student Focused Tutorials

FAQ

Click on the question to display the answer

Useful Links

External Resources

Contact

Complete all !elds and click the submit buon

My Blackboard

• My Blackboard: This is the default page when you first log into Blackboard

• Content Manager: This is for your own personal use and files uploaded here will not be seen by anyone else.

Channels

My Blackboard

• The My Blackboard screen is divided into three areas.

• The central column lists all your courses.

• The left-hand side lists Calendar Day, To Do List as well as My Grades for students to access their grades.

• The right-hand side lists Campus Announcements, Personal Bookmarks and Who’s Online.

•Whenever you are lost in CE 8 click My Blackboard.

My Settings - Check Browser

• Links for you to change your settings, check your browser or seek help.

Check Browser

• The Check Browser link is used to see if the browser (FireFox, IE Explorer, Safari) is supported by Blackboard.

• Some of the newer browsers (IE 8.0) may give false warnings.

• Cookies are enabled - A cookie is used to keep track of your current session.

• JavaScript - Every area of Blackboard relies on Javascript to create the interactive web pages.

• Pop-up windows are enabled

• Java is enabled in your browser

• The Java virtual machine version is supported

IE Popup Blocker

• Open a new Internet Explorer window and go to Tools > Internet Options

• Click on Privacy tab at the top of the Internet Options dialog box.

• At the bottom of the Privacy tab, click the checkmark box next to Block Pop-ups and then click Settings

• In the Pop-up Blocker Settings dialog box, click in the box under Address of Web site to allow and type in the URL for CIT's Blackboard.

• Click Add and then click Close to close the Pop-up Blocker Settings box.

• Click OK to close the Internet Options dialog box.

Firefox Popup Blocker

• Open a new browser window and go to Tools > Options

• Click the Content at the top of Options dialog box.

• Click Allowed Sites

• In the Allowed Sites dialog box, click in the box under Address of Web site: and type the URL for CIT's Blackboard.

• Click Allow and then Close.

• Click OK.

Channels - Colour - Layout

• You can add or remove Channels, change course Colour or Layout.

Select Channels

Mail

• You can access Mail for all of the courses in which you are enrolled.

• You can use Mail to send and receive messages from other Blackboard users.

Calendar

• The Calendar Tool allows you to view and create dated reminders about events. Entries can be viewed for a day, week or month.

My Blackboard

Click to select

Course Home

Build - Teach - Student View

• Once you are in course home you will have three roles to choose from and the screen view looks differentunder each role.

• The three roles are:

• Designer (Build tab)

• Instructor (Teach tab)

• Student (Student View tab)

• All instructors are set up as both course designer and instructor

• A course designer has all the tools and features to build a course

Build - Teach - Student View

• Build - This tab allows you to add, edit or delete content.

• Teach - This tab allows you to view the content created in the Build tab and to view the material from an instructor’s viewpoint. (grading etc.)

• Student View - This tab allows you to view the content from the perspective of a student. This eliminates the need for having a student account to view the course material.

Build - Designer Tools

• A course designer has all the tools and features to build a course.

• This is the CIT course template.

Teach - Instructor Tools

• After clicking Course Content you can use the Page Options to change the appearance of your homepage.

• You can also create or edit a Header or Footer for your course content homepage.

Course Content

• The Course Content button allows for an expanded view.

Assessments

• You can use the Assessments tool to create the following types of assessments:

• Quizzes: A quiz is an online test that Students complete and submit for marks. The marks are recorded in Grade Book.

• Surveys: A survey is an online questionnaire that Students complete and submit anonymously. A survey is not worth marks but will be recorded as Complete in the Grade Book after it is submitted.

• Self tests: A self test is an online test that Students complete and submit for marks so they can assess their understanding of course material. The marks are not recorded in Grade Book.

Assignments

• There are two types of assignments:

• Text - A Text assignment requires Students to submit their assignment by entering text in the Assignments tool and attaching their own files.

•Web Site - A Web site assignment requires Students to submit a ZIP file containing linked HTML files that create a Web site.

