Tag Archives: blackboard

Blackboard Mobile Apps are Changing

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Blackboard is making big changes to its mobile apps and you get to take advantage of it.

Mobile Learn —> Bb Student —> Blackboard
Blackboard’s Mobile Learn app for students will be removed from app stores on August 1, 2017 with support ending on August 31, 2017. You may continue to use Mobile Learn, but it highly recommended that students switch to the new Blackboard/Bb Student app in order to have the best experience.

Bb Student is getting a new name: Blackboard. Bb Student app is already available and free to download for iOS, Android and Windows devices. With Bb Student, you can view course content and updates, take tests, submit assignments, post on the discussion board, and join Collaborate Ultra web meetings. New features are continuously being added. If you are already using Bb Student, you don’t need to do anything other than update to the latest version when available.

 

Bb Grader —> Blackboard Instructor
The Bb Grader iPad app allows instructors to grade and provide feedback on student work submitted via the Assignment tool. The app has always had limited functionality. Therefore, Blackboard has created the new Blackboard Instructor app to focus on the needs and workflows of instructors. Blackboard Instructor is due at the end of this month, July 2017. In the meantime, continue to use Bb Grader and keep an eye out for Blackboard Instructor’s launch.

 

For ongoing information on these apps see our Blackboard Mobile support page. We will be updating it as the changes become available.

 

 

Email Your Students Without Knowing Their Email Addresses

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myLesley has a couple of helpful tools that allow you to easily communicate with your students without having to first look up their email addresses or create an email list.

Announcements

Announcements allow you to post timely information and reminders to your students in your myLesley course. You can also send the announcement as an email to all of your students, allowing them to receive the information even if they are not logged into the course. Want to remind them that you are meeting in the lab tomorrow? Learn how in the video below.

Send Email

The Send Email tool allows you to easily send email to a single student in your class, a small group or all students without ever leaving myLesley. You can also email TA’s or another instructor co-teaching with you. Your students can use this tool as well. So much for the excuse that they lost your email address.

Fall Technology Bootcamp Recap

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Last Thursday, eLIS welcomed over 20 Lesley instructors to our Fall Bootcamp: Teaching and Learning with Technology. We covered a wide array of topics, helping participants think about approaches to integrating technology into their teaching as well as practice using some of the available technology tools.

Designing a Blended Experience
This session provided a guiding framework for creating a blended course by defining and delineating the two interwoven themes of learning design and technology integration.
Designing Blended Learning Experiences

Using myLesley (Blackboard)
A myLesley (Blackboard) course site is available for all Lesley courses, whether held fully online, face-to-face, or somewhere in between. You may use myLesley to post your syllabus, post resources and readings, communicate with your students, collect and grade assignments and much more. Based on participant interest, we had a couple of breakout sessions, covering a variety of topics from basic myLesley navigation and tools to grading.
Using the myLesley Text/Content Editor
Communicating Within Your myLesley Course
Adding Content to Your myLesley Course
Creating and Managing Assignments in myLesley
Grading myLesley Assignments
myLesley Grade Center and Grading

VoiceThread
VoiceThread is an asynchronous tool which allows you to place collections of media like images, videos, and presentations at the center of a conversation. People may then be invited to view, comment, and interact with the VoiceThread using any mix of text, audio, and video. In this session we walked through creating and commenting on VoiceThreads.
What is a VoiceThread Anyway?
Creating a VoiceThread
Additional VoiceThread Resources

Adding Video to Your Course with Kaltura Media
Kaltura Media is the university’s media sharing platform, allowing users to share video securely within the myLesley course environment. In this session we walked through recording a webcam video using Kaltura Media.
Recording a Video in myLesley
Webcam Recording Tips
Additional Kaltura Resources

For those that were unable to attend last week’s training, we will be hosting another training on Thursday, September 8th, focusing on using the features of myLesley (Blackboard) most essential for supporting teaching and learning in the classroom. Stay tuned for the official announcement, including a link to register for the event.

News from Blackboard

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On Friday, April 8, 2016, our Blackboard Customer Success Representative joined several of our faculty to provide a tour of new features in Blackboard and a sneak peek at upcoming products.

SaaS and What That Means to Us

Software as a Service (SaaS) is a method of distributing software via the internet. There is nothing for the software user to install or update on their own computer. The software company handles all the updates and fixes to the software on their end and the next time you log in to the site, you see the new changes. If you use Google apps, OneDrive or VoiceThread, you are already using SaaS software.  

