Blackboard

1. About this page

1.1 Ownership, contributions and history of the page

Who	When	What
	September 2008	This page was created the page as part of the FET8611 course. Please comment on it using hidden inline comments (QUICKTAGS > HIDDEN COMMENT) or ADD COMMENT at the bottom of the page. You may reuse the content under the knowledgeGarden copyright policy. The page will be released into community ownership after November 2008.

1.2 Summary of this page

This page has been developed to provide information what Blackboard is, including the types of educational tool available.

2. What is Blackboard?

Blackboard is a secure, learning management system. It enables educators to set up a private virtual classroom space, or course, to support their students' learning.

3. What are the features of Blackboard?

Assignments

Assignments for students can be posted to your virtual classroom space. Instructors are able to add a title and description of an assignment when preparing an assessment task. They can also upload files. In addition, when setting up an assessment task, instructors are able to select the following:

• Points possible. For example, creating an assessment task that has a best possible mark of 20 out of 20.

• Due Date

• Availability - choose the date range that the assessment tasks will be available.

• Whether or not the number of views will be tracked.

Blog

A blog is an online journal.

Groups

Within your virtual classroom space, you can set up groups for selected students to be members of. For example, you can set up group discussion boards, group file exchange, group email, group blogs and group wiki pages.

Chatroom

A chatroom is an online area where users can chat with each other in real time.

Within Blackboard, instructors are able to create new chats for their students to participate in. They are also able to give the session a title, and select the date range (including specific times such as 9:15am) that the chat room will be available for their students to use.

Discussion Board

A discussion board is an online forum in which users can discuss topics.

Instructors have many options to select from when setting up forums for their students to participate in. Instructors can opt to allow or disallow:

• Anonymous post

• Author to remove own posts

• Author to modify own published posts

• File attachments

• Members to create new threads

• Members to subscribe to threads

• Members to rate posts

In addition, instructors can elect to moderate posts, grade the forum and/or grade threads.

Syllabus

Syllabus documents can be created within your virtual classroom space, or existing syllabus files can be uploaded to your virtual classroom space.

Wiki

A wiki is a website that is composed of one or more pages that allows people to add and edit content collectively, at any time. All pages in the wiki are linked together.

Within Blackboard, instructors are able to set up wiki pages for their students to access. When setting up a wiki page, instructors are able to select which students will be able to edit the wiki page. In addition, instructors can: choose the dates that the wiki page will be visible; create a date range for group members to edit the wiki; create a date range for non-group members to view the wiki; select whether or not participants will be able to comment on wiki pages; and determine whether or not a student contributor’s first name only, first and last name, or username only will be visible on the wiki page. Further, instructors can determine whether the contents of the wiki will be assessed. If instructors elect to assess the wiki, instructors are able to view, in detail, the participation levels of each student in the wiki. Specific statistics that can be obtained on each student’s participation includes “Total Page Saves” and “Total Lines Modified”. Further, instructors are able to compare versions of the page. This data can be obtained through the “Assess” wiki option in the Control Panel. (Queensland Government: Education Queensland).

When creating wiki pages in Blackboard, content uploaded to a wiki page can include text, images, embedded media and hyperlinks. Text can also be formatted to enhance the visual appeal of the wiki page. Within this type of wiki, if permission is granted by an instructor, users can add their own comments and view the comments of others. In addition, wiki history can be viewed by users. Consequently, users are able to make comparisons to between different versions of the page and users are also able to revert to any previous version of the wiki page. (Team SLX).

Respondus and StudyMate

Respondus and StudyMate are editing programs that work within a Blackboard environment. These programs enable you to easily create quizzes, surveys and flash games which can be uploaded to your course, or virtual classroom space. In order to use these programs, they must first be downloaded and installed on your local drive. Once you have created your activities, you can elect to have these activities automatically uploaded to your virtual classroom space.

Activities that can be created in Respondus include:

• Calculated answers

• Either/Or

• Surveys - Essay/Short answer questions

• Fill in the blank/Fill in multiple blanks

• Matching

• Multiple answers

• Multiple choice

• Opinion scale

• Ordering i.e. sequencing items in the correct order.

• Quiz bowl

• True/False

Activities that can be created in StudyMate include:

• No answer fact cards

• One answer activities including:

• Flash cards

• Pick a letter

• Matching

• Fill in the blank

• Crossword

• Glossary

• Multiple choice

• Calculated activities i.e. identifying/using functions and formulas.

In addition, both programs enable you to quickly edit items that you have created. Further, quizzes, surveys and flash games that you have created can be directly exported from Respondus and StudyMate into your course. Moreover, Respondus and StudyMate enable you to share tasks that you have created with your peers. In other words, a task that you have created can be uploaded to more than one course. Also, Respondus and StudyMate enable users to extract existing quizzes and surveys within a course and save them to their local drive. Thus Respondus and StudyMate tasks can be worked on whilst offline. Furthermore, Respondus and StudyMate enable users to edit and re-use quizzes that have been created by others.

