Blackboard Basics

The Blackboard Basics interactive webinar will introduce participants to the wide range of tools available in Blackboard. Topics will include: Understanding the Interface, Adding Content, Announcements and Email, Assignments, and Grading. The audience is Mason faculty and GTAs completely new to Blackboard.

Blackboard Basics Online Course

This week-long asynchronous online course will assist faculty planning to use Blackboard for the first time. Although self-paced, ITS staff will be available to answer questions and provide feedback on assignments. It is estimated the course will take eight hours to complete. Additionally, optional synchronous Q&A sessions will be held at the start and end of the course.

Participants will learn to organize and add content to a course, communicate with students, create assignments and tests, and use the Grade Center as an online grade book.

Access instructions will be sent via email before the course begins.

Blackboard Grade Center

This Blackboard Grade Center workshop will demonstrate basics of the Grade Center. It will cover topics such as Adding Columns, Grade Center Organization, Adding Grades, Student preview, how to grade submitted work through Courses (Assignments/Tests/ Surveys), Downloading/Uploading the Grade Center, Weighting Grades, Dropping the Lowest Score, Grade History, Grade Reports, and emailing students from Grade Center.

Blackboard Tests and Proctoring

This session will cover creating and deploying tests in Blackboard, including the many available test options. We will also look at how to use proctoring software to secure your online tests and ensure students follow your instructions (closed book, etc.). The tool requires students to record themselves taking a test in Blackboard. The software then uses an algorithm to rank test attempts that may need your review.

Kaltura Media: Basics

Kaltura is a media tool that allows both faculty and students to easily create, host, and share media in Blackboard courses. Kaltura Capture enables easy recording with automated publishing and interactive viewing within Blackboard. Available for both Mac and PC, users can create webcam recordings, screen captures, audio lectures, and video presentations playable with an interactive viewer.

Kaltura Media: Beyond Basics

Kaltura is a media tool that allows both faculty and students to easily create, host, and share media in Blackboard courses. This 50-minute webinar will cover additional Kaltura media tools available within MyMedia in Blackboard.

Topics will include:

• Creating and publishing interactive video quizzing within a Blackboard course
• Editing video
• Adding interactivity to a video
• Reviewing video analytics
• DIY machine captioning

Poll Everywhere

Poll Everywhere provides a safe platform for every participant to ask questions, participate in group activities, and share thoughts and insights, right from their phone or computer. Attend this training to learn the features of your licensed presenter account. All faculty are automatically granted Poll Everywhere presenter accounts. Staff and graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) may request presenter accounts.

Poll Everywhere: Top 10 Tips

This session is for those who use Poll Everywhere already but want to do more. Topics may include: Poll Everywhere competitions, weighted grading, embedding activities into Blackboard, and more. Come with questions and scenarios to brainstorm solutions as a group.

Qwickly Attendance

The Qwickly Attendance tool allows for attendance tracking and grading in Blackboard.

Features:

• Student attendance can be marked manually, using a QR code check-in, or even based on student activity in Blackboard.
• Automatically create a graded column in Blackboard and keep a running grade for attendance.
• See a list of all students and work down the list or show one student at a time as the instructor calls names.
• Send an email to students when they are marked as absent for the day. Provide students with an acknowledgment that they were missed in class and a way to cross-reference with their attendance score.
• Export to CSV.

Setting up the Gradebook in Blackboard

This one hour webinar will introduce participants to the basics of setting up a Blackboard Grade Center. It will cover topics such as Grade Center Organization, Creating Columns, Grading Assignment Submissions, Entering Grades, Weighting Grades, and Dropping the Lowest Score.

Synchronous Tools for Hybrid, Hyflex, and Online learning

Whether you are teaching your course hybrid, hyflex, or completely online please join us for this 60-minute webinar where we explore various synchronous teaching tools. We will examine the differences between several online tools and highlight best practices to help you decide which one is best for you and your learners: featured tools include Class for Zoom, Zoom, Class Collaborate, and Teams.

For your synchronous class sessions, have you ever wished you could:

Monitor activities in all Breakout Rooms at the same time?
Easily track attendance and participation?
See who is paying attention?
Allow students to only share their cameras with the instructor?
Proctor tests by viewing each students screen live?
Sort your students in multiple ways (participation, alphabetically, hand raised, etc.)
Keep your cameras (as well as other presenters) in the front of the “room”?
Jump into a private video chat with a student during a class session?
Bring remote students into the physical classroom?

Video in Blackboard: Using Kaltura MyMedia

Kaltura is a media tool that allows both faculty and students to easily create, host, and share media in Blackboard courses. Kaltura Capture enables easy recording with automated publishing and interactive viewing within Blackboard. Available for both Mac and PC, users can create webcam recordings, screen captures, audio lectures, and video presentations playable with an interactive viewer.

XR Technology for Educators: an Introduction to AR/VR and 360° Media

This 75-minute workshop will explore the exciting potential of immersive technologies: Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and 360 Video. Participants will identify immersive tools and platforms and examine content examples. This workshop is intended as an introduction to VR/AR and other immersive technologies for immersive learning in the classroom and remote online courses. All are welcome and no prior knowledge is required!