Blackboard Training

The Manual/Resources for Blackboard

• http://products.blackboard.com/gs/training/bb55.cgi

Objectives of Blackboard

The purpose of Blackboard software is to provide students with online access to course materials.  It is intended to be a completely self-contained online course environment where students can interact with the instructor in a secure environment, but can be used as a supplement to a traditional course.  Blackboard is meant to be a general purpose environment where course a variety of course materials can be placed into predetermined areas within a course.  There are several methods you can use to add content to course components.  These include:

• Typing material directly into a text field.

• Copying material from a word processing program or HTML Editor.

• Attaching or Uploading an existing file for students to download, view or print.

• Adding offline content, such as content from a CD-ROM.

An advantage of the integrated Blackboard program is that these methods are used and reused when adding content to the course.  Mastering the process for any one course function, will provide you with the knowledge to post information in any of the other functions. 

There are 4 major roles in Blackboard: the instructor, course builder, course grader, and student. Each of these roles has distinctive security which controls the functionality within the program (Blackboard).

The 2 main areas in Blackboard

Course

• Is the end user environment

• The students must logon to get to the course materials

• The student id is their logon name and the password is their social security number (at Nicholls)

• The student id will match the login id for lab use (Novell), but is a separate account and therefore separate passwords

• Passwords are case sensitive as is in Windows NT

• Student users cannot change course material, but they can add/modify to there home page and discussion boards

Control Panel

• Administrative functions (instructor role), building course material (course builder), and grading (course grader)

• Can modify any/all material (instructor)

• No student access

Content Areas

Contains the tools for adding and managing all course content. Use this area to post announcements, add text, attach documents, and create folders.

The three areas that are designed to hold the majority of prepared course materials are Course Information, Course Documents, and Assignments.

• The materials posted here are typically much larger.

• The materials posted here may already be created in a word processing or HTML program.

• The materials posted here may be attachments that are not capable of being inserted directly into a text area or being viewed in a web browser.

• The materials here may need to be organized into a hierarchical manner so students can clearly understand the associations for each item.

• While you may choose to use the Course Information, Course Documents, and Assignments areas in many ways, the following conventions are recommended for some basic course components.

• When you choose to add materials to a particular area, a drop-down menu with recommendations is provided.

 

Recommended Course Material Locations
Item	Location
Syllabus	Course Information
Course Schedules or Calendars	Course Calendar
To Do Items	Course Tasks
Lecture Notes	Course Documents
Handouts	Course Documents
Homework Assignments	Assignments
Supplemental Readings	Books
Supplemental Online Research	External Links
Worksheets	Course Documents
Tests, Quizzes, and Essay Questions	Assignments

 

 

 

Announcements Editor

A high-profile area is used to create and modify announcements. Items posted here appear in the main course for all students to see. Announcements are an ideal way to inform students about upcoming events, due dates, or corrections.

Course Information Editor

The course information area typically holds a syllabus, prerequisites, grading policies, and course materials. Come here to put information that students will need to see at the beginning of class or during the pre-registration process.

Staff Information Editor

This area displays information about the faculty and staff associated with a course. Use this tool to list office hours, e-mail addresses, and even short bio's for instructors, administrative staff, teaching assistants, and guest lecturers.

Course Documents Editor

The Course Document area is used to create main course content and organizational structure. Come here to attach documents, handouts, images and media or organize materials and customize course structure with folders.

Assignments Editor

This area usually holds course-related assignments. Use this tool to attach assignments or access tests and surveys.

Books Editor

This area is reserved for courses that use course cartridges.

External Links Editor

The External Links area provides a tool for adding online resources to a course. Use this area to create links and provide students with access to global resources.

 

User Management

The User Management features are specifically for enrollment and organization of course participants. Instructional Technology will enroll students, and Instructors can designate working groups for projects.

4 Types of users in Blackboard

• Instructor – Can add content or modify existing content, grade assessments and can access anything in a course
• Course Builder – Can add content or modify existing content. They cannot make changes in the grade book.
• Grader – Can grade assessments, but cannot modify existing content nor add content
• Student – Can access the course section and selective areas in the control panels. Can add to the discussion list (if permitted), can build a web page (if permitted), and can place files in the digital drop box.

Course Tools

The course tools hosts all course components involved in instructor and student communications. Instructors come here to send course members e-mail, post topics to the discussion board, and create calendar events.

Course Calendar

Instructors can use the calendar to indicate important course related events. The dates and events that appear on the Course Calendar are for all students registered in a specific course.

 

Suggested items to include in the calendar:

• Section Meetings

• Assignments Due

• Exams

• Guest Speakers

Course Tasks

The Tasks page organizes projects (referred to as tasks), defines task priority, and tracks task status. A user can create tasks and post them to the Tasks page. Each user can post personal tasks to their page, instructors and managers can post tasks to users participating in their course and system administrators can post tasks to all users’ Tasks pages.

 

Send E-mail

Instructors can send email to individuals to participate in a particular course from the Send Email page. Instructors cannot send email to others via the Internet with Send Email function; however, instructors can use the Web email function to email via the Internet. 

 

Discussion Board

The Discussion Board is another communication tool that can be used to enhance a course Web site. This feature is similar to the chat, but is designed for asynchronous use, users are not present at the same time to converse on-line. For example email is asynchronous. An additional advantage of the discussion board is that student conversations are logged and organized. Conversations are grouped into threads that contain a main posting and all related replies. The Discussion Board Forum page is the first page accessed when Discussion Board is clicked from the Instructor Control Panel.

