End of Semester To Do List for Blackboard

It's the end of the semester and for those of you using Blackboard there are just a couple of things you still need to do to finish out the semester. You need to make your course unavailable to students and it's a good idea to create a backup of your course so all the student work and your work is archived to your hard drive.

• To make your course unavailable:
  Control Panel > Settings > Course Availability > Make Course Available: No
  
• To make a backup of your course:
  web version of instructions
  pdf version of instructions 

Be sure to do all this and turn in your grades before the system goes down for the upgrade to Blackboard 9 on June 3rd.

Opportunities to Enhance Your Skills This Summer

Here are some opportunities to enhance your online teaching skills this summer.

@ONE Online Classes
These courses will count towards certification to teach online at Cuyamaca College.

• Creating Accessible Online Courses
  Mon, 07/05/2010 - Fri, 07/30/2010
  
• Introduction to Online Teaching and Learning (2nd Session)
  Mon, 08/02/2010 - Fri, 08/27/2010
  
• Introduction to Teaching with Blackboard 9
  Mon, 07/12/2010 - Fri, 08/06/2010

Merrit College Online Educator Program

These classes are taught totally online and are appropriate for anyone whether they are new to online instruction or want to learn more about specific areas of online teaching.  More information about these EDT classes is found at http://alexandereducation.org/EDT/?p=110.

• EDT 1 Introduction to Online Teacher
• EDT 3 Introduction to Hybrid Teaching
• EDT 6 Providing Support to Online Learners

Online Teaching Conference 2010
The Online Teaching Conference 2010 will be held June 16, 17, 18 at San Diego City College in San Diego, CA.  This conference can be attended online from wherever you may be this summer, and online attendance is free!  See http://www.otc10.org/ for more information.

Bb 9 - Upgrade Schedule

Here is the sequence of events that will take place to complete the upgrade to Blackboard version 9.

• Friday, May 28 - Snapshot stops running.  This means that information regarding class enrollments, email address changes, etc. will stop being transferred from WebAdvisor to Blackboard.
• Wednesday, June 2 - Grade deadline. 
• Thursday, June 3 at 10 pm until Saturday, June 5 at 5am  - The upgrade will be installed.  Blackboard will not be available during this time.  (time approximate)
• Saturday, June 5 - if all has gone well, faculty can begin working on Summer semester containers in Blackboard.
• Monday, June 7 - templates will be copied from the test server to the live server to prepare for the creation of Fall semester containers and other settings will be adjusted as needed.
• Tuesday, June 8 at approximately 6 am - Snapshot begins running again.  Fall semester containers are created and enrollments for Summer semester are updated.
• Monday, June 14 - Summer Semester begins and everything runs smoothly!

Bb 9 - You Need To Add Tools To Your Course Menu

In Blackboard 8, there are links below your menu that allow students to access Communication and Course Tools such as Email, Messages, Discussion Board, Calendar, My Grades, and the User Manual.

In Blackboard 9, these links are no longer available to students, so you will need to give your students access to these tools by adding a menu item for them.  Bb 9 has a "Tools Area" tool that you can add to your menu that contains all the tools that you want to make available to your students. 

 Here is how to add this "Tools Area" to your menu in Bb 9:

1. Make sure Edit Mode is On
2. Hover over the + sign in the menu
3. Click on Create Tool Link
   
4. Name: Tools (it will help our students if everyone names this the same thing!)
5. Type: Tools Area
6. Check Available to Users
7. Submit
   
   

When you click on the Tools link you just created, you will see the Tools area. This new tool makes it very easy for you to control which tools you want your students see.  Just click the Hide Link or Show Link buttons next to each tool to customize this page to meet your needs.

2009 Distance Education Survey Results

With six years of accumulated data and tracking of pertinent developments, the annual "Trends in eLearning" survey has emerged as a recognized tool that both confirms trends and points to best practices for Distance Education programs.

Some key results from the survey:

• The completion rate gap between distance learning and face-to-face student has significantly narrowed. Completion rates jumped to a reported 72 percent, just below the 76 rate for face-to-face classes.
• Campuses reported an 22 percent increase for distance learning enrollments, while Sloan-C reports increases in overall campus enrollments averaged less than two percent.
• Growth in the use of blended/hybrid and Web-assisted/Web-enhanced/Web-facilitated classes continues.

Read the full survey results.

Bb 9 - Problems with Test Banks from Publishers

Some colleges already using Blackboard 9 have reported issues with some test banks provided by publishers.  Please be aware that you may need to contact your publisher to get the most recent test bank software from them.

 

Known to work correctly with Bb 9:

• Diploma version 6.67
• ExamView version 6.2.x
• TestGen 7.4.4

 EZ Test needs to be loaded in Bb 8 before the upgrade.

If you are copying a course that is already using a test bank in Bb 8, it should work okay in Bb 9.