What's New in Blackboard 9.1 Service Pack 7?

Check out the new features and enhancements in the latest upgrade of Blackboard!

• Interactive Rubrics - These rubrics are included as an option in assessments. They allow instructors to provide students with clear expectations and evaluation criteria. Scores entered into a rubric that are associated with an assignment or gradable forum, wiki, blog, or journal are reflected in the Grade Center. The same rubric can be used for multiple assessments and exported and imported across courses.
  
  How to use Interactive Rubrics Tutorials
  How to Create a Grading Rubric
  How to Associate a Rubric with a Gradable Item
  How to Grade with Rubrics
  

• Needs Grading Status - This feature has been significantly enhanced to allow instructors easier access to items that need grading. In addition, Gradable Discussion Boards can now be set to appear in the Needs Grading area of the Control Panel after a specific number of posts by a student.
  
  How to use the Needs Grading Status for Interactive Tools Tutorial
  Needs Grading Status for Interactive Tools
  
  
• Auto-Submit Test Tool - This new capability provides instructors with an intuitive means of setting time limits on assessments and configuring the system to auto-submit the assessment at time expiration. Instructors may now choose to make the timed assessment auto-submit, or to allow the assessment to continue beyond the allotted time as in previous versions of Blackboard. Students are provided with visual cues to track their progress when taking and submitting timed assessments set to auto-submit. Attempt information for timed assessments includes details on how much time the student spent on the attempt versus how much time was allotted.
  
  How to Set Test Options including Auto-Submit Tutorial
  

• Check Course Links Tool - This tool allows instructors to check the links of any items added through Browse Course option, including: links added in the Text Editor, Content Areas, Learning Modules, Folders, Announcements, Contacts, Tools, Discussion Boards, Blogs and Journals.
  
  Consider checking your course links on a periodic basis. It's easy!
  Through the Control Panel > Packages and Utilities > Check Course Links
  Click OK to check the operation > Review the results.

More Ideas for Teaching with QR Codes

Scattered throughout Macys, on realtor signs, in every magazine, even on my pineapple – they are everywhere! Using this technology as the lever, QR codes can also serve as an effective tool as they take instruction mobile. With careful thought, instructors can use QR codes to create engagement with lessons, manage the classroom even facilitate inquiry. While it seems like we have been inundated with ideas for using QR codes in the classroom, a recent Edutopia article provided some fresh ideas. In Twelve Ideas for Teaching with QR Codes, Andrew Miller provides a brief tutorial on what a QR Code is, how to make one, and most importantly how to “harness the excitement of technology with a purpose of effective instruction”.
His ideas include:

• Building 21st century resumes that require interaction
• Linking students to exemplary work
• Integrate codes with a Service Learning Project
• Sustaining a greener classroom
• Provide students with incentives and praise
• Guide students to online activities
• Help students track learning
• Provide students with optional activities
• Compile research
• Create interactive labs
• Differentiate instruction
• Voting

In addition to these ideas, the resources and comments located at the bottom of the article may provide inspiration for using QR codes with your students. Just remember, “this technology is a tool and needs to fit a purpose”.

Going the Distance: Online Education in the United States, 2011

It's that time of year again when The Sloan Online Survey results are released. This annual report focuses on online learning in higher education. Since the initial report in 2002, the series was named in recognition of the support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. This year, in addition to the Sloan Consortium; Kaplan University, Inside Higher Ed, and Pearson have offered to support the continuation of these reports.

The current report, Going the Distance: Online Education in the United States, 2011 found that:

*65% of higher educational institutions now report that online learning is critical part of their long-term strategy

*Over 6.1 million students were taking at least one online course

*The number of higher ed students taking online courses increased by 10% from the year before

*67% of academic leaders believe that learning outcomes in online education are the same or superior to those in face-to-face

*The percentage of faculty members who accept online education as a viable form of learning is less than one-third

*Most training for online teaching in higher ed takes place internally

Infographic for the Report

Flip Your Class!

The Kahn Academy (http://www.khanacademy.org/), a free educational library that features thousands of educational videos and an interactive dashboard for formative assessment, is causing quite a buzz in education. In this 10 minute interview the founder of Kahn Academy, Salman Khan, discusses how his videos help to create a “flipped classroom”, one in which the lecture is taken out of the classroom so that project-based learning can take place in the classroom. Kahn talks about how instructors are able to focus on “higher value” activities, such as simulations, discussions, and group work, when students learn the skills on their own time that are often taught face to face. After hearing his thoughts and ideas, you may want to consider a flip!

Add Some Bling to Your Blackboard

If you think you are tired of looking at your boring Blackboard, think how your students feel! This document will give you some fresh ideas for making your course more visually interesting. You will find tips for using Blackboard tools for customizing your course, such as buttons, links, and banners as well as tips for using embedded content and interesting Web 2.0 tools.

Bling Your Blackboard Class

How Exactly are Students Using Technology?

It’s clear that today’s students rely heavily on electronic devices even when they’re not incorporated in the classroom. In one survey of college students, 38% said they couldn’t even go 10 minutes without switching on some sort of electronic device.

But how students are using their devices, how technology is affecting their educational experience, and what effect it has on their well-being are questions that are harder to answer. In the infographic below, online higher education database Onlineeducation.net has summed up some of the existing research on these points.


Via: OnlineEducation.net

Blackboard Beginning of the Semester Checklist

Use the Beginning of the Semester Checklist to ensure that your class is ready for student access. The checklist will assist you in turning off unnecessary tools, making the course available, and initiating communication. In addition you will also find instructions for the Add Test Student feature which allows instructors to login to their courses as a students.