The Learning & Teaching Office

Compiled by Rich Adams, with contributions from Natalia Gilewicz, Martin Habekost, Jason Lisi, Art Seto, and Abhay Sharma

Students in Graphic Communications Management are very visually-oriented and are among Blackboard's biggest fans. Although originally conceived as a distance-learning program, Blackboard offers many advantages to daytime and evening classroom students. Among the features GCM students like the most are the ability to check their grades, read and download course files and documents online, and see announcements about upcoming course activities. Herewith are some tips from the GCM faculty.

Figure 1 (Click image to enlarge): Using a folder for each week helps keep your course content simple and well organized.

1. "KISS Principle" Course Content

For a "keep-it-simple" approach to posting course materials on Blackboard, create a folder for each week, so the folder view is very simple ("Week 1," "Week 2," etc.; See: Figure 1). Inside each folder are lecture slides, project handouts, reading materials, and links to outside resources.

2. "KISS Principle" Announcements

You can use announcements to let students know what's coming in lecture and lab each week. This avoids overwhelming students' inboxes with emails and lets them know how to prepare.

Figure 2 (Click image to enlarge): Respondus is a Windows program that emulates Blackboard's test-creation interface and can also create tests from Word documents.

3. Creative Use of Quizzes

You can use Blackboard exams to create easy-to-mark lab reports. Exams can have fields for entry of values that can be set to have an acceptable range. For example, students could enter a colour measurement they have taken in lab, and if the measurement falls within the pre-assigned tolerance, it will be marked "correct" and recorded directly in the Grade Centre. Review quizzes are also very popular with students, helping them to prepare for exams. Quizzes can be created with Respondus (see below) or a third-party program like Quiz Press that creates quizzes in HTML and can add animated effects.

4. Using Respondus for Windows to Create Online Tests

Respondus is a Windows program for creating tests and exams that are uploaded to Blackboard (Figure 2). The program has a test-creation interface similar to Blackboard's but enables uploading an entire test or exam in Microsoft Word or text format (including answers). Mac users can run Respondus using the Windows emulation software, Parallels Desktop. Download the program from my.ryerson.ca > Blackboard 101 > Respondus.

5. Include HTML Crossword Puzzles for Study and Review

To help students have fun learning terms, create crossword puzzles in a program like Crossword Forge. To create the puzzle, enter hints and words, publish the puzzle in HTML format, and copy the HTML file into the Content Information section of a Blackboard item (Figure 3).

Figure 3 (Click image to enlarge): Adding HTML crossword puzzles to Blackboard is an interesting way for students to learn and review technical terms or vocabulary words. (Screen capture courtesy of Martin Habekost.)

6. Keep Organized with a Weekly Schedule

An HTML-formatted table is easy to create in Blackboard 9. Use the "HTML view" (<> tool) to toggle in and out of HTML and text views. If you have some HTML skills or can use Adobe Dreamweaver, you can post your course content in an easy-to-read table that includes one column each for the week number and date, the lecture, and the lab (Figure 4). Upload materials, including PDFs of PowerPoint slides, interactive exercises, and white papers, to the Content Collection, then link them to entries in the table by selecting them and using the Link tool (globe icon).

Figure 4 (Click image to enlarge): An alternative to the "KISS" principle of simple, weekly folder layouts, an HTML-formatted table can be used to group lecture notes, handouts, exercises and other links by weekly lectures and labs.

7. Add movies to Blackboard

You can add educational movies to Blackboard by copying the HTML link to a Backboard item. For example, in YouTube: Click the "Embed" button, copy the resulting HTML code, and paste it into the Content Information section with the Visual Editor turned off.

8. Add Gradable Discussion Forms

You can grade students' participation in Discussion Forms by creating a graded forum. In the Discussion Board section, select Create New Forum > Forum Settings > Grade Forum, and enter the points possible. The control panel lists the number of posts that each student makes, which can be used as the basis of grading. To tie the Discussion Forum to lecture, ask students to bring a sample to lecture, and then discuss it on a Forum.

9. Section-by-Section Grade Centre Views

The Grade Centre in Blackboard 9 can have custom-made views to organize students by section. Grade Centre > Manage > Smart Views > Create Smart View > Investigate > Section Number > Equal to > include section number and check "All Columns."

