Mark Attendance in Blackboard Learn

Much like the ever-elusive Bigfoot or the Loch Ness monster, the ability to keep track of attendance in Blackboard was a quarry that had been long hunted.  For years, Blackboard instructors have desired the ability to keep track of attendance in an official way via the tool where they spend most of their time.

Thanks to our update to the Q2 2018 release of Blackboard Learn, we now have the ability to Mark Attendance in Blackboard Learn.

The Attendance tool can be accessed via the Course Tools menu in any of your Blackboard courses.  View this Blackboard how-to for accessing the Attendance page.

The Attendance page has two views:

• Meeting View – This is where you mark the students’ attendance.
• Overall View – Allows you to mart attendance, track attendance history/statistics and create new meetings.

Check out this tour of the Attendance page for more information.

Grade Center Access

You can view attendance in the Grade Center though you can’t mark attendance. Students’ accumulative attendance scores always appear out of 100 points.

Once you use the Attendance tool, you can’t delete the Attendance column, but you can hide it from your view.

Now that we have captured this elusive prey, let us know if you have any questions about the tool and how it is used.

 

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Capitalize on eLearning this Summer with #BbWorld19 in Austin, Texas

This summer, Blackboard’s annual eLearning mecca, Blackboard World, can be found in Austin, Texas from July 23 to July 25. For those that have not had the benefit of attending a Blackboard World, it is one of the biggest eLearning conferences of the year.  The fact that it is taking place in Austin this July, makes it much more convenient for travel and professional development budgets.

Attendance at this years’ event will  allow you to become more familiar with technology and tools already in place at SHSU and learn how other instructors and institutions are improving the learner experience. You can attend tailored conference sessions specific to higher education to gain valuable techniques for creating richer, more dynamic courses for your learners.

See the links below for the Blackboard World website, #BbWorld19 Registration and how you can present at #BbWorld19.

• Blackboard World Website
• Register for #BbWorld19
• Present at #BbWorld19 (Proposal deadline: 2/28/19)

Members of the SHSU Online team will be attending and hopefully presenting this year, so you can lean on us for any questions you have about the conference.

If you plan on attending, we advise packing walking shoes and mobile chargers.  Walking shoes because there are so many sessions to chose from and mobile chargers because your mobile devices will be busy sharing all of the great things you learn while at #BbWorld19.

Blackboard Tip: Connect with the Larger Blackboard “Community”

Have you heard about Blackboard Community? Blackboard Community is a community of instructors, instructional designers, admins, Blackboard staff, and educational leaders who interact in one place so that everyone involved can benefit. Becoming a member of community.blackboard.com allows instructors and others to:

• Connect with Blackboard instructors around the world
• Make suggestions and vote on product enhancements that matter to you
• Contribute to a Teaching & Learning forum that allows you to ask questions, share ideas and be a part of the Blackboard Community
• Have conversations that matter over topics that mean something to you
• Learn from industry experts as well as colleagues in the field
• Make your own mark in the Teaching & Learning community

This resource is for anyone that uses Blackboard, not just online instructors. SHSU Online encourages you to join this growing community and take part in the cognitive surplus of ideas, resources, and conversations around eLearning. Visit community.blackboard.com to join today!

Adding due dates to assignment descriptions? Use the #DayNotDate in conjunction with Blackboard’s Due Date option.

Are you working on your course for next semester?  Save yourself an annual headache by rethinking how you post when items are due in your Blackboard course(s).

In order to provide our students with “at your fingertips” contextual information, we have often posted assignment/activity due dates directly in the assignment/activity descriptions or unit introductions.  While this may be beneficial to our students, it provides more whack-a-moles for us to go after when it is time to get our courses ready. In other words, we spend more time updating due dates than making other important changes for the new semester.

Blackboard Due Dates

Blackboard already provides a great way to let students know when an assignment/activity is due with the Due Date checkbox.

Not only does the due date show up when the students look at the assignment/activity, it also has the added benefit of notifying the students via email, dashboard and mobile app a week prior to the due date.

#DayNotDate

When placing due dates in unit introductions or assignment/activity descriptions use the due DAY not the due DATE.  Our due days will change much less often than our due dates.

For example:

instead of saying that the discussion activity for week 1 is due Thursday, March 1st by midnight…

say

 …the discussion activity for week 1 is due Thursday by midnight.

This practice will provide students with the “at your fingertips” contextual information they desire, as well as creating a more efficient method for ensuring your course is ready for the next semester.

Bonus – The Date Management Tool & Set Grade Center Due dates

Since you are setting due dates using Blackboard’s Due Date feature, you can now change those due dates in ONE PLACE!  Blackboard provides you with two different methods for adjusting your due dates each semester:

1. The Date Management Tool
2. Set Grade Center Due Dates Tool

Both of these Blackboard tools keep you from searching through your entire course to change due dates.

So remember, cut down on the some of the stress of getting your course(s) ready for a new semester by using Blackboard’s Due Date feature and use the #DayNotDate when writing assignment/activity instructions and unit introductions.

Peer Rating of Discussion Posts

Did you know that instructors can allow students to rate each other’s posts in Blackboard discussion forums? It works the same way that one would rate movies, books, apps, and things purchased in an online storefront like Amazon.

Turning on the ability to rate discussion posts can be an additional way that online instructors increase student engagement levels.

Instructions for turning on discussion post rating

Any time you add or edit a blackboard discussion forum you can turn on the feature that allows members to rate discussion posts.  If you have existing forums in your course, here are the steps to enable peer rating.

