Using OU Blackboard

ALL OU classes are in Blackboardhttp://ou.blackboard.com (use OUNetID)

• OU Photo Rosters – http://ithink.ou.edu

• IT New Support Tool for questions – http://support.ou.edu

• IT/CMS Web Page for specific info – http://cms.ou.edu – Forms for add/combine courses etc.

Instructor: Cathy Pierson – cpierson@ou.edu

Topics

1. Overview of Navigation – Student View1. We will login to Development_Course.Pierson as a

student

2. Control Panel (CP) – Course Setup Options

3. CP - Content Areas

4. CP - Communication Areas

5. CP - User Management

6. CP - Assessment Area

7. CP - Course Utilities

1 - Welcome to Blackboard!

Courses are NOT available until the instructor sets it ‘available’!

Blackboard Navigation

• Buttons on the left• Change names or

colors• 10 buttons max

Control Panel:Instructor sets up

the course here.

2 - Control Panel

•To make Course Available/unavailable – Course Settings•To make Areas & Tools Available/unavilable – Course Settings – Area Availability•To backup Course – Course Utilities•To add users – Add Users – Enroll existing User – Search for name•To modify users Role (Student, TA) – List/Modify Users – Search for name & change Properties

3 - Working with Content

• Blackboard uses a linear hierarchy

• Plan ahead because you cannot move docs around

• Fill out a form-like page & upload your document.

Any MS doc, ppt, xls, Adobe pdf, or html files can be uploaded

3 - Course Material

• Why put your Course Syllabus in Blackboard?– Make copies of syllabus available to your students online – 24/7– Update the syllabus during the semester

• Other types of Content – a document that explains your expectations for written assignments

(formatting, bibliographical citation). – an "Academic Integrity" statement, modeled on the content at the

Provost's website -- or you might just include a link to the Provost's website.

– Homework examples– Previous student presentation examples

Create your own "electronic reserves" in Blackboard, publishingmaterials inside your Blackboard course account for your studentsto read and/or to print out in hard copy.

Photo Rosters and Homepages

• IT Photo Rosters -Photo rosters for your courses can be obtained by going to http://ithink.ou.edu, – clicking on "My Courses" and logging in with your

OUNet ID and password.

Note: If you are an instructor and do not see the courses you are teaching, please confirm with your department that you have been assigned as the official "Instructor of Record" for those courses in the enrollment system.

Bb Faculty Webpage Online

Create your own Blackboard Faculty Profile, a kind of "instructor homepage" for your course. – explain to your students how they can contact

you, the days/times of your office hours, and so on.

4-Bb Communication Tools

• Email (communication area)

• Discussion Boards (communication area)

• Chats (communication area)

• Announcements (student tools area)

• Calendar (student tools area)

• Group Pages (communication area)

• Digital Drop Box (communication area)

– Allows users to upload files for instructor to review

We review these on the following slides.

4-Email in Blackboard

• Send Mail – inside Blackboard• Read Mail - using the OU email system

•Many students use yahoo or hotmail as their main email server•Make students responsible for forwarding their OU email •Students can setup a forward address at http://account.ou.edu

4-Discussion Boards

• Engage in a dialogue online.

• Post class info rather than email – always there to view.

• Leave a message for others to read on the discussion board, this is called a "post", Here's what a typical "post" looks like

Great way to share information with your students!

4-Blackboard Chat Room

"synchronous" Chat room conversations take place overthe internet in real time: you type messages using yourkeyboard and these messages are instantly displayed sothat everyone in the chat room can read them.

• Use the Chat Room to hold "virtual office hours," • Leave the Chat Room open for the students to use at

their own discretion, so that they can go on line and have a "virtual review session" without having to find a physical place where they can get together.

4-Blackboard Chat Room

May require a significant bandwidth

4-Bb Class Announcements

• The first thing that students see when they log on to the Blackboard

• Use the Announcements to remind student's about current assignments, upcoming activities, and any other important information.

4-Blackboard Calendar

• Students can view daily events for their courses (Welcome Page)

• Help your students stay on top of their work for your course

NOTE: You cannot set reoccuring items (like Outlook)

4-Promoting Group Work in Bb

• Allow students to collaborate and work together outside of class.

• Each group has access to their own tools: – Groups can circulate email to

members of the group.– They can have their own group

Discussion Board.– They can have a Chat Room for their

group. – They can share files-Digital Dropbox

For group work to be really effective, it needs to extend beyond the classtime!

Blackboard Web Links Library

The internet could be the singlegreatest learning resourceavailable to your students.

• Students need a THREAD to help them navigate the ‘labyrinth’, a guide, a directory.

• Blackboard makes it easy for you to organize a library of useful web resources for your students, pointing them to the sites that you know will excite them and help them succeed in your course.

OU Library Electronic Reserves

• OU Library Website – http://libraries.ou.edu • Password protected; only student enrolled in a

given course can view the materials available on electronic reserve.

• Provide a clean xerox copy of the materials, which the library then scans and converts to PDF format.

• Strict rules about how much of a given journal or book you can make available on Electronic Reserve; for more information, consult the Bizzell Library Copyright Information page.

Bb Student Homepages

In the same way that you can create an "instructor homepage" for the course, the students can also create their own homepages.

• Students fill out an online form inside the Blackboard site. • Gives students a chance to introduce themselves to the rest of the

class• You learn more about your students -- name, face, and what they

say about themselves on their Blackboard homepages.• As a simple first assignment for your class:

“Have each student log on to Blackboard and create their personalwebpage. Time required: maybe 10 minutes, max. This simple littleassignment will let you know that the students have been able to log on to Blackboard successfully.”

