Blackboard MigrationMigration Training Blackboard
Session I: Navigating and Creating Content
Updated March 20, 2014 Monroe Community College: Office of Online Learning | Session II: Interaction and Assessment Monroe Community College: Office of Online Learning
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Blackboard Migration Training Global Navigation Menu Bb Home The Bb Home gives you an overview of the items that are due and have recently been graded. Move your cursor over View to reveal your grade. The Bb Home displays the five most recent activities relevant to you. If your school has messages turned on, the Bb Home shows a preview of your unread messages. Posts This page displays the latest posts in the classes and organizations you are enrolled in and follow. For example, you can see when a classmate submits a blog post in your class. If your school has the people and spaces tools turned on, the latest posts by the people and spaces you follow also display. Updates Review a list of notifications alerting you to important events and information. For example, you can see when an assignment has been graded. Grades View your grades for each assignment, test, or activity in all of your classes. Sort the grades by date or class. Retention Center View students at risk. Visit the following site for more information: http://ondemand.blackboard.com/r91/ movies/
Calendar Review everything you have due and be reminded of when you need to complete it. People Find and interact with peers, classmates and teachers.
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Monroe Community College: Office of Online Learning | Session II: Interaction and Assessment
Blackboard Migration Training Blackboard Homepage To access the Blackboard website, go to https://mcc.sln.suny.edu and login with your full MCC email address and password
These modules can be rearranged by each user and may be modified
My Courses: An aggregated list of all courses you are involved with. Click on the gear in the upper right hand corner to configure which courses you see, as well as what information about each course is displayed. My Organizations: A list of all the organizations you are involved in. Click on the gear in the upper right hand corner to configure which organizations you see, as well as what information about each organization is displayed. Tools: Displays links to course tools such as “Calendar” and “My Grades”. SLN Student Orientation: A link to the SUNY Learning Network tutorial for students in Blackboard. Monroe Community College: Displays information pertinent to the college or Office of Online Learning. Browser Compatibility: Advises the user if their browser is reliable. My Tasks: Displays tasks that are created by a user and instructors for the courses a user is enrolled in. My Announcements: Generates announcements based on the courses and organizations you are part of. Monroe Community College: Office of Online Learning | Session II: Interaction and Assessment
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Blackboard Migration Training Course Homepage
Press this button to add a new module on this page. Be aware of when this is ON and OFF. This is not the student view.
The Course Menu is a completely customizable menu for your course. You can add links to course content and course tools, as well as separators and sub-headings. The template has useful links already created, but you should add/modify/delete any that don’t fit the zeitgeist of your course.
This is an example of a module (known as a nugget in ANGEL). On your course homepage, you can add and remove modules. As you curate the modules and their positions, know that the students enrolled in your class will see them as you do. We recommend that you add the “My Messages” module if it is not enabled.
DEFAULT MODULES My Announcements: Displays announcements for the course. Needs Attention: Displays notifications regarding items that need attention. What’s New: Keep up to date with your courses. Displays notices of what is new. To Do: Keep on top of your course work! My Tasks: Displays tasks. Alerts: Don’t fall behind. Display notifications of past due and early warnings. The Control Panel is the central nervous system of the course. Students cannot see this panel, and it is through this region where you will administer the course (mostly through “Course Tools” and “Grade Center”, but occasionally “Packages and Utilities” when you are importing and exporting).
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Monroe Community College: Office of Online Learning | Session II: Interaction and Assessment
Engages keyboard input
Refreshes content
Pops out course navigation
Add content to the menu
Blackboard Migration Training Course Menu: Anatomy r ba his nu t on Me re he urse w o y an he C t ck Cli hide to
Indicates which course you are in
Course Home Page (can be configured, but by default is the “Module Page”
Content form ANGEL should land here
Shortcuts to existing content
THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT THE COURSE MENU The Course Menu in Blackboard is perhaps one of the most underrated aspects of course design. In ANGEL, there was one venue to place your content - the “Learning Modules” tab. Within the scope of that arena, you could create folders, files, tests, and other content. Organization was pigeonholed; you couldn’t (easily) have direct links to other venues. In Blackboard, you can put content in more than one “Content Area”, and easily have links to those different areas right from the Course Menu. There are other neat toys on the Course Menu. You can put in horizontal lines to break up the “chunks” of content. You can put links to specific Course Tools. You can even have section headers that are just text (not links).
