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Published on 7 Comments on Bb Tip #71: Download Your Gradebook

You should download your gradebook to your local computer after you submit your final grades. Student access to Blackboard courses is removed two weeks after the end of the semester. During this process Grade Center records are deleted. All your Grade Center records will be lost if you do not download your gradebook before student access is removed from Blackboard courses.

Follow these steps to do it.
In order to download (export) the gradebook for a course, you should:

  1. Goto the [Control Panel] for that course and click on the [Grade Center] link to expand it. Click on [Full Grade Center].
  2. Move your mouse over the [Work Offline] button on the menu bar and then click on the [Download] link.
  3. Under [Data] section, select the [Full Grade Center] option, under the [Options] section, select [Tab] as the delimiter type and [Yes] to include hidden information.
  4. In the [Save Location] section, choose [My Computer] and then click on the [Submit] button at the bottom of the page.
  5. On the next page click on the [Download] button. You should get a dialog box with a request to save the file. Save the file to a location where you can find it later. The file you saved can be opened with Microsoft Excel.

Want more information?
Step-by-step instructions are available [PDF].
Explore Blackboard's On Demand Learning Center [HTML].
Blackboard How-To documents [HTML]
Visit the Blackboard FAQs for additional blackboard information
or email or call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418

Published on Leave a comment on Conversation #19: Interteaching

Download Conversation #19

Bryan Saville

A conversation with Bryan Saville of James Madison University, on teaching, learning and interteaching.

Links for this episode:

All documents courtesy Dr. Saville.

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Published on 3 Comments on Bb Tip #70: Integrate Web 2.0 Tools in your Course

Web 2.0 tools reflect the new ways people are using the web. First generation web content was comprised of static pages. Web 2.0 tools can engage your students by adding new ways to communicate and collaborate in your course.

Web 2.0 tools can be embedded into your Blackboard course. Integrate Web Tools into Blackboard [PDF] describes and rates the ease of use of 14 free Web 2.0 tools you can use to engage students. Additional Web 2.0 tools that may be helpful in your teaching and learning can be found at this link: 50 Web Tools in 50 Minutes.

Follow these steps to do it.
To embed a Web 2.0 tool into your course:

  1. Access the website for the Web 2.0 Tool.
  2. Create the tool, presentation, or collaboration space.
  3. Locate the embed code. This is usually available by clicking a link to share or embed the content.
  4. Copy the embed code.
  5. In your Blackboard course, create an Item in a content area.
  6. On the Create Item page, type a Name.
  7. In the Text Editor, click the Toggle HTML Source Mode icon.
  8. Paste the embed code.
  9. Click Submit.

Want more information?
Using Web 2.0 tools [Video]
Integrating Web 2.0 tools into your course [PDF]
7 Things you should know about privacy in Web 2.0 learning environments [PDF]
Explore Blackboard’s On Demand Learning Center [HTML].
Blackboard How-To documents [PDF]
Visit the Blackboard FAQs for additional blackboard information
or email or call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418

Published on Leave a comment on Conversation #18: Online Engagement

Download Conversation #18

Dave Yearwood

A conversation with Dave Yearwood of University of North Dakota, on teaching, learning and online engagement.

The one thing I'm really cautious about is making sure these technologies are not used as souped-up dump trucks. Meaning you load them up with content and you just drive it to where students are and you drop off the content and say to students, "Now you work with it." That's the one thing I try to stress that we have to be careful about not doing with our students.

Links for this episode:

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Published on 2 Comments on 50 Web Tools

50 Web Tools in 50 Minutes

Thanks to everyone who attended our workshop on "50 Web Tools in 50 Minutes."

Full House

For your clicking convenience, check out the full list of web-based tools that we covered.

