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.

Bb 9 - Blogs and Journals: FAQ's

Last week I posted links to some videos about how to use blogs and journals and that post raised a few questions that are answered here.

Blogs and Journals provide students and instructors with a social learning tool for expressing their thoughts and reflecting on their learning, either privately (with the instructor) or publicly (with others in the course). These tools empower all course users to create and share ideas, while instructors maintain the ability to edit or remove any inappropriate material.

What is the difference between Journals, Blogs, and Discussion Board forums?

• A journal is like a private diary that the student shares with the instructor.
• A blog is like an open diary that everyone in the class can read and comment on.
• A discussion board forum is like an open meeting where anyone can participate equally.

An example of when to use an individual blog instead of a discussion board would be when you want students to post an essay and have other students comment on it.  Using a blog for this assignment would keep the essay intact with all the comments attached to it.  In a discussion board forum this type of assignment often spawns other threads and it can be confusing where the original essay is located and difficult to find all the comments it generated.

Where Do Blogs and Journals Appear?

Instructors can find them in the Control Panel under Course Tools.  Instructors can provide access to students through links in content areas, blog or journal links on the course menu, or a Tools Area link on the course menu.

Can I make Blogs and Journals Public?

No. The privacy of students' course work needs to be respected. Opening these tools to the outside world may violate privacy laws.

Bb 9 - Blogs and Journals

New tools available in Blackboard 9 are Blogs and Journals.  Here are some videos that show you how to add them to your class and post to them.  You can provide links to these videos within your course for your students to view to explain to them how to use these tools.  These videos aren't perfect for student use because some instructor view stuff shows on the pages, but I think it's better than having to create instructions yourself.  See my recommendations below for alternative ways of providing links to these tools within your course.

• Creating a Blog
  (I recommend creating a link to a specific blog using Collaborate > Create Blog Link from within your content area instead of the process shown in this video)
• Creating and Editing Blog Entries (for students)
• Commenting on a Blog Entry (for students)

• Creating a Journal
  (I recommend creating a link to a specific journal using Collaborate > Create Journals from within your content area instead of the process shown in this video)
• Creating Journal Entries (for students)

Safeguard your Passwords

Last week there was a report of a 9-year-old student that hacked into Blackboard.  How did this 9-year-old do it?  Very simply, he obtained a teacher's password.

If a 9-year-old can do this, so can your students.  Please make sure you're using a password that students cannot figure out, such as a birthdate.  To change your password in Blackboard, on the welcome page, click on Personal Information, then Change Password.

Bb 9 - New Group Sets and Group Assignments

A new feature in Blackboard 9 allows you to create groups in sets.  For example, you want to split your class into 5 groups to do a project.  The old way of doing this would be to create 5 groups, with all those clicks for each group.  Now you can just create one Group Set and all 5 groups are created at once.  See this video to learn more: http://ondemand.blackboard.com/r9/movies/Bb9_Groups_Create_Group_Sets.htm

Blackboard didn't stop there!  They also created Group Assignments.  This tool allows one student in the group to turn in the assignment and you grade it once, and every member of the group receives that grade.  This grade can be overridden for individuals as needed.  Here's another short video that shows how:
http://ondemand.blackboard.com/r9/movies/Bb9_Assignments_Deploying_Group_Assignments.htm

Bb 9 Workshops Start this Week

I will begin offering Introduction to Blackboard 9 workshops starting this week.

These workshops will be limited to 15 participants.  Please sign up to reserve your place at http://www.cuyamaca.edu/tlc/workshops/bb9-signup.asp.

Date	Day	Time	Room
4/9	Friday	1 - 3 pm	E-206
4/14	Wednesday	9 - 11 am	E-206
4/16	Friday	9 - 11 am	E-206
4/20	Tuesday	9 - 11 am	E-210
4/22	Thursday	1 - 3 pm	E-206
4/23	Friday	9 - 11 am	E-206
4/30	Friday	9 - 11 am	E-206
5/1	Saturday *	10 - Noon	E-206

* The Saturday workshop is tentative at this time.

Help Me Help You!

I will start offering Blackboard 9 workshops in April.  Please help me choose the best times to offer these workshops by filling out a short survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Z2XGFJM. 

The survey will expire after April 4th, so just take 2 minutes right now to fill it out.

Bb 9 - Number of Rows Displayed in the Grade Center

You're going to love this enhancement to Blackboard 9.  In the Grade Center, you will see a button that says "Edit Rows Displayed."  Click on it and you'll have the option to display from 5 - 50 rows in the Grade Center.

Bb 9 - Your Questions Answered

It seems everywhere I go these days, I get asked questions about the transition to Blackboard 9.  Here is a list of the questions I get most often and the answers.

