- What is Blackboard Learn?
- What are Blackboard Learn features?
- How do I log into Blackboard Learn?
- How do I add a TA?
- How do I add a Course Designer or Builder?
- How do I upload and post a file in Blackboard Learn?
- How do I keep track of students?
- How do I add a student?
- How do I group students?
- How do I add or remove a course?
- How do I create a new page?
- How do I move files and folders?
- What do I do if I have an illegal character in a file or folder name?
- What do I do if I don’t have Adobe Acrobat?
- Can I work on material and not release it to students?
- Are lecture videos posted?
- Are lecture notes posted?
- What is the role of ELO in regards to instructor and Blackboard Learn?
- Where can I get Blackboard Learn help?
- Blackboard Learn is a user-friendly e-learning tool designed to enhance Student-Instructor and Student-Student communication by providing a centralized area to access classes and class information. For our online students, online courses provide a special freedom. Students will be able to log on any time, day or night and get exactly the same information as the on-campus students (with the exception of Saturday mornings from 6-6:30am). If the course is streamed onto the Internet, students may watch lectures at a time most convenient for them by connecting to the stream from the Blackboard Learn course site.
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What are Blackboard Learn features?
- For all students and instructors Blackboard Learn is:
- Centralized and dedicated site for course, with easy access from ISU homepage
- Personalized Blackboard Learn account with course and news listings, calendars and email capability
- Ability to post syllabus, lectures notes, class schedule, homework, Labs or anything else in one location
- Link to Streaming Media Lectures
- Tracking and managing capabilities of students, TA’s and presentation groups with survey and student data collecting capabilities
- Multiple, dedicated chat rooms for communication between students, and between instructors and students as well as a live class chat option for students watching the streaming media lectures
- Manageability and maintenance options
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How do I log into Blackboard Learn?
- You can log in into Blackboard Learn by accessing it from the Iowa State University homepage at the top left corner. Instructors and TAs use their Net ID (using everything before the @iastate.edu) to log in.
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- In the Control Panel for your course page, click on the “Users and Groups” to expand the menu and then click “Users”. At the top of the page, click “Find Users to Enroll”. Enter the TA’s NetID in the text box and then select “Teaching Assistant” from the drop down menu. Click “Submit” to confirm.
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How do I add a Course Designer or Builder?
- In the Control Panel for your course page, click on the “Users and Groups” to expand the menu and then click “Users”. At the top of the page, click “Find Users to Enroll”. Enter the course builder’s NetID in the text box and then select “Course Builder” from the drop down menu. Click “Submit” to confirm.
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How do I upload and post a file in Blackboard Learn?
- This option is for course builders and system administrators. To post something on Blackboard you can click on “Content Collection” under the Course Management control panel. In the expanded menu, select the first link which should contain the the course name. In the next page, click on the “Upload” button and then “Upload Files” from the drop down menu. In the next page, you will have two different options for uploading files. You can either click on the “Browse” button to locate the files that you need to upload or you can simply drag and drop the files into the box in the middle of the page. Once you have selected the appropriate files, select the (optional) checkboxes for the file options that you would like to enable and click “Submit”.
Next, you will need to create a link in the Course Content page to the file(s) that you just uploaded. Click on “Home” in the course menu and then make sure that Edit Mode is turned on. You can do this by clicking on the “Edit Mode” in the top right corner of the screen so that it says “On”. Navigate to the location in the course site where you need to post the file(s). Click on “Build Content” to expand the menu and click on “File” under the Create header. In the next page, click on “Browse Content Collection” and then select the file(s) that you need from the menu. Add a name for the file and then select whatever file options are appropriate. When you are finished, click “Submit” to finish.
-To upload Videos, Audio or Weblinks, click on “Build Content” to expand the menu, and click on the “Video” if you want to upload video, or “Audio” if you want to upload an audio, or “Web link” if you want to upload a weblink. Choose the pertinent file options and click submit.
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How do I keep track of students?
- There are tools for tracking student progress in the Grade Center tool in the Course Management control panel.
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- In the Course Management control panel, click on “Course Tools” to expand the menu. Next, click on “ISU Admin Tools”. In the ISU Admin Tools page, there are multiple ways to add students. If you wish to add a whole section of students, click on the section inside the “Auto-Enroll Students” area. If you use this method, any new enrollments and drops will be automatically updated in the course list. To manually add students, copy and paste their NetID into the “Manually Add Students” text box. You can also import a list by using the “Upload List” link at the bottom of the page. When you are finished adding students, their should show up in the “Current Students” list on the right side of the page.
