1. Why Use Blackboard? Workshop presented by Luba Iskold August 27, 2006

2. How can Blackboard help you with traditional, face-to-face classes? You can use Blackboard to: ☺ Communicate with those students ☺ Hold synchronous (chat) and asynchronous (threaded bulletin-board-like) discussions ☺ Assess student learning via quizzes, exams, graded assignments, etc. ☺ Post student grades during and at the end of the course ☺ Provide course materials to students

3. Use Content Management if you … ● Wish to put your course materials up on the Web, so students have access to those materials 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (assuming they have an Internet connection). ● Don’t want to hear another student say, "I'm sorry, I lost my copy of the syllabus. What was the reading for today?” ● Want students to listen to lectures, rather than frantically trying to write down everything you say ● Wish to archive your lecture outlines or notes so students can read them later ● Your students find the most bizarre "readings" on the Web that they mistakenly believe are authoritative. You, however, prefer to give your students a list of Web resources to use - ones that you’ve pre- screened

4. Use Announcements, e-Mail, Surveys if you … ● Want to remind students of important upcoming deadlines, etc. (Announcements) ● Wish to inform students re co-curricular events that are related to your course (e.g., Center for Ethics events; guest speakers; plays, movies, etc. – Announcements, email, external links ● Want to send important information to all students in your course or to targeted groups of students (E-Mail Feature) ● Wonder how students are reacting to the course and wish to solicit feedback from students about how the course is going (Survey Manager)

5. Use Discussion Boards and Forums if you … ● Wish to monitor student engagement with course material (e.g., what they actually read, understand, etc. ● Know there are students in your class who are not participating in class discussions, but who have interesting things to say about the readings; and you wish to learn what they are thinking ● Would like to invite an outside expert to participate in your discussions

6. Use Assessment and Self-assessment features if you … ● Would like students to be able to assess their understanding of the material *before* their actual exam (post practice exams, etc.) ● Create your own on-line quizzes

7. Use Groups in Blackboard if you … ● Divide your students into peer-editing groups, and they need to share drafts with one another ● Assign collaborative projects, and want to make it easier for students to work as a group

8. Use Online Grade Book if you … ● Find it hard to keep track of student grades, and the end- of-semester grade calculations take forever ● Wish to make the students' grade information available to them, but in a secure way