1. When will the upgrade to Bb 9 happen?

Sometime between June 2 and June 14, 2010.  The exact date for the upgrade hasn't been set yet, but we want to do it between the Spring and Summer semesters.


2.  Will I have to completely redo my courses for Bb 9?

No.  Your courses from this semester will work the same in Bb 9 as they do now.  Course copy will work the same, so you can copy your courses from this semester into future semester containers without any problems.


3.  What has been removed from Bb 9?

• The DropBox. The more robust Assignments tool allows students to submit their assignments to their instructors.
• The Electric Blackboard.  This tool isn't used much.  Let me know if you need an alternative.
• Student Homepages will not be available.  The new Blogs tool enables students to express their thoughts and reflect on learning within the course.

4. What changes will there be in Bb 9 that I may not like?

Other colleges have expressed frustration with the following items.  They are controversial and many people already on Bb 9 have requested they be changed.  By the time we're on Bb 9, these may work better.

• If you select a Display Until date, you must select a Display After date as well.  This one is a real gotcha. 
• Students need to click an extra "Attach File" button when submitting assignments.
• Announcement emails link to the announcement, rather than give the actual text of the announcement. 

5. What's good about Bb 9?

• Fewer clicks!! 
• Drag and drop on the course menu and other areas
• Quick way to see the course from a student perspective
• Multiple attempts for assignments, each can be graded separately
• Improved group features, such as multiple group creation and group assignment grading
• New "Home Page" in courses allow instructors to add modules that show students what is due, the calendar, and announcements in the same place
• Class blogs, group blogs, personal journals

6. If the Digital Dropbox goes away, where will work already submitted to it go?
You will need to download any files you want to keep that are in the Digital DropBox to your hard drive before we do the upgrade.  These files will not be accessible in Bb 9.

2010 Online Teaching Conference

The 2010 Online Teaching Conference will be held this year at San Diego City College on June 17th and 18th.  Early bird registration is available until April 18th for $125 or you can register and attend virtually (watch and listen on your computer) for free!  

I attended last year's conference virtually and it was great to get all this information from the comfort of my office.  You must register to attend virtually, but again, it's free so there's no reason not to!

Bb 9 - No Digital Dropbox!!!

In Blackboard 9, the Dropbox tool has been replaced with the Assignment tool.  If you want to modify your courses now to use the Assignment tool, I have created two videos that will show you how to create an assignment, and another video that you can link to for your students to them how to submit an assignment in Blackboard 8.

Creating an Assignment
Submitting an Assignment

Of course, this process has changed quite a bit in Bb 9.  Here is a PDF created by Blackboard to show you how to Get Started with Assignments in Bb 9.

Bb 9 - Adding Tools to the Course Menu

Blackboard has created a 2 minute video showing how to add a Blackboard tool, such as My Grades, Announcements, Discussion Board, or Blog to your course menu in Blackboard 9.  As you'll see, it's a completely different way of doing things than in Bb 8.

To quickly find all my posts about Bb 9 you can go to http://cuyamaca-online.blogspot.com/search/label/Bb9.

Cool Tools to Improve Online Communication

This week I found two tools that can help you improve communications with your students. 

The first tool is called Broadtexter.  Broadtexter allows you to contact a group of people (a.k.a. students) by sending text messages en masse to their cell phones.  We all know that the primary communication device for our students is their cell phones.  With this website, you get a Flash widget that you can embed into a Blackboard item or web page that students can use to sign up with their cell phone numbers.  You can also use this same widget to send them messages.  I can see a lot of uses for this in an online class such as sending reminders that tests or assignments are due.  This could also be used to send announcements to students about upcoming events that your student group or organization is offering.

The second tool is called EditGrid which allows you to embed a spreadsheet that can be edited live by several people at once from within a Blackboard content item.  This blog post by Melissa Koenig from DePaul University shows how to use EditGrid to creat a virtual sign-up sheet right in Bb.

Bb 9 - Adding Content Areas

The steps to create content areas in Bb 9 have changed quite a bit.  Please take a look at this 2:30 minute  video to see how to add content areas in Blackboard 9.

How to Help Your Students with Computer Problems

Solving computer problems can be like trying to thread a needle in the dark if you can't see what the person you're trying to help sees on their computer.  ShowMeWhatsWrong.com is a new tool being offered for free that will help you help your students with computer problems.  It will generate a URL so students can send you instant screen recordings. Watch a demo at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNqO_uKui6s

I took the URL they gave me, and turned it into a tinyurl.com link that is easier to remember.  Now whenever anyone is having a problem with their computer, I can just send them my URL at http://tinyurl.com/showrhonda and they can record their screen to show me what the problem is.  When they're done recording, the site sends me an email telling me the video is ready to be reviewed and who sent it.

They've made it very easy to use and dead simple for both the student and the instructor.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth a million.  This is a great resource that I highly recommend.