  1. Online OCR — Convert scanned documents to text.
  2. Wordle — Word clouds! (example) See also Tagxedo
  3. Up-Goer Five Text Editor— Can you explain a hard idea using only the ten hundred most used words?
  4. Scribd — Document sharing. (example)
  5. WordPress.com — Blogging platform.
  6. Edublogs — Like WordPress.com or Blogger but specifically tailored to educational needs.
  7. Wikipedia — "a collaboratively edited, multilingual, free Internet encyclopedia"
  8. NolaWiki — "a collaborative, reliable, comprehensive look at the people, places, events and ideas of the city of New Orleans."
  9. Wikispaces — Create your own wiki. (Note: This page is hosted on Wikispaces.)
  10. Google Sites — Create your own website/wiki. (example)
  11. visualizing.org — Find (and share) visualizations of complex issues. (example)
  12. Many Eyes — Find and create data visualizations. (example)
  13. Pinterest — A social environment for collecting, discovering and sharing images. (example) (more on educational use)
  14. Compfight — Search tool that makes it easy to find Flickr photos, including those licensed for re-use.
  15. YouTube — Everybody knows about YouTube, but did you know about their Education Channel?
  16. Vimeo — Video hosting. Like YouTube but cooler. Lack of support for captioning could be a deal-breaker.
  17. CaptionTube — Speaking of which, here's a tool for captioning YouTube videos. (example)
  18. TED-Ed — Like YouTube's Education Channel but even more highly curated.
  19. Animoto — Easy-to-make online videos from photos and music. Free for videos under 30 seconds. (example)
  20. Screenr — Screen recording. Yes, it's web-based. (example)
  21. SoundCloud — Audio sharing platform. Free version limited to 120 minutes total. (example)
  22. AudioBoo — Audio sharing platform. Free version limited to three minutes per file. (example)
  23. Educreations — Recordable interactive whiteboard. Captures voice and handwriting/drawing to produce movies. Especially nice with an iPad but can also be used via web browser. (example)
  24. Prezi — Make (and find) crazy zooming presentations. (example)
  25. Timetoast — Build (and find) interactive timelines. (example)
  26. Capzles — Make (and find) multimedia storylines. Educational version in the works. (example)
  27. SlideShare — Share and find presentations (mainly PowerPoint). (example)
  28. VoiceThread — "A VoiceThread is a collaborative, interactive, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos." (example)
  29. MentorMob — Make and find learning playlists. Virtually all media supported: videos, PDFs, webpages, etc. (example)
  30. Quora — Social Q&A site. There are many of these but Quora's the best. (example)
  31. Khan Academy — Lectures and quizzes with an emphasis on math, science and finance. (example)
  32. Poll Everywhere — Easy way to aggregate live responses. (example) (example) (see also Socrative)
  33. SurveyMonkey — Surveys made easy.
  34. Moodle — Free course-management system.
  35. Quizlet — Make and find study tools (flash cards etc.) (example)
  36. Evernote — Store notes, images, documents, web clips, audio notes. Searchable. Sync across your devices. Claims to recognize handwriting from, say, a photo of a whiteboard.
  37. LiveBinder — Like a three-ring binder for web pages. (example)
  38. Delivr — Make and manage QR codes. (example)
  39. Facebook — Yes, it can be used for teaching. For example, make a group for your class.
  40. Twitter — For developing connections with colleagues around the world.
  41. LinkedIn — Professional networking.
  42. Yammer — Enterprise social network: social software designed for the institutional context.
  43. Dropbox — Easy file sharing.
  44. Popplet — Mind mapping, image galleries, more. (example)
  45. MindMeister — Collaborative mind mapping. (example)
  46. Voki — Create talking avatars. See example below. (example)
  47. MakeBeliefComix — Create your own comic strips. You'll have to make a screenshot for sharing online. (example)
  48. Diigo — Bookmarks on steroids. Allows you to highlight and add sticky notes to web pages. (example)
  49. ScoopIt — Curated web content. (example)
  50. Learnist — Curated web content, possibly more education-oriented. (example)

See also: The Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies' Top 100 Tools for Learning

Published on Leave a comment on Bb Tip #69: Simplify Assignment Collection

The Assignment Tool is an efficient way to manage and collect your student's individual and group assignments digitally. Blackboard's Assignment Tool allows faculty to create a secure location for students to submit class assignments. Faculty use the Grade Center to monitor the submission process, to view and/or download submitted work, to compose and send confidential feedback to students and to grade the assignment. Faculty can download all of a particular assignment’s student submitted files in a single zip file. In the download zip file, each student submitted file will be renamed automatically to include the assignment’s name, the student’s username, as well as the filename the student originally submitted.

A number of options are available when creating an assignment using the Assignment Tool:

  • Assignment Files - allows faculty to attach supplemental information
  • Assignment Availability - allows faculty to create assignments in advance
  • Assignment Submissions (attempts) – allows for multiple or unlimited submissions
  • Date and Time Restrictions - allows faculty to decide when students can access the assignment
  • Individual or Group Assignments – allows faculty to choose who has access to assignment
  • Tracking Statistics - track the number of views and by whom

Use the Assignment Tool to help you set and manage deadlines, unclutter your inbox, and save trees.