• Click on the Course Tools section of the course’s control panel
• Click Discussion Board
• Select the contextual menu arrow next to the appropriate forum and click Edit
• Access the Forum Settings section close to the bottom of the Edit Discussion Forum page.
• Check the Allow members to rate posts checkbox and click Submit.

  

Rating discussion forum posts

Discussion posts are rated via a 5-Star scale.  If a post has been rated, the Overall Rating will show right next to the discussion posts in the form of stars.  Students can only rate a post one time and are not allowed to rate their own posts.  Below are the steps to rate a discussion forum post:

• Find the desired post among the threads of a particular discussion board
• Select the aforementioned post
• Notice the Your Rating text with 5 blank close by.

  

• Choose the number of stars that approximates your rating of the discussion forum post.  Note: Once a post has been rated, the Overall Rating will appear whenever the discussion forum post is displayed.

  

Hopefully, following these steps will add a layer of peer evaluation to your course as well as promote more student engagement.

SHSU Online Faculty Development Sessions – April 2018

SHSU Online is pleased to offer a number of faculty development opportunities for April

Online Cohort and Self-Paced	Webinar	By Appointment
Blackboard Collaborate Ultra Multimedia in Blackboard Courses	Engaging Students Grade Center Best Practices VoiceThread	Choose From our Catalog Ask for a Custom Session One-on-one or Group

Faculty Development Schedule – Face-to-Face/Self-Paced/Webinar

*New for April – See our descriptions at the end of this post.

Date	Session Title	Delivery Method	Time/Location
Open	*Multimedia in Blackboard Courses (Video Quiz Update)	Blackboard Course	Self-Paced – Online
Open	Blackboard Collaborate Ultra	Blackboard Course	Self-Paced – Online
April 3	Engaging Students	Webinar	3pm – Online
April 10	VoiceThread	Webinar	2pm – Online
April 16	Grade Center Best Practices	Webinar	2pm – Online
April 25	*Engaging Students	Webinar	3pm – Online

Enroll in one of our faculty development sessions today!

Faculty Development by Appointment

These sessions can be 5 minutes to an hour and can take place in your office, ours, over the phone and online.  Use the same link to sign up for face-to-face or one-on-one sessions. Just select a topic or come up with one of your own and we’ll do it!

Visit the SHSU Online Faculty Development How-to Session page and schedule a one-on-one with a member of the Instructional Technology Support Services team.

New For April 2018

Engaging Students

Do you ever feel like your students are not engaging with your online or blended course? Encouraging students to engage with you, your content, and each other can seem like a wrestling match. This webinar covers strategies and methods that can help increase student engagement in your Blackboard course. This 1-hour webinar touches on:

• placing yourself and your students in the course,
• personalized learning
• personalization without confusion
• feedback
• the “tools of engagement”

Enroll in one of our faculty development sessions today!

Multimedia in Your Blackboard Courses – Interactive Video Quiz Update

Kaltura has released an update for its interactive video quiz tool.  For over a year, Kaltura has had the ability to create interactive video quizzes from any video you create or upload into your “My Media” area in Blackboard.  Kaltura has updated this tool with an easier to use editor and the ability to sync quiz grades to your Blackboard Grade Center!

Enroll in one of our faculty development sessions today!

Extra Credit in the Blackboard Grade Center

At SHSU Online, “How can I add extra credit to my Grade Center?” is a question that is asked often by instructors who use the Blackboard grade book to present grades to their students.   In the Grade Center, you can provide extra credit to students in three ways:

• Extra credit for the total column
• Extra credit when weighting grades—added to a category
• Extra credit for a weighted total column

Extra credit for the total column

Create an extra credit column in the grade center with a maximum score of 0 that is included in the default Total computation.  Assign extra credit points as needed.

In the Grade Center:

• Click Create Column
• Call it Extra Credit
• Select Score for primary display.
• Select Percentage for secondary display.
• Points Possible = 0
• Include in Calculations
• Click submit.

The extra credit appears in the Grade Center. When you add points in an extra credit column, a student’s total points can equal more than 100 percent.  If a student receives full credit for all gradable items (100 points) and receives six extra credit points, the result is 106 or 106%.

Create extra credit when weighting grades

The weighted total column generates a grade based on the result of selected columns and categories, and their respective percentages. When you create a weighted column, you can include other calculated columns and other weighted columns. Your options are to add extra credit points to a category or to the overall grade.

Option 1: Add extra credit points to a category

For example:

You want to add 5 points extra credit to tests. In the Grade Center, create an extra credit column worth 0 points. After adding the 5 points for each student to the extra credit column, create another column to calculate the combined test grades total. The “Tests Total” column includes any columns that include test grades and the extra credit column. When you create the weighted total column, instead of adding the category “Tests” worth 20%, add the “Tests Total” column for 20%.

Create a “Test Extra Credit” column Click Create column Call it Tests Extra Credit Select Score for primary display. Select Percentage for secondary display. Points Possible = 0 Include in Calculations Click submit

Create another column to calculate the total of the tests columns and tests extra credit column. Select Create Calculated column and select Total Column Give it a name (Tests total) & description Include the test & tests extra credit columns Select Percentage for primary display. Select Submit

For your weighted total column, check that the “Tests Total” is the column that is being weighted and not the category “Tests.”

Option 2: Add extra credit points to overall grade

• Click Create Column.
• Call it Extra Credit
• Select Points for primary display
• For Points Possible, type 0
• Include in calculations
• Select Submit

Create a “Final Total” column that includes the “Weighted Total” and the “Extra Credit” columns.