 

Virtual Classroom

The Virtual Classroom allows the instructor and students to participate in real time lessons and discussions and also view archives of previous classroom sessions. The virtual classroom, or the chat room, can be used to hold real-time, online classroom discussions, TA sessions, and office hour type question/answer forums. You can even have guest speakers and subject matter experts talk with the class in the Virtual Classroom. When developing an activity that requires a Virtual Classroom, consider the following:

• The Virtual Classroom is a Java application and may initially take a few moments to load into a browser window. Before developing assignments that require the Virtual Classroom, be sure that all students have Java enabled browsers.

• Due to the synchronous nature of the Virtual Classroom, multiple users must participate at the same time. Be sure to notify students about a scheduled Virtual Classroom session to ensure attendance.

• Sometimes a Virtual Classroom session can be overwhelming if there are too many users. Consider grouping students into several small groups to keep the conversation manageable.

 

Digital Drop Box

The Digital Drop box is a tool that instructor and students can use to exchange files. The drop box works by uploading a file from a disk or a computer to a depository. Files can be sent back in forth from the instructor’s Drop Box to the Drop Box of other users.

 

Individual student access to the drop box is available from the Digital Drop box area located in Student Tools area on the course Web site. Students also have group access to a private drop box from a group homepage. Instructors must access their Drop Box from the Instructor Control Panel.

 

Note: The Digital Drop box is used to exchange materials between a individual students and the instructor. Information that needs to be posted for all students should be placed in the Course Documents area.

 

Assessments

The Assessment area contains all the tools necessary to create and manage quizzes and surveys. This area also provides the instructor access to view and edit student grades in the grade book and monitor course related statistics.

Assessment Manager

The Assessment Manager contains all the tools necessary to build online quizzes, exams, and surveys. The quiz generator includes tools that create questions, assign point values, and allow feedback for each question.

 

There are two assessment options:

Quiz/Exam

The quiz/exam option permits the instructor to assign point values to each question.  Student answers can be submitted for grading, and the results can be automatically recorded under each student entry in the grade book.

 

Types of questions

1. Multiple Choice

2. True/False

3. Fill in the Blank

4. Multiple Answer

5. Matching

6. Ordering

7. Short Answer/Essay

8. From Question Pool

Survey

The survey option provides instructors with an assessment tool that records answers anonymously.  This is useful for polling purposes, instructor evaluations, and random checks of knowledge.  There is no method of grading surveys.

• Note: To make the assessment creation as easy as possible, consider planning out the quiz content before beginning the online creation.

• Note: Creating a Quiz/Exam and Survey are similar in that question types can be utilized.  The difference between the two types of assessments is that surveys cannot give feedback to the user, they cannot be graded, there are no points associated with a survey, nor will a name be associated with a submitted survey.  The online grade book will reflect that the survey has been taken and submitted by issuing a check mark next to the user's name.

• Important items to determine before creating an assessment:

• How many questions will this assessment contain?

• Are there instructions that will be included with this assessment?

• What type of questions will this assessment contain?

• What is the point value associated with each question?

Pool Manager

The Pool Manager area is used to create, modify, update, and preview question pools. You can also search your pools to locate specific questions, categories, or keywords that appear in the question pools.

 

Online Grade Book

The Grade book records and reports all student grades from online assessments. Come here to view and edit student grades, create entries for classroom activities, and monitor student progress.

 

Course Statistics

Come here to view statistical information about course usage, such as the frequency that students visit course components. Instructors can see which pages and links are being used and track peak and off-peak access times.

 

Course Options

The instructor can manage the appearance and structure of the course from Course Options. Options include the ability to customize navigational buttons.  For example, under the Course Settings area, instructors may designate subject headers from a menu of options, as well as determine whether the box is enabled or disabled.

Course Settings

Instructors can use the Properties link to change the name, description, and subject type of a course, the Course Availability link to make the course available to students, the Course Duration link to set the duration of the course, Enrollment Options to set how students are to enroll in the course, and select a course catalog for the course to appear.

 

Important: To maintain a consistent appearance and functionality for all course Web sites, administrators may remove options by setting overrides.

Course Utilities

Course Utilities allow instructors to recycle, archive, and import a course to manage disk space by archiving courses and importing courses back into the system when needed. Recycling a course removes grades and other areas and allows a course to be given again to a new group of students.

Course Images

Instructors set the appearance of a course Web site through the tools on the Course Images page. The instructor can add a course banner and change the button style from this page.

Course Resources

Blackboard 5 offers access to the Resource Center. The Resource Center is a customizable Web site of educational resources. For more information about the Resource Center, please refer to the Resource Center Instructor Manual.

Course Marketing

The Course Marketing page allows the instructors to customize course marketing.

 

Assistance

Assistance allows the Instructor to research the online support site, browse the online Instructor Manual, and contact support.

Online Support

This link opens a window to Blackboard's online support site. From here use the online documents, knowledge bank, user forum and many other support items.

Online Instructor Manual

Click Online Instructor Manual to open the Instructor Manual in another browser window. Please note that the online manuals are updated regularly. Check here first for help with any of the features and functions in Blackboard 5.

 

Contact Sys Admin

This link addresses an e-mail directly to the Blackboard System Administrator. Use this link to report problems or concerns.

 

 Using Blackboard - Content

• Plan your course. If you choose to use a cartridge, the planning will evolve around the course cartridge. Content may be organized by folders and then within by files.

• Create course content in your normal word processor, powerpoint , or choose a course with a cartridge.

• It is recommended that you use html as your media type. NOTE: Content with graphics or powerpoint must be archived with WinZip to be correctly viewed inside of Blackboard. NOTE2: If you put a word document or powerpoint there are additional considerations.

• Test your content.

 Using Blackboard – Assessments

• Plan your assessments

• Decide on your question types

• Create a pool of questions

• Create an assessment

• Make it available