ICON GUIDE Link is not visible to students
Shortcuts to tools students can use
There is no content in this area
Use this chevron to edit options
Shortcut to “Discussions Woodshed” Shortcut to Groups (similar to “Teams”) Shortcut to Tools area for students Shortcut to online Blackboard help Hidden area for storage
Monroe Community College: Office of Online Learning | Session II: Interaction and Assessment
You can click and drag the position of any object in the Course Menu. Be sure that “Edit Mode” is “ON”.
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Blackboard Migration Training Course Menu: Curating Content Wrangling the Course Menu in Blackboard is an essential skill for course design. Because the Course Menu is so customizable, students enrolled in multiple courses may experience Course Menus that are radically different. Therefore, it is paramount that the Course Menu is organized in a logical and efficient way. A thorough understanding of the Course Menu is necessary to create an environment that students can navigate.
This is a place where content (pages, tests, assignments, etc.) resides A page where you can put modules; the “Course Home Page” is a module page A page that you can build (just like in ANGEL) A link to a specific tool from “Tools” A link to any website A link to a destination within the course Descriptive text (not a link) A horizontal rule used for breaking up groups of links in the menu
Creating a Content Area, Module Page, or Blank Page results in the creation of actual content. Deleting these later on will delete the content. For instance, if you create a Content Area called “Course Information”, and in that area you put the syllabus, your office hours, and a “due-date” document, then you have actually created a place where those three documents live. Deleting “Course Information” from the Course Menu will result in a loss of those three documents. Conversely, if you have those three documents in your course and create a Course Link to each one on the menu, and then delete the link, you will not lose the content (just the shortcut to access that document). It might be the case that you may not know if the item in the Course Menu is a link or actual content. In those cases, use the drop-down to look at the options. Additionally, Blackboard will list items that will be permanently removed if you proceed with the deletion.
The “Location” option indicates this is a link! Go ahead and delete it without losing content!
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This is actual content. Deleting this would be catastrophic!
Monroe Community College: Office of Online Learning | Session II: Interaction and Assessment
Blackboard Migration Training Course Menu: Tools The term tools in Blackboard has a few different meanings. In this case, we are talking about the “Tools” link that appears in the Course Menu that students have access to. The template that your course was created with has the “Tools” link enabled. Below is a list of all the tools a student would see if they were to click on the “Tools” link. The tools that we feel are of immediate concern in the migration have been highlighted (but of course, feel free to poke around in any of the other tools). As the instructor, you can click the “Hide Link” button next to each individual tool, and that will prohibit the student from seeing it. This is a good thing to do if you give access to the “Tools” link in the Course Menu, but do not want to overwhelm the students with options that you don’t use in the course. Alternatively, you could hide the “Tools” link altogether, and create links to specific course tools directly in the Course Menu (for instance, some of the “Quick Links” are nothing more than links to individual tools - the previous page discusses how to add these links).
Monroe Community College: Office of Online Learning | Session II: Interaction and Assessment
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Blackboard Migration Training Control Panel: Anatomy The Control Panel in the Course Management section of Blackboard is where most of the “administrative” functions are stored. This includes the Gradebook, Groups (which are similar to “Teams” in ANGEL), the importing/exporting features, and running reports. There are many functions in the Control Panel that are not necessarily part of the migration process, but that provide enhanced functionality to your course.
1 2
1
Viewing as a “Test Student” allows for a complete student experience This is a complete view of all announcements
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The Course Calendar is a complete solution to due dates Besides email, this is the only other venue for communication The “Woodshed”, where all Discussions are housed
In addition to Course Messages, this is the only other venue for communication The “Garage” where tests are housed.