Want more information?
Step-by-step instructions are available for faculty [PDF].
Step-by-step instructions are available to show students how to submit assignments [Video].
Explore Blackboard's On Demand Learning Center [HTML].
Blackboard How-To documents [HTML]
Visit the Blackboard FAQs for additional blackboard information
or email or call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418

Published on Leave a comment on Sustaining the Dialog

"Compassion grows out of the things we are..." (366/315 Nov. 10, 2012)

CAT is pleased to announce that our grant proposal to the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society has been funded. Now we're turning it back around to you. We invite all Xavier faculty to consider applying for support in developing a contemplative curriculum. Download the RFP to learn more.

Photo: "Compassion grows out of the things we are..." / Irmeli Aro / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Published on Leave a comment on Bb Tip #68: Beginning of Semester Tasks

The beginning of the semester is a good time to get started using Blackboard. Blackboard courses are automatically created using the course information in Banner approximately two weeks before the start of the semester. You can post your syllabus, course documents, and announcements to your Blackboard courses. You can also customize your course menu and/or add a course banner.

If you teach a course that is cross listed you will have a Blackboard course for each cross listing. You can combine the cross listed courses into one Blackboard course so that you can post course materials and grades to one combined Blackboard course. Combining courses may also work for you if you are teaching different sections of the same course and would like to have the different sections combined into one Blackboard course so that you can post course documents and grades in the one combined course. The beginning of the semester is the best time to combine your Blackboard courses before you add course material or grades to the courses.

Follow these steps to do it.
Here are links with instructions for

  • Merging courses [HTML]
  • Hiding old courses from view [HTML]
  • Getting started with the course environment [PDF]
  • Course structures and course themes [HTML]
  • Changing the display name for your course [HTML]
  • Adding a course banner [HTML]
  • Adding items to the course menu [PDF]
  • Posting announcements [HTML]
  • Copying content into another course [HTML]

Want more information?
Stop by one of the drop-in sessions for one-on-one help.
Explore Blackboard's On Demand Learning Center [HTML].
Blackboard How-To documents [HTML]
Visit the Blackboard FAQs for additional blackboard information
or email or call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418

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Published on 7 Comments on Bb Tip #67: Course Structures and Course Themes

Two new features included in the Blackboard Learn 9.1 SP9 upgrade are course structures and course themes. (See Bb tip #55 for more information on the upgrade.)

Course structures are predefined structures that correspond to teaching styles. There are five categories of course structures you can use as a launching pad to create content and to organize your course. Each course structure contains materials such as Course Menu links, instructions, and content examples you can add to your course to begin the design process quickly.

Course themes add a background image to the course display and change the color of the menu, buttons, controls, etc.

Setting up your course for the start of the semester is good time to try course structures and/or course themes.

Important: Adding a course structure does not replace existing Course Menu items or content. When using a course structure, its content is added to the existing content and Course Menu in your course. After applying the new course structure you will have to delete content and Course Menu items you do not want.

Themes do not affect course content or a chosen course structure. You can change the theme at any time. Unlike course structures, changing to a new course theme will not affect your course content or structure.


Follow these steps to do it.

To apply one of the predefined course structures to your course:

  1. Goto the [Control Panel] for the course and click on the [Customization] link to expand it. Click on [Teaching Style].
  2. Scroll through the course structures in the list on the left of section 1 and click one that you are interested in. A description will appear in the middle box and an example of the Course Menu for the selected course structure will be displayed to the right of the description. Each time you click on a course structure you will get a description and an example of the corresponding Course Menu.
  3. To select a course structure to apply to your course, select it from the list on the left and then click the [Use This Structure] button which is located under the course structure’s description.
  4. Optionally, you can check the box to include content examples for the selected course structure. If you choose this option sample content and instructions will be copied to your course.
  5. Click [Submit] to apply the selected course structure.


To apply a course theme to your course:

  1. Goto the [Control Panel] for the course and click on the [Customization] link to expand it. Click on [Teaching Style].
  2. Scroll through the course themes in section 3 and click on the one you want to use.
  3. Click [Submit] to apply the selected course theme.

Note: You can change the course theme without going through the control panel by 1) clicking on the color wheel icon which appears to the left of edit mode when edit mode is on, 2) scroll through the list of available themes, and 3) click on a new theme.

Want more information?
Selecting a course structure [HTML].
Setting Course Style Options [HTML].
Explore Blackboard's On Demand Learning Center [HTML].
Blackboard How-To documents [HTML]