Essential Bb Videos and Articles
From Blackboard Wiki
Contents
Overview
This article contains only videos and articles associated with the basic tasks discovered when needing to get started with Blackboard at UWindsor. Most are from the Blackboard Learn: On Demand Tutorials site, but some pertain to local procedures at the University of Windsor. Most vidoes are hosted from YouTube. If you're receiving the following error: "Hello, you either have JavaScript turned off or an old version of Macromedia's Flash Player. Get the latest Flash player," it means that you either have JavaScript turned off in your browser (e.g. Google Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari), or you need to install the latest version of the Adobe Flash player.
The link to the video or article is listed, followed by a brief description, and the length of the video (if applicable). View in sequence or as the task at hand requires.
Logging In and Getting Started
| Title | Description | Length |
| Blackboard Bare-bones Basics Video for instructors just getting started | This video is the bare-bones basics of getting started in Blackboard specifically, at the University of Windsor. | 6:10 |
| Getting Oriented with Blackboard | Instructors, take a quick tour of your Blackboard Learn course environment. Find out how to access your course controls, add and edit the course menu, and edit the default Home Page. | 2:50 |
| Navigation (Global) and My Blackboard | This video shows how to access global navigation, navigate the user menu, and discusses My Blackboard. | 3:40 |
| How to Set Your Notification Options | Always know what is happening in your courses by setting Blackboard's notification system to alert you when events occur. You can receive alerts for events such as when new content is posted when new discussion board postings are submitted when a test is available and much more. Alerts can be sent to your course homepage, your email address, and to your mobile device. | 3:19 |
| How to Quickly Jump from One Blackboard Course to Another | Use the course-to-course navigation function to quickly jump from one Blackboard course to another. By using this drop-down list, you can move from a tool in one course to the same tool in another course. | 1:17 |
| Organizing and Hiding Unnecessary Course sites | Is your Blackboard environment (Courses or Organizations) getting too cluttered? This video will show you how you can organize your listings and hide unneeded sites. | 4:21 |
Preparing Site and Releasing to Students
Setting up (or adjusting) your course menu, changing your course's Home page entry point, previewing your course as your students will see it, using the text (or content) editor, enabling or disabling tools or adding them to the menu, setting your Site Availability(similar to CLEW's LAUNCH THIS SITE), and replicating CLEW's Resources and Syllabus tool in Blackboard, and adding a user (instructor or support) are featured below.
| Title | Description | Length |
| How to Design Your Course Entry Point | The first page students see when they enter you course leaves a lasting impression. Use this first look to orient students and convey important information. This tutorial will show you how to set your course entry point page and add a banner image to it. | 1:56 |
| Student Preview | With Student Preview, you can experience your course exactly as your students do. Use Student Preview to review the course content and validate the course behaviors, such as those that control the availability of course content, or require a particular interaction from the student to be triggered. This tutorial will show you how to enter student preview mode, exit student preview mode, and delete the preview user account. | 2:23 |
| How to Make Your Course Available to Students | Courses under development are set to unavailable to prevent students from accessing them before you are ready for enrolment. This tutorial shows you how to make your course available to students by changing the course properties. | 1:14 |
| How to Turn Tools On and Off in your Course | Setting which tools are available in your course and who can access them is a critical part of course design. Course tools allows you to control the different ways students interact, add content, and stay on track. While Blackboard has many different tools available, you need to select the best ones for your users. | 2:03 |
| Using the Content Editor | This tutorial shows you how to use the content editor to add formatted text, links, images and media to Blackboard Learn. The Content Editor is available frequently throughout Blackboard Learn. | 3:58 |
| How to Add a Tool Link to Your Course | You can help students access what they need by adding links to frequently used tools in different parts of your course. For example, on the course menu, add links to My Grades and Email. In content areas, place relevant tool links near instructional content. | 3:04 |
| How to Turn Tools On and Off in a Course | Setting which tools are available in your course and who can access them is a critical part of course design. Course tools allows you to control the different ways students interact, add content, and stay on track. While Blackboard has many different tools available, you need to select the best ones for your users. | 2:03 |
| Resources and Syllabus - Replicating their functionality in Blackboard, and more. | Not a video, but article from http://help.blackboard.com containing videos - Features how to plan, manage and create course Content Areas. As there is not a comparable CLEW Resources tool in Blackboard, you simulate the functionality of that tool by creating a Content Area called "Resources" or "Syllabus." Then you will add Content Folders, Learning Modules, Lesson Plans, upload files, create web links, or many more options available within the Content Area's action bar. While there is a Syllabus tool available with Blackboard, many instructors choose to use a Content Area instead, if the goal is to only upload a file for students. When you migrate the Syllabus or Resources materials over from CLEW, they will be copied into a Content Area featuring the title of Syllabus or Resources. These menu items would then appear at the bottom of your course menu if there was not a pre-exiting Content Area with those names in place prior to you using the CLEW Import tool. | N/A |