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An aggregated list of all items pending grading Entire Gradebook
3
Tool for EXPORTING and BACKING UP a course Tool for IMPORTING a course
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Monroe Community College: Office of Online Learning | Session II: Interaction and Assessment
Blackboard Migration Training Control Panel: Adding a Test Student STEP 1: Expand the Course Tools menu (in Course Management) and choose “Add Test Student”.
STEP 2: Enter the password (and confirmation), make sure the “Enroll” box is checked, and hit “Submit”
dghidiu@monroecc.edu_s
Note that your entire username may not display completely, but the username is your entire MCC email address with an “_s” at the end.
A few things to know about the practice student: This is a tool for you to view the course as a student would - use this feature because the “Edit Mode” is not sufficient; content renders differently If you lose your password, you can always reset it by going to the “Add Test Student” This password does not sync with your MCC password It is much easier to view the student perspective concurrently with the faculty perspective Use dual monitors if possible, and start using the “In Private” function on browsers You must enroll the practice student in every class you want to view as a student Monroe Community College: Office of Online Learning | Session II: Interaction and Assessment
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Blackboard Migration Training Web Browsers: Private Browsing In-Private browsing is a newer feature in most web browsers that allows for multiple sessions of one browser to run independently. For example, if a user is logged in as the instructor in Blackboard in Internet Explorer, they can open a “In-Private” browsing window, which will allow them to login to Blackboard with the Test Student account. Both windows can remain open concurrently with no interference. Each browser has different nomenclature for this mode, but most browsers support it. The easiest way to enter a private session is to right click on the icon of your web browser and choose the respective option (it’s different for each browser). Alternatively, either use the following shortcuts to launch an In-Private window, or search for it under the File or Settings menus in the browser.
BROWSER
NAME
SHORTCUT
Google Chrome
Incognito
[Control] + [Shift] + [N]
Microsoft Internet Explorer Mozilla Firefox
In-Private Browsing Private Browsing
[Control] + [Shift] + [P] [Control] + [Shift] + [P]
Apple Safari
Private Browsing
None
Having two different sessions open can be confusing, especially if you don’t have two screens hooked up to your computer. The easiest way to remember which window belongs to which login is to look in the upper right hand corner of Blackboard. Your username will appear.
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Monroe Community College: Office of Online Learning | Session II: Interaction and Assessment
Blackboard Migration Training Creating Content: Content Editor There are two ways of displaying the Content Editor—Simple Mode and Advanced Mode. By default, the editor is in Simple Mode. However, by clicking the button, the toolbar will be expanded and reveal all the editing tools (Blackboard should remember this configuration and open in Advanced Mode in future sessions).
Reveal Advanced Mode Full Screen Help Preview
The Advanced Mode Content Editor empowers the user with more tools. Most of the tools in this menu are similar to those found in Microsoft Word. Editing tools that are especially powerful in Blackboard include:
Monroe Community College: Office of Online Learning | Session II: Interaction and Assessment
Remove Formatting
Highlight Color
Spell Check
Defined Space
Horizontal Line
Customized Line
Right of Cursor
Edit CSS
Edit HTML Code
Unmerge Cell
Merge Cells
Delete Column
HTML
Insert Column Right
Insert Column Left
Delete Row
Insert Row Below
Insert Row Above
Cell Properties
Row Properties
Tables
Insert Table
Insert Anchor
Insert Emoticons
Insert Symbol
Block Quote
Font Color
Lines and Spaces Tools
Left of Cursor
Indent
Enhancements
Insert Mashup
Tools
Numbered List
Bulleted List Remove Link
Link Properties
Subscript
Superscript
Position Links
Outdent
Indent
Full
Right
Left
Redo
Undo Equation Editor
Insert Media
Insert Image
Insert File
Video Everywhere
Lists
Font Size
Font Face
Paragraph Styles
Strikethrough Find and Replace
Justification
Multimedia
Insert Symbol: inserts a symbol Tables: improved table design interaction
Paste
Copy
Edit
Cut
Video Everywhere: allows the user to embed a video (made from a webcam and housed in YouTube on the fly)
Font Settings
View Nonprintables
Defined Space: Analogous to the HTML   this preserves whitespace
Styles
Underline
Italic
Bold
Customized Line: inserts a line (of user specification) horizontally in the text
Text
Center
Remove Formatting: strips all existing formatting from the selected text
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Blackboard Migration Training Creating Content: Building Content As in ANGEL, there are many different types of content that can be added in a course. While you can experiment with all of these, the diagram below provides insight into which content types are most effective, as well as a guide to the icons (in Blackboard, the icons appear in front of the content in your course, but you don’t get to see the icon when actually building.