10. Store Files Conveniently in the Content Collection

The Content Collection (tab at top of Blackboard) provides a convenient place to store uploaded files. To link to items in the Content Collection (e.g., to create downloadable links in an HTML weekly schedule), right-click the item in your browser and select "Copy link location." If you copy the content from another term, be sure to check Permissions (Menu options > Permissions) to make sure it's accessible to your current year's students.

11. Discussion Boards

You can use Discussion Boards to answer FAQs and reduce individual emails from students (Figure 5). Before the semester starts, consider creating one Discussion Forum, "Problems with Blackboard or Course Information." To answer the inevitable question, "What will be on the exam?" create a Discussion Forum with FAQs about the exam, such as what will be the format and material to study.

Figure 5 (Click image to enlarge): Discussion Forums help reduce email and are useful for reporting problems with course materials and questions about exams, projects, and course content.

12. Uploaded Assignments

Students can upload written assignments to Blackboard as PDFs, Word and other documents, or compressed .zip archives. You can download and read the assignment directly on your computer with the appropriate software. This is "greener" than paper and also saves having to store or return the assignments, along with the labour involved in returning them confidentially. Assignments can be submitted to Turnitin.com from Blackboard (Assignments > More > Add Turnitin Assignment) for detection of plagiarism.

13. Making PDFs

To create PDFs from Word & Excel, select File > Print and PDF > Save as PDF. When saving PDFs, avoid using illegal characters ($, %, /, -, blank space, etc.) in names because Blackboard runs on a UNIX server. You don't need Adobe Acrobat to create or view PDFs, but if you have Acrobat Professional, you can reduce the file size of PDFs for faster downloads using Document > Reduce File Size. This typically reduces file size to 25% of original, saving download time and server space.

14. Collaboration Through Groups and Discussion Forums

Students can discuss ideas and exchange files using the Groups feature. This is useful for different lab sections or smaller work groups within the sections. A new feature of Blackboard 9 is Self-Enroll Groups, which provide electronic sign-up sheets for students to join groups (Control Panel > Users and Groups > Create Single Group or Create Group Set > Self-Enrollment). The groups can have blogs, collaboration, discussion boards, email, and file exchange, among other tools.

15. Encourage Student Contributions with a Wiki

You could set up a Wiki where students contribute to a topical outline to review for an exam or to outline a class project. Your WikiSpace can be linked to an announcement or item in your Weekly Schedule (Tip #4). Although Ryerson's Blackboard doesn't have a Wiki feature for collaborative recording of ideas, the DMP encourages faculty to consult with them about an appropriate third-party site.

16. Add Buttons for Convenience

Buttons can be added to the left-hand navigation pane (click "+" sign and browse to the desired link). Useful links include contact information for the instructor and TA, librarian contact, reference lists, and helpful information on writing such as the APA Referencing & RefWorks, information on plagiarism and copyright, what to include on a report cover, and how to write an introduction, executive summary, body, and conclusion.

Acknowledgment. The authors thank Restiani Andriati and Stephanie Goetz from the Digital Media Projects Office for reviewing and making suggestions on these ideas.

Top

Since the introduction of Blackboard 9 to Ryerson last year, the DMP has been compiling support documents addressing frequently encountered problems, as well as highlighting new features that faculty might find useful. The Blackboard FAQ provides answers to the most frequently reported issues with Blackboard 9. In addition, the staff of the DMP have put together the following best practices for using Blackboard.

Discussion Board

Forums are like folders used to contain a large number of conversations on similar topics. Setting up multiple forums allows you to group your posts into categories. Create separate forums for specifics area of the course. Use Forum Description to clearly state the expectations and policies for both instructor and students. Once students start to post and reply the Collect function can be used to review all the forum postings on one page. Use the Search function to look for specific students or keywords.

Postings (comments, Q&A) can be made visible to all students. This tool enables students to continue to communicate outside the classroom and makes back row students more likely to participate.

Assignments

Create an assignment so individual students or Groups can submit work online. Setup and communicate the due date, file format, and file type expected. Once students submit their work, instructors can download all their files or review and grade them directly in the Grade Center.

Using Blackboard makes it easy to collect student files. Online assignments (student files as well as instructor comments) are good to have as backup in case of appeals.