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How do I group students?
- In the Course Management control panel, click on “Users and Groups” to expand the menu. Next, click on “Groups”. In the Groups page, there are multiple ways to add students to the groups. You can either create a single group or multiple set of groups. Students can be self-enrolled or manually enrolled, and in multiple set even randomly enrolled to these groups. You can further assign a group of students to an assignment, in which case the other group will not be able to see or participate in the assignment.
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How do I add or remove a course?
- After you log in and enter your Blackboard Learn home page, click on the small gear icon called “Manage My Course Module Settings” in the title bar of the “My Courses” pod. In the next page, select or unselect the links that you want to be available to you for each course that you are enrolled in. When you are finished, click on “Submit” to confirm your changes.
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- First, make sure that Editing Mode is turned on. This can be done by clicking the “Edit Mode” button in the top right of the page so that it says “On”. Next, navigate to the area of the course site that you need to add a new page. Once you are there, click on “Build Content” to expand the menu. From here, there are a few different ways to add a page. One of them is by adding a link to an external website by clicking on the “URL” option and enter the link and title for the website. The other ways are to create new pages in Blackboard Learn by using the “Blank Page” and “Module Page” options.
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How do I move files and folders?
- You can copy or move multiple files and folders from one folder to another using the “Content Collection” tool in the Course Management control panel. In this menu, select the content level that contains the file(s) that you need. Next, select the folder or file set that you need and click the “Copy” or “Move” button. Select the destination for your selection and then click “Submit” to confirm.
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What do I do if I have illegal characters in a file or folder name?
- Names of files and folders must be alphanumeric and cannot contain any of the following characters:
: ~ [] ! @ # $ % ^ & * () + ‘ {} | \ / ? ; ‘ ”
Check the file path to make sure that none of these characters are present.
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What do I do if I don’t have Adobe Acrobat?
- Go to the Adobe website and download the free version of Acrobat reader.
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Can I work on material and not release it to students?
- Course builders may work on constructing a page without that page being visible to students by hiding the link. To hide the link, switch to Edit Mode and then click to edit the properties of the page. In the Options menu of the page, change the “Permit Users to View this Content” property to “No”. Click “Submit” to finish.
- In case, you want to release the page at a future time or for a time period, Adaptive release function can be used. To Adaptive release the link, switch to Edit Mode and then click to down-ward arrow next to the name of the page. In the exapnded menu click on “Adaptive Release”, and choose the pertinent options and click submit. Adaptive Release can be done for any files and folders.
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- Lecture videos are posted in Blackboard Learn. Depending on the instructor a streaming video or a downloadable video format may be available. Check the Lecture Videos and Annotated Notes Folder in Blackboard Learn course page for .mov video format streaming and downloadable files. Check in the Adobe Connect Recordings folder for Adobe Connect streaming recording links.
- Adobe Connect Streaming recoding links will be available within two to three hours, if approved by the instructor
- Classes are available to view live during class time for online students, if approved by the instructor
- Downloadable version of the recording will be available within 24 hours, if approved by the instructor
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- Lecture notes are posted in Blackboard Learn. Check the Lecture Videos and Annotated Notes folder or Class Notes folder on the Blackboard Learn course page. Depending on the instructor, there may be handwritten notes or digital files such as Word, PowerPoint, or PDF. It usually takes about 12 hours to post. Notes are posted only with instructor permission.
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What is the role of ELO in regards to instructor and Blackboard Learn?
- ELO will create a course page in the Blackboard Learn.
- All videos of classes that are recorded by the ELO staff will be posted in Blackboard Learn by ELO. We help to deliver class to you using Blackboard Learn. As permitted by the instructor, video will be posted in streaming and/ or downloadable format.
- ELO will offer technical assistance related to technologies installed in the classroom, such as SmartNote, AdobeConnect.
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Where can I get Blackboard Learn help?
- Instrctors and TAs or course Builders and Designers can go to Blackboard Learn Help for further help.
- CELT offers workshops for Faculty, TAs and students. Beginner and Advanced Blackboard Learn workshops are available for all through the semester.
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