Bb Student Webpages cont’d.

Students Create/edit their page under Student Tools

Users & Instructor view homepages under Course Roster Tool – click on Username Link.

5 - User Management

• Students(Users) are automatically added to all courses based on enroll.ou.edu info– Within 24 hours

• Students are not deleted automatically– Instructor’s do this manually– CP – User Mgmnt – Remove User

• Instructor’s can add students– CP – User Mgmnt – Add User – Enroll Existing User – Search

for Name & Add

• Instructor’s can change a student properties to a TA, Course Builder etc.– CP – User Mgmnt – Modify User – Search – Select Properties of

User and change the Role

5 - User Management, cont’d.

• CP - Manage Groups– Setup a group – name– Add users to the group– Add tools to the group

• Email• Discussion boards • Digital drop box• Chats

6 - Blackboard Gradebooks

• Spreadsheet View - Add items in a table format• Uses a point system; can add weighted grades• Can only Export the Gradebook – say to a spreadsheet program• Students only view their grades

6 - Bb Quiz/Assessments

• Blackboard uses basic question types– Multiple choice, matching etc.– Random questions in quizzes by using Pool Manager– Weighted questions – on a point system

• WebCT really excels – weighted questions & grades,– Calculated questions such as variables like ‘what is

the average of x & y? – Weighted grades – such as ‘average 10 hw and add

Midterm & Final’

7 – Area & Course Availability

• All courses are set to unavailable– CP – Course Options – Course Settings - Course

Availability – Y/N

• All Areas and Tools are enabled• Instructor can remove buttons & tools (disable)

– Disable anything you don’t use.– CP – Course Options – Course Settings - Area

Availability – Enable/Disable

7 - Bb Course Archives

Blackboard creates backups for Content, CourseSettings, Users and Groups, Assessments andPools, Discussion Board

• Creates a zip file - requires sys admin to restore a backup

• You must download this zip file to your machine.• NEW Copy Course Tool! Easy to use. (found

under the Student Tools Button – not under the Control Panel!)

7 - Common Bb ??s

• Instructor does not see his course in Bb– Need to be ‘instructor of record’ in CICS– 24 hour turn around

• Instructor wants to add a TA to his course– Add a user under Control Panel – Add User – Enroll Existing

User – Search for name (default is Student) – Check box.– Then Modify User – Change Properties to TA

• A student does not see his course in Bb– Instructor has not made the course Available yet.

• Control Panel – Course Options – Course Availability– If student newly enrolled – 24 hour turn around– Instructor can add a student (Global adds do not affect current

roster)• http://support.ou.ed or web-courses@ou.edu

Blackboard Online SupportLog into - http://support.ou.edu – with OUNetID

Search for

OUBBinstruct

Additional Online Resources

• The best place to learn about teaching with the internet is on the internet. There are a wide range of sites where teachers can share ideas and resources for using the internet to supplement and extend their classroom activities, "blending" new internet technologies with traditional teaching tools. There's no need to reinvent the wheel when somebody else has already made documents or games or quizzes or multimedia available online. Here are some general sites to start looking for models and materials to use in your internet teaching:

• Coming soon: MIT Open Courseware (OCW) - http://web.mit.edu/ocw/index.html. Starting in September 2002, MIT is going to be making all course materials freely available over the internet. You can read about this ground-breaking project (MIT is planning to invest 100 million dollars in this project over a ten-year period).

• Until the MIT debut, the best single place to start your search is the Merlot - http://www.merlot.org site: "MERLOT is a free and open resource designed primarily for faculty and students of higher education. Links to online learning materials are collected here along with annotations such as peer reviews and assignments." Merlot's innovative vision is to focus not so much on online courses as online learning "modules" for specific learning units. For online courses, UT's World Lecture Hall - http://www.utexas.edu/world/lecture/ provides a tremendous number of links, new and old. And you can try some free online mini-courses at Fathom – http://fathom.com "Free seminars are 1-2 hour interactive learning experiences created by Fathom. They are a great way to learn about a specific subject and become familiar with online learning."

• For a friendly beginner's perspective, try World Campus 101 - https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/public/wc101/. As the site explains: "World Campus 101 is designed to orient new and prospective students to Penn State's World Campus learning environment." This course is open to anyone and you will find good answers here to all the basic questions internet teaching and learning.

• The Library of Congress has been making great strides in digital directions. In addition to the Library of Congress Digital Library - http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/dli2/html/list.html and the related American Memory - http://lcweb2.loc.gov/amhome.html you can visit the LOC's Portals to the World - http://www.loc.gov/rr/international/portals.html As the site explains: "Portals to the World contain selective links providing authoritative, in-depth information about the nations and other areas of the world. They are arranged by country or area with the links for each sorted into a wide range of broad categories. These links were selected by Area Specialists and other Library staff using Library of Congress selection criteria."

• A wide range of materials are also listed at the Apple Learning Exchange - http://ali.apple.com/ali/resources.shtml . As the site explains: "Your colleagues in the Apple Learning Interchange have located and cataloged thousands of Internet resources that can be valuable for teaching and learning." The sites included here are very well organized and annotated. For resources in the humanities, try the NEH's List of Online Humanities Programs - http://www.neh.gov/projects/online.html .

• And if you have not experienced the delights of online audio, take a look (or rather, take a "listen") at the new Historical Voices Online http://www.historicalvoices.org/ . As the site explains: "The purpose of Historical Voices is to create a significant, fully searchable online database of spoken word collections spanning the 20th century - the first large-scale repository of its kind."

• The possibilities are limitless... Google is searching 2,073,418,204 web pages and counting... Happy Googling!