Author Archives: elisadmin

New Blackboard Feature – “Video Everywhere”

Posted on by

Now it’s easier than ever to put YOU in your course.

  • Want a quick and easy way to record and embed a short video introduction of yourself in your course?
  • Looking for a simple way to provide video feedback for your students?
  • Thinking about a way to record and post a short video demo?
  • Hoping to repurpose a video from your YouTube channel and add it right into your course in seconds?

You can do all of those things right in Blackboard with Video Everywhere!

VE RECORD IMAGE

Video Everywhere is a new feature in Blackboard that lets you record with your computer’s webcam, upload the video right to your YouTube account, and embed it into your course – all at the same time and all without leaving the Blackboard environment. If you already have a video in your YouTube channel that you’d like to quickly insert in your course, you can use Video Everywhere for that too!

Got a computer, a webcam, a Google account, and a YouTube Channel? You’re good to go!

Getting Started
When you choose to add an item to your course, you’ll find the “Video Everywhere” icon in the Content Editor. It looks like a small webcam:

 video_everywhere_icon

You can find the icon located in the lower left-hand corner of the content editor:

VE_Location

When the “Record” window opens, just sign into your Google/YouTube account (you’ll need to create a Google account if you don’t have one already and you’ll need a YouTube channel if you don’t have one yet.).

step3

Note that the default is the Record screen but you can choose the Browse tab to insert a video you already have in your YouTube channel.

Once you sign in, you’ll be walked through the process to easily Record, Upload and Insert your video right into your course. Just grant access when asked along the way.

Once it’s in your YouTube channel, the video will be available to insert in any of your other courses using Video Everywhere’s Browse option from within each course.

That’s all there is to it!

A word about privacy: Please be aware that any video recorded with Video Everywhere will go directly to your YouTube account and have a default privacy status of “unlisted”. This means that it can only be viewed by those who have the URL for the video, and it won’t come up in a search, but the status is NOT “private”.  More information about this is available on Blackboard’s Video Everywhere Support site (see link below).

For More Information
You can find a step-by-step guide to using Video Everywhere here: Blackboard’s Video Everywhere Support Page, including information about privacy issues and making videos accessible.

You can also view Blackboard’s quick video introduction.

For more help with this new feature, contact elis@lesley.edu.

myLesley Tips & Tricks with Nick Pietrowski

Posted on by

getting_startedTalking with many faculty, myLesley can be seen more as a barrier than a tool for success. I am going to share with you four tips and tricks I have learned through my experience about myLesley. You will see a common theme of improving efficiency, particularly no longer having to enter grades twice.

Use the Journal Function in myLesley
As many of you, I use journaling in my courses. The problem with traditional journaling is we are not able to know what the students write until class is over. If you post a journal in myLesley you are able to check it before class. This also saves you from having to enter the grades twice. You are able to grade journals as you read them in Bb reducing human error.

Use the BlackBoard App
When I say I check journals right before class, I may be reading them as I am walking into University Hall. This is most likely when I am making a group comment about what the class may be nervous about at midterm and finals time.

Wikipedia turned some people in higher education off to using wikis. They are valuable! You can have students create stories or lab reports in a wiki. Wikis are about collaboration. The great thing is that you can grade them right in myLesley so there is no double grading.

Some faculty give quizzes on the reading in their courses. You lose an hour and forty five minutes of instruction time in a semester if you give seven quizzes that take 15 minutes! That is a little over half of a full class time. I recommend doing something similar to quizzes in myLesley, Reading Checks. They are multiple choice, not timed, and students must complete them in one sitting. I have talked to many students and they agree that one must read before taking a reading check even if it is untimed because it will take them longer to find the answers if they do not. One of the great things about Reading Check or Quizzes in my Lesley is they self grade and automatically enter into the gradebook so you do not have to double enter grades.

These four things are the short list of how I have been able to improve my courses in myLesley. There are many things I have learned through my online, hybrid and face-to-face experiences that I hope to share with you in the future.

Nick Pietrowski

Senior Lecturer at Lesley University