Grade Center

Teaching multiple sections in a single Blackboard course shell? Create a Smart View in the Grade Center for each section. That way, you can view, grade or download one section at a time in the Grade Center.

This will enable you (and your TAs, if applicable) to send emails to each section separately, enter grades for each section separately, etc. You can also add a second criteria to each Smart View. This can be used to hide students who have dropped the course.

Turnitin

The General Turnitin Tool can be found by scrolling down to the Control Panel section of the sidebar, clicking on Course Tools, then Turnitin Assignments. If the Turnitin tool does not appear here, you will need to make the tool available in your course first.

Turnitin assignments can be created from within a Blackboard course shell. To create a Turnitin Assignment you need to go into the Content Area that you want the assignment posted in, selecting More from the menu bar at the top, then Add Turnitin Assignment. From here, you create the assignment in the Turnitin interface. Turnitin assignments that have been copied from another course shell cannot be reused. It is important to delete them from your new course shell as soon as you can, to avoid any confusion later on.

Content Area

Consider how your content should be organized before you start uploading it to Blackboard! If you have a lot of content, you can create a folder for each week of the course. Consider how many "clicks" it takes to get to a document when deciding to create yet another subfolder. A shallow organization structure is preferred over a deep one. Students won't have to dig too deep to reach a specific document and confusion will be avoided.

File Names

File naming is an important area to consider. Why is ITM100Syllabus.doc an appropriate file name for something you are sharing online? It is short and meaningful, does not contain spaces or non-alphanumeric characters (like !, #, etc.), it ends in the file extension (.doc).

Following file naming conventions will ensure that the file can be retrieved by various systems. For example, a student's submitted assignment file containing a # cannot be retrieved by the instructor! As the Assignment name is used to generate filenames when using the mass assignment downloader, it is as important as a filename. These are also important points to consider when creating a Blackboard Assignment in a Content Area.

Dummy Student

Wonder how students access the content, tools, assessments or grades in your course? Add your Dummy Student account to any course shell and login as a 'student' to find out. This account is most useful for tools like Assignments Tests or My Grades.

Dropped Student

Keeping the course shell class list in sync with the RAMSS list of enrolled students can be a benefit while you enter/upload grades in the Grade Center or final grades in RAMSS. You can hide the dropped students from your course shell so their names do not appear in the Grade Center.

Hiding vs. Removing has its benefits in cases where the 'dropped' status changes to 'active.' Not removing the student ensures that his/her activity (submitted assignments, discussion board postings, etc.) still exist in the course.

Ashley Wetherall, a 3rd-year GCM student, summed up the value of Blackboard. "My favourite thing about it is that everything is very organized. It gives you a sense of comfort knowing that all of the documents are located there for every class."

Jenna Fullerton, also a 3rd-year GCM student, has some Blackboard suggestions and requests for professors:

1. If you're not using Blackboard, please consider getting a Blackboard shell for your course (my.ryerson.ca > Blackboard Support > Request a my.ryerson course shell). This web portal makes it easy for students to check marks and to download posted course notes and other documents.

2. Customize your Blackboard shell with unique button colours, so it's easy to identify. (From lower-left corner: Control panel > Customization > Style > Button library.)

3. Please post lecture notes or slides on Blackboard. (Save as PDF, then upload to a content area.) This is a big help to students in seeing what's coming and hopefully reading the relevant textbook chapters in advance, not to mention having a chance to catch up after unavoidable absences.

4. Add a "My Grades" button to your left-hand links menu, so students can easily check their marks. (From upper-left corner: "+" button > Create Tool Link > Name "My Grades" > Type "My Grades.")

5. Use Announcements to inform students what to expect in lecture and lab every week. (Control Panel > Course Tools > Announcements > Add Announcement.) Students like announcements that are neatly formatted and updated weekly, with old announcements deleted. Set new announcements to go out as emails.

6. Include a "Contact Information" tab with information about how to contact you and your TA (if applicable) and your office hours. (From upper-left corner: "+" button > Create Content Area > "Instructor Contact" or similar label.)

7. Practice exams and quizzes are a big hit with students. The quiz can be set up to display the correct answers after completion. (Control Panel > Tests, Surveys, and Pools > Build Test.)