• After Students complete and submit their assignments, you use the Assignment Dropbox tool to view, manage and evaluate submissions.

• On the Teach tab, a link to the Assignment Dropbox tool appears under Instructor Tools.

• You can grade submissions or mark them as complete if the assignments do not require grades.

Calendar

• Calendar allows you to view and create dated reminders about events.

• Entries can be viewed for a day, week or month.

• All users can create personal entries that are not related to any course but are for personal reminders. These types of entries are private.

• You can access Calendar from the My Blackboard screen or from Course Tools in a course.

Discussions

• There are three types of discussion topics:

• Threaded - Create a threaded topic for a more traditional online discussion.

• Participants post and reply to messages.

• Replies that are associated with the same post are grouped together, creating message threads that can be expanded and collapsed.

• Class blog - Create a collaborative blog (weblog) space by allowing participants to post a chronological series of entries on a particular topic. Participants can then add comments to any blog entry.

• Journal - Create a journal topic to give Students a place for their own writing. The journals can be kept private between the Student and you or shared with the class.

Mail

• Mail allows you to communicate with other users through written correspondence, in text or HTML format and file attachments.

• You can send mail to other users in the selected course or section.

• Mail can be used to exchange messages with other users, but it cannot be used to exchange messages over the Internet.

Profile

• The Profile tool allows you to view the profiles for course members.

• To see the profiles for Students enrolled in the course, click Students.

• To see the profiles for course members according to the groups they are members of click Groups.

Search

• The Search tool allows you to conduct a search for data within a course.

• For example, if you remember sending a discussion message regarding Assignment Five, but you can't recall in which discussion topic you posted the message, you can do a keyword search to retrieve the message.

Syllabus

• Using the Syllabus tool, you can make a syllabus (module description) available to Students to provide them with course information.

• There are two ways to add a syllabus to your course.

• You can use the built-in syllabus feature to create a syllabus or

• You can import a file that has been created outside of the Blackboard.

• A .pdf copy of the Module could be uploaded here.

Web Links

• You can use the Web Links tool to compile a list of Internet addresses.

• These Internet addresses can then be added to folders to reference web pages outside of your course.

• You can set the web page to open in a new browser window and you can also set release criteria.

Who’s Online

• You can use the Who's Online tool to chat in real time with users who are enrolled in any of your courses and logged in to the Blackboard at the same time you are logged in.

• You can access the Who's Online tool from My Blackboard.

• The Who's Online tool is similar to the Chat tool except that you use the Who's Online tool to chat with users without first entering a course.

• You use the Chat tool to chat with users only while you are in a particular course

Manage Course

• The Manage Course area is a central place containing features that you use to customize a course.

File Manager

• You can use File Manager to create and store files used in a course. You can use these files for course design activities. Each course has a File Manager tool.

• You can perform the following tasks with this tool:

• Locating and Viewing Files and Folders

• Creating and Editing Files and Folders

• Managing Files and Folders

• Creating WebDAV Folders

Grading Forms

• The Grading Forms tool provides a more granular way of grading Students' work by identifying specific criteria and levels of performance against the criteria.

• You can create multiple grading forms for a course.

• You can then choose to use one of the grading forms from the Discussions and Assignments tools to grade discussion topics and assignments.

• You can also create columns in the Grade Book that are associated with grading forms.

Selective Release

• You can control whether items in the Course Content tool are visible to Students by using the Selective Release tool to show or hide the items.

Example: If an assignment is added to the Course Content tool but you do not want Students to see it yet, you can hide the item temporarily.

•When you hide an item, all instances of the item in the course are hidden; when you show an item, all instances of the item in the course are shown.

Teach - Instructor Tools

• The Teach tab takes you to the instructor interface and tools that allow you to interact with you students, monitor their progress and assess their work.

• In the instructor role you can:

• Add and remove course tools

• Change course colors and icons

• Communicate with students

• Guide and grade discussions

• Administer assessments (assignments, tests, surveys)

• Manage student groups

• Tracking - View reports on various student activities

• Selectively release content to students

Student View

• This tab allows you to view the content from the perspective of the student.