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

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

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

Use Announcements, , 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, , external links ● Want to send important information to all students in your course or to targeted groups of students ( Feature) ● Wonder how students are reacting to the course and wish to solicit feedback from students about how the course is going (Survey Manager)

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

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

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

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