Lesley University is interested moving to Blackboard’s SaaS model for several reasons. It would eliminate the need to make Blackboard unavailable every August for two or three days to perform upgrades and required maintenance. We would also be able to get fixes and updates faster without having to schedule downtime with Blackboard. myLesley should also perform better and faster, especially at high usage times such as the beginning and end of semesters.

Blackboard Mobile Apps

Bb Student allows students to submit assignments, take tests, and view content from their mobile phones and tablets. Assignment files can be attached from Google Drive, Dropbox and OneDrive. The ability to participate in discussions is coming soon. Bb Student is available for iOS and Android devices.

Bb Grader is an instructor app for grading student work submitted via the Assignments tool. Faculty can view, sort, annotate, and provide audio and video feedback. Graded work can be returned to students one at a time or all at once. Bb Grader is currently for iPad only.

Get them now. They’re free!

Upcoming Attractions for Blackboard Learn

Blackboard has several new products and features that are available now or coming soon. We are particularly excited about the OneDrive integration. This would allow faculty and students to add content or submit assignments directly from OneDrive. No more downloading documents from OneDrive and having to upload them into myLesley. OneDrive integration is currently only available for SaaS.

Blackboard has developed Blackboard Ultra, a whole new version of its learning management system (LMS). Blackboard Ultra is designed to be more streamlined, more intuitive, less complex, and focused on the student experience.

blackboard ultra course view

This new version of Blackboard is still under development and doesn’t yet have all the tools we would want to see in an LMS. However, if you are interested you may preview Ultra now. Go to preview.blackboard.com and register. You will get two Ultra courses and two original courses to compare.

Questions from the Audience

There were several Lesley faculty members in attendance at the demo, both in person and online… and they brought their questions. Here are a few highlights.

How are changes implemented if we are on SaaS?
Maintenance updates and fixes are implemented continuously behind the scenes rather than waiting for a scheduled maintenance window and downtime. New features and changes to existing tools roll out with these maintenance updates, but are turned off initially. This allows Lesley to pick the best time to release them to our faculty and students. Don’t worry. You won’t get a new gradebook in the middle of finals.

What is the list of features for Blackboard Ultra that will be coming in the future?
Blackboard Ultra looks very interesting, but it’s still missing a few key elements. Tests should be available sometime this summer, but there’s still no blog or journal tool. Below is a roadmap of features that are currently available, currently in development, and still on the to-do list. Check out Blackboard’s roadmap webinars for all the latest information on what’s to come.

Blackboard Ultra roadmap

Are you planning to move to Blackboard Ultra soon?
No. There is currently no plan to move to Blackboard Ultra. It simply isn’t ready. Instead, we are looking at moving our current version of Blackboard/myLesley into the SaaS cloud in order to get better performance and faster updates and fixes.

What about accessibility?
Blackboard takes accessibility very seriously. Get all the information on all their products at blackboard.com/accessibility

 

Learn more about the LMS Review and check out the info sheets on all the options we reviewed. Please share your thoughts and questions with us by emailing elis@lesley.edu.

 

Upcoming LMS Demos for Faculty

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The Digital Experience Committee and Teaching and Learning with Technology (TL Tech) Committee are currently conducting a review of Learning Management Systems (LMS). Lesley has been using Blackboard as its LMS since 2005. eLearning and the LMS market have changed a lot since then. It seemed worth looking at the available options to see if Blackboard is still meeting the needs of our faculty and students.

After a careful review of several LMS options and conversations with a smaller group of TL Tech faculty, Canvas and Blackboard have been invited to campus to provide demos for faculty. We strongly encourage you to join us and bring your questions.

Blackboard, Friday April 8 
The Blackboard vendor will demo upcoming changes to our current myLesley product.
Session 1: 11:00am-12:00pm, University Hall 2-078
Session 2: 2:00pm-3:00pm, Wolfard 204
Attend online: http://tinyurl.com/BbApril8. View the Collaborate Ultra Quickstart for assistance.

Canvas, Wednesday, April 13
The Canvas vendor will give us a tour of the Canvas software and discuss what a myLesley course might be like in Canvas.
Session 1: 10:00am-11:00am, University Hall 3-076
Session 2: 1:00pm-2:00pm, Wolfard 201
Attend online: https://bluejeans.com/nferrari
To call in for audio: 1.888.240.2560; Use Conference ID: 8254491254

Contact elis@lesley.edu with any questions.