Build Content v
Assessments v
Create
Tools v
Partner Content v
New Page Item Use this for displaying information or media inline
Content Folder A folder for content Recommend Learning Module
File Can post one only (1) file
Module Page Page with customizable Modules
Audio Recommend using ITEM or PAGE instead Image Recommend using ITEM or PAGE instead
Blank Page Empty page; can contain media
Mashups
Video Recommend using ITEM or PAGE instead Web Link Great for linking outside of Blackboard
Flickr Photo A photo from Flickr, renders inline
Learning Module This is similar to a folder, but has an index
YouTube Video A video from YouTube, renders inline
Lesson Plan Recommend not using
Ensemble Video Recommend not using
Syllabus Recommend not using
Ensemble Playlist Recommend not using
SlideShare Presentation A presentation from SlideShare, renders inline
Course Link Link to content, content area, or tool in Blackboard Content Package (SCORM) Recommend not using Page 12
Monroe Community College: Office of Online Learning | Session II: Interaction and Assessment
Blackboard Migration Training Creating Content: Assessments The following diagrams highlight the most effective (and transferrable from ANGEL) content in Blackboard. Recall that Tests reside in the “Garage”, and Discussions reside in the “Woodshed”. However, Assignments live in the content area that you create them in. It can be overwhelming to contemplate all the different types of Content, Assessments, and Tools in Blackboard. Hopefully the previous page and this page distill the important tools that you should focus on.
tent v
Assessments v Tool
Test In ANGELSpeak, this is an Assessment. Remember that it resides in the Garage and can only be deployed. Survey Assignment This is analogous to a Dropbox in ANGEL
ents v
Tools v
Partner
Discussion Board Same concept as Discussion Forums in ANGEL, but implemented differently. Also, these all reside in the “Woodshed” and can only be deployed in a content area. Blogs Journals Wikis
Self and Peer Assessment
Groups
Mobile Compatible Test
Chat
SafeAssignment
Virtual Classroom
McGraw-Hill Assignment
Tools Area More Tools
Monroe Community College: Office of Online Learning | Session II: Interaction and Assessment
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Blackboard Migration Training Help & Support Blackboard’s Online Videos and Handouts:
On Demand Learning Center: http://ondemand.blackboard.com YouTube Blackboard Channel - “Quick Hit” videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/BlackboardTV Blackboard Help: https://help.blackboard.com Ask The Doctors: http://discussions.blackboard.com/forums/66.aspx
SLN’s Faculty Training Courses:
Tier 1—Intro: Introduction to Blackboard Learn Tier 2—Intermediate: Intermediate Blackboard Learn
SLN’s Resources:
SLN Student Orientation SLN HelpDesk Email: SLNSupport@itech.suny.edu Phone: (800) 875 - 6269
MCC’s Resource:
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Blackboard Babblings
Monroe Community College: Office of Online Learning | Session II: Interaction and Assessment
Blackboard Migration Training Notes
Monroe Community College: Office of Online Learning | Session II: Interaction and Assessment
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Blackboard Migration Training Notes
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Monroe Community College: Office of Online Learning | Session II: Interaction and Assessment