| Course Copy Utility (video 5:41) Part 1 | The course copy utility available to instructors enables a direct copy of all or part of your course into a new destination site (course shells). This video shows how to utilize the tool for a basic course copy process. | 5:41 |
| Course Copy Utility (video 6:53) Part 2 | The course copy utility available to instructors enables a direct copy of all or part of your course into a new destination site (course shells). This video shows how to utilize the tool for a basic course copy process. | 6:53 |
| Using the CLEW Import Tool | You may want to copy over from CLEW, content generated from the Resources, Syllabus, Assignments, Lessons, Quizzes & Tests II (limited), Announcements and Discussions / Forums tool. This article, and embedded video, will discuss the process and limitations involved in the migration from CLEW, and how you can use this tool to efficiently reproduce your CLEW content into Blackboard. | Article and (6:11 video) |
| Adding a User in a Support Role to your Course (video 4:32) | Adding users to your site, such as a co-instructor, Lead TA, TA Grader, or Departmental Support can be done by accessing the Control Panel -> Users and Groups -> Users -> Enrol User -> Find User to Enrol. Enter just the individual's UWinID into the Username> field (not the full email address which includes the @uwindsor.ca), select the correct role, select the Enrolment Availability to be Yes, then click Submit. | (4:32 video) |
| Adding a User in a Support Role to your Course | Adding users to your site, such as a co-instructor, Lead TA, TA Grader, or Departmental Support can be done by accessing the Control Panel -> Users and Groups -> Users -> Enrol User -> Find User to Enrol. Enter just the individual's UWinID into the Username> field (not the full email address which includes the @uwindsor.ca), select the correct role, select the Enrolment Availability to be Yes, then click Submit. | Article |
Communicating With Students
There are several tools available to send information to, and communicate with, students in your courses. The Course Messages (only accessible when logged into Blackboard), and Email (sends email directly to user's UWin email account) and Announcements tool are featured in the list below.
| Title | Description | Length |
| How to Send Email in Blackboard Learn | Send email directly from Blackboard to any member of your course. Use the convenient email tool to communicate with everyone enrolled in your course. Email sent from Blackboard is received and stored in your own UWindsor email program, not in Blackboard. Please ensure you only have either Send Email or Course Messages enabled in your course to avoid student confusion (see video below). | 1:15 |
| Adjust the Email Settings in your course | By default, the Email tool in Blackboard is set so all users can contact other users in your site - by Instructors, Groups, Individuals, etc. This may be a desirable feature in some courses, but problematic in others. If you would like to disable the tool, so that only instructors would be the destination for the email, you can adjust the settings in the Email tool. Visit the UWindsor Wiki article to show you how. | N/A Article |
| How to Send and Receive Course Messages | The course messages tool provides you with a familiar, email-like environment that you can use for course communication.However, unlike email, you can only access this private and secure text-based form of communication by logging in to your course. This eliminates external factors such as incorrect or out-of-date email addresses. This tutorial will show you how to, access, send, and view course messages. Please ensure you only have either Send Email or Course Messages enabled in your course to avoid student confusion. | 1:48 |
| How to Create an Announcement | Keeping your students informed on timely issues in your course is critically important to their continued success. This video shows you how to create an announcement in your Learn course, how to immediately send notification of the announcement to your students, and how to reorder announcements so they appear in your desired order. | 2:38 |
| ePortfolios in Blackboard (video - 4:56) | The Blackboard Portfolio tool enables students to submit their own artifacts to build into a portfolio collection accessible through Blackboard, and available to export as a snapshot file. This video highlights the features of the tool and where to access from within Blackboard. | 4:56 |
| Groups - Creating a Self-Enrol Group and Sign-up Page | Instructors often want to have an area for students to sign up for a particular group or groups. This can also apply if you have a time slot that could apply for a group, that you can have students sign up for that "slot". This video details how to create self-enrol group(s), deploying into your site, what the students will see, and utilizing options from the tool. | 5:26 |
Using the Grade Centre and Needs Marking Tools
The Grade Centre is a very powerful tool with many features and options. Below, the essential tasks are highlighted with videos and articles. More on this tool can be found at http://help.blackboard.com and select the Learn product, version 9.1 2014, and the instructor role to access the latest content about Blackboard. Enter Grade Center into the search field to reveal all articles related.
| Title | Description | Length |
| How to Customize the Grade Centre View | Instructors can customize their view of the Grade Center< by hiding columns to focus on specific data and reduce scrolling. Hidden columns are not deleted from the Grade Center, and you can show and reorder them at any time. This tutorial will show you how to customize the view of the Grade Center by hiding a column, accessing the Column Organization page, showing a hidden column, and reordering columns. | 2:31 |
| Entering Grades | You can enter grades in the GradeCenter in the following ways:
|
N/A Article |
| How to Download and Upload Grades from the Grade Centre | How to upload and download grades to be worked on offline is featured in this video. New data can then be uploaded back into the Grade Center. This tutorial will show you how to set download options, download the Grade Center file, upload the new file, and select which grades to change. | 2:39 |
| Import to Grade Centre (Scantron Results) | How to import Scantron results into Blackboard's Grade Centre with a tool developed at UWindsor. | 7:30 |
| Transfer Final Grades Tool | How to transfer your Final Grades from within Blackboard to UWinsite Student. This video will walk you through how the tool works, selecting a course to transfer grades, what to expect, and options that exist in UWinsite Student for uploading grades. | 6:54 |
| Colour Code the Grade Centre | You can use Grading Color Codes to apply background and text color to items in the Grade Center that meet specific criteria. Adding color rules to the Grade Center provides visual indicators to help you interpret information quickly. This tutorial will show you how to enable color coding in the Grade Center, and set color coding options. | 1:46 |
| Calculating a Total Column (Article) | The Total Column is a type of calculated column that generates a grade based on the cumulative points earned, related to the points allowed. You can select which columns and categories are included in a total column's calculation. When creating a Total Column, you can include other calculated columns. A Total Column is created by default and appears in new courses. You can rename, change the settings, change which columns are included, or delete this default column. | N/A Article |
| Creating and Using Weighted Columns in Grade Center | The weighted column is a type of calculated column that generates a grade based on the result of selected columns and categories, and their respective percentages. When creating a weighted column, you can include other calculated columns or other weighted columns. A default weighted total column appears in new courses. You can rename it, change the settings, change which columns and categories are included, or delete this default column. The default Weighted Total column displays no results until you select the columns and categories to include in the calculation. This column is included in the Final Grade View Smart View. Weighted totals are calculated based on percentages. | N/A Article |
| My Grades (Student View of Full Grade Center) | Students see their grades in a companion tool from the Grade Center, called My Grades. This tool reveals what columns, rubrics, or feedback that you have set to be visible for the students. This article is geared to students, but it discusses how they will use this tool. You need to be sure you've set up the course's Grade Center properly, in order for the correct information to be visible. Switch to your Student Preview option, to ensure that you have actually assigned grades properly. Don't forget to ensure you have actually assigned grades to the Student Preview user, in order for you to observe content appropriately. | N/A Article |
We are constantly trying to improve the information in this Wiki.
If you notice any errors or omissions with this material, please advise the LMS Team or submit a Service Request at http://www.uwindsor.ca/bbhelp.