While Respondus and StudyMate perform the same functions, there are some key differences. One key difference between Respondus and StudyMate is that Respondus is an examination tool whereas StudyMate is a tool which can be used to compliment student learning or be used as a revision tool. Unlike StudyMate, in Respondus, tasks are assessed and instructors have the choice of having results automatically transferred to the online Gradebook within Blackboard. Another variation in these programs is that StudyMate enables instructors to generate more than one activity, if they choose to, from one set of questions or statements. For example, from one set of questions or statements, an instructor can elect to generate flashcards, a crossword, a matching activity, and a cloze exercise.

6. Related pages in this community

• LMS Introduction

• Comparison of different LMSs

• mySF: making the LMS

• Moodle

• Moodle from Theory to Practice

• Moodling Explorers

• Sakai

• WebCT

• SharePoint technologies promoting a CSCL environment

• SharePoint for a Collaborative Environment

7. Related web sites

• The Learning Place eLearn

• Blogs in Plain English

• Wikis in Plain English

• How to create a discussion board forum in Blackboard

8. Contributors

Your contributions are appreciated. Please add your name to the list of contributors so that your contributions can be acknowledged.

8. References list

Bates, N. WebCT. In knowledgeGarden: our learning community. Retrieved September 27 2008, from http://knowledgegarden.usq.edu.au/tiki-index.php?page=WebCT.

Evans, P. (2006). Comparison of different LMSs. In knowledgeGarden: our learning community. Retrieved September 27 2008, from http://knowledgegarden.usq.edu.au/tiki-index.php?page=Comparisons+of+different+LMSs.

Killen, L. (2006). Moodle. In knowledgeGarden: our learning community. Retrieved September 27 2008, from http://knowledgegarden.usq.edu.au/tiki-index.php?page=Moodle.

Munyard, R. (2007). Moodle from Theory to Practice. In knowledgeGarden: our learning community. Retrieved September 27 2008, from http://knowledgegarden.usq.edu.au/tiki-index.php?page=Moodle+from+Theory+to+Practice.

Obexer, R. (2006). LMS introduction. In knowledgeGarden: our learning community. Retrieved September 27 2008, from http://knowledgegarden.usq.edu.au/tiki-index.php?page=LMS+introduction.

Niru. (2006). SharePoint for a Collaborative Environment. Retrieved September 27 2008, from http://knowledgegarden.usq.edu.au/tiki-index.php?page=SharePoint+for+a+Collaborative+Environment.

Queensland Government: Education Queensland. (n.d.). Managing Wikis in Blackboard – Instructors. Retrieved on August 11 2008, from http://elearn.eq.edu.au/@@4d8f762e29b295f0da3c063b42a84083/courses/1/C5329TIB001/content/_198649_1/embedded/helpsheet_managing_wikis.pdf.

Queensland Government: Education Queensland. (n.d.). Respondus Quick Start Guide. Retrieved on 14 August 2008 from, http://www.respondus.com/downloads/Respondus%20Quick%20Start%20Guide.pdf.

Queensland Government: Education Queensland. (n.d.). StudyMate Quick Start Guide. Retrieved on 14 August 2008 from, http://www.respondus.com/downloads/StudyMate%20Quick%20Start%20Guide.pdf.

Queensland Government: Education Queensland. (n.d.). Using Wikis in Blackboard – Students. Retrieved on August 11 2008, from http://elearn.eq.edu.au/@@4d8f762e29b295f0da3c063b42a84083/courses/1/C5329TIB001/content/_198649_1/embedded/helpsheet_using_wikis.pdf.

Sakai. In knowledgeGarden: our learning community. Retrieved September 27 2008, from http://knowledgegarden.usq.edu.au/tiki-index.php?page=Sakai.

Sippel, T. et al. (2007). Moodling Explorers. In knowledgeGarden: our learning community. Retrieved September 27 2008, from http://knowledgegarden.usq.edu.au/tiki-index.php?page=Moodling+Explorers.

Sisley, M. (2006). mySF: making the LMS. In knowledgeGarden: our learning community. Retrieved September 27 2008, from http://knowledgegarden.usq.edu.au/tiki-index.php?page=mySF%3A+making+the+LMS.

Sisley, M. (2006). SharePoint technologies promoting a CSCL environment. Retrieved September 27 2008, from http://knowledgegarden.usq.edu.au/tiki-index.php?page=SharePoint+technologies.

Team SLX. (n.d.). Quick Start Guide: Creating a Wiki. Retrieved on August 11 2008, from http://www.learningobjects.com/pdf/instructor_CreatingAWiki_v1.pdf.

The Learning Place. (2008). The Learning Place. Retrieved September 6 2008, from http://elearn.eq.edu.au.

YouTube. (2008). Blogs in Plain English. Retrieved September 6 2008, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN2I1pWXjXI

YouTube. (2008). How to create a discussion board forum in Blackboard. Retrieved September 6 2008, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po7OhzxuFRs

YouTube. (2008). Wikis in Plain English. Retrieved September 6 2008, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dnL00TdmLY

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