Blackboard Best Practices

Posted on April 9, 2013 by adminde

Below, Distance Education has compiled a list of best practices for traditional, blended, and online instructors using Blackboard.

In General

Courses should be ready before the semester begins. Blended and online courses should be completely developed and released to students in Blackboard before the course begins. Most students that take blended and online courses do so because they are non-traditional students. Perhaps they already have a family or maybe full-time job; they may have both. Providing the full expectations of the course up front ensures that these students have the best chance at success. Fully developing your blended or online course also ensures that the design of your course is consistent through the entire semester and that sufficient planning for the entire curriculum is allowed.
Transparency is king. Transparency in a blended or online format is necessary to ensure that the students can find information in the course at anytime. Information that you would normally give out in the classroom should be included in your course shell in Blackboard. The most important place for this transparency is the syllabus. The transparency focuses on the course work, schedule, communication expectations, due dates, netiquette, help options, grading policies, student expectations, learning outcomes, participation, and more. Transparency also helps Distance Education to ensure that blended and online courses across all campuses are comparable. This transparency is part of the DECIDE Quality Certification process at Campbell University.

ADA Compliance:

Only underline text that includes a hyperlink. Ensuring the design of your text is constant and ADA compliant is essential in Blackboard. Screen readers for students with visual disabilities as well as students with color blindness rely on ADA compliant text for readability.
Use consistent fonts, font sizes, colors, and formatting. Using fonts that are too small, too large, or inconsistent (both font type and size) can cause eye strain. The default for Blackboard is set to Arial, size 3. Font color also plays a large role in design. Use font colors sparingly and ensure the contrast between the background color and the font color is high. Copying and pasting from outside of Blackboard can also cause issues with font presentation.

Content:

Technology for the sake of technology is poor design. If you start with the idea that you saw X technology demonstrated and want to incorporate it. STOP. If, however, you seek a technology for the specific purpose of creating content to align with the student learning outcomes and incremental outcomes of the course, then PROCEED. And while you are at it, give Distance Education a call; we can help.
Content does not have to be boring. PowerPoint, Discussions, Quiz. PowerPoint, Discussions, Quiz. PowerPoint…you get the point. Energize your course with some personalized content. Keep videos and recordings to 5-7 minutes. Engage the student. Active learning trumps passive learning any day. (Sorry, but this also means recording yourself in the classroom for 1.5 hours and posting it in Blackboard is not an acceptable course.)
Remember you are still the instructor! Sure the publisher of your textbook may offer excellent supplemental material, but that doesn’t mean it replaces your instruction. According to Merriam-Webster, ‘teach’ is a verb. Do it.
Document formats matter. Not all students have access to MS Word. Posting documents in Blackboard in a universally viewable format such as PDF is recommended. Students access Blackboard from a variety of different devices including laptops, desktops, tablets, and smartphones. Requiring students to upload documents in .doc or .docx format is strong discouraged. Offer several acceptable document types to ensure students can successfully submit work.

Attendance and Participation:

Campbell University requires student attendance and documentation for all courses. Methods of documentation for blended and online courses can include: discussion board submissions, assignment attempt, test attempt, quiz attempt, self-assessment attempt, survey attempt, blog post, wiki contribution, journal entry, and more. Logging into Blackboard is not sufficient to demonstrate attendance.
Courses do not run themselves. This isn’t the Ronco method of ‘set it and forget it.’ Remember you are still the instructor. Online and blended courses should include several types of participation and engagement including: student to student, student to instructor (and instructor to student), and student to content. Engagement and participation in blended and online courses is the key to retention.

Katherine Spradley
Director of Distance Education
Campbell University

All iPad:
Preparation…Part II

Posted on November 30, 2012 by adminde

Why would someone need to prepare to switch from a laptop/desktop to an iPad? The same reason why someone checks to see what software comes on a laptop/desktop. I must ensure that all of my work both in the office and at home can be done on the iPad. Afterall, I wouldn’t want to have to cheat.

Previously, I listed the tasks that I needed to be able to complete on the iPad. I have rehashed those with the theoretical solutions that I have found:

Extensive typing: purchased a Mac bluetooth keyboard. I just cannot see typing on the screen for long periods of time although I am sure that they are people who could do it. It just is not going to be me. Ahem: Don’t forget an extra set of backup AA batteries.
Email: Standard mail app
Blackboard: MobileLearn app and will also use the Safari browser due to the limited nature of the app
Blogs: Blogger app and WordPress app
Photos: Adobe Photoshop Express app and Pic Stitch app. I also plan on using the screenshot feature (home and off button) paired with Educreations to create screenshots tutorials.
RSS Feeds: Flipboard app
Trello: Trello app (although it is optimized for an iPhone, you can download it on the iPad)
Website: you may in fact not like this answer. For those of you using What You See is What You Get editors, there are not a ton of current options for the iPad; however, if you know straight coding, there are a few options. I am going to attempt using the Diet Coda app.
Document Creation: I have had to do a lot of exploring over the last week. I started with the Google Drive app. We use forms, the spreadsheets, docs, etc. I have found that through some preliminary testing, items that aren’t available through Drive (such as the creation of forms and management of spreadsheets) can be done through Safari with a few quirks in desktop mode. The next app is the Type on PDF app. This will allow me to download my student papers, annotate them, and return them. I am still a bit apprehensive about how this will all work outside of theory. The Evernote app is an app I have been using for quite sometime now to replace the 1,001 fancy notebooks that I still like to carry but don’t want to write in for fear of ruining their appeal. Scanning is also something that I need access to on a daily basis so I purchased the TurboScan app. This is the only app I have purchased thus far; although, I am evaluating the need for a slick word processing app.

Katherine Spradley
Director of Distance Education
Campbell University

Bb Mobile Learn
Bb2Go

Posted on August 23, 2012 by adminde

You asked for it. Campbell University delivered.

This week Campbell University announced the installation of Blackboard Mobile Learn. Mobile Learn will allow Campbell University faculty, staff, and students to download the App for FREE on both iOS and Android devices including mobile phones and tablets.

Simply download the App, launch the App, and search for Campbell. Once you have selected Campbell, log in to Blackboard using the same log in credentials you would normally use to log in to Blackboard.

For faculty and staff: Once logged in, you will be able to enter your courses, mark your current courses as your favorites (for easy access), view Discussion Board postings, and add Course Content to existing Course Menu Content Areas using only the App.

To complete more advanced functions, select the View in Browser feature. The View in Browser feature will give you a familiar Blackboard browser view. From the View in Browser feature, you can edit your course, access the Control Panel, view Campus Pack content, and access/edit most features/tools available on your desktop or laptop computer.

For students: This app gives students access to their courses, Course Content, Discussion Boards, and Grades (as long as a link is provided in the Course Menu by the faculty member). Students also have access to the View in Browser feature to allow the completion of Assignments, Journals, Blogs, and more. Beyond this, students can opt in to Notifications on their mobile device to be notified when items are graded or when new Course Content is posted.

Important Note: Only Mobile Compatible Test (tool available in the Assessment Action Bar Menu) can be taken by students on a mobile device. Other assessments such as the traditional test and survey features may not work properly with certain question types.

For more information click here.

The App is a feature that is offered as a convenience for faculty, staff, and students, but like other Apps,it is not supported by the Campbell Helpdesk or Distance Education. For questions about Blackboard’s Mobile Learn App, please use our 24/7 Blackboard support by calling 1-866-886-4846 or clicking the help link at the bottom of Blackboard for chat and email.

Katherine Spradley
Director of Distance Education
Campbell University

New Basic Blackboard Training Available

Posted on August 20, 2012 by adminde

For quite sometime, the Basic Blackboard Training has needed a complete overhaul. Originally, the training began with a tool focus, but a tool focus is exactly what we did not want faculty members to do in the online environment. I suppose you could say an entirely different approach was needed.

Faculty members often have a difficult time translating their in class “traditional” versions of the course to an online or blended format. If only it were that easy. If only there was some “traditional to online” or “traditional to blended” translation guide. It isn’t that easy!

Of course, faculty members could video their lectures and post them in the online course shells. Certainly, they could type out their lecture notes and post them for students to read. But, would this be considered teaching? Does this engage the students? Does this result in that knowledge transfer that we are trying to complete?

To dive deeper into this subject and learn about online and blended course design, join us for our NEW online or traditional Basic Blackboard Training class. You can register here.

Katherine Spradley
Director of Distance Education
Campbell University

Google and Blackboard

Posted on August 16, 2012 by adminde

What can you do to further increase collaborative learning in traditional, blended, and online courses? Try using Google Docs.

Google Docs has a several options (and tons of templates). You can create a document that allows simultaneous typing, editing, and critiquing.

First you must have a Google account. Second, select Google Documents or Google Drive (Google Drive will replace the Google Documents name later this year). Click Create and then select Document.

Begin by creating a title for the resulting document. Once you have titled the document, you will need to modify the share settings in the top right hand corner of your screen.

This screen will provide you the URL for your students to access the document. To allow the students to view and edit the document, you must change the Share Settings (or permissions) to allow access and editing privileges. The default is set to Private.

Once you choose the appropriate Share Settings and publish the URL link of the document for your students, they will be able to simultaneously collaborate on a writing assignment. For easier access for your students, include the document link in your Blackboard course.

To learn more about Google Docs click here.

Katherine Spradley
Director of Distance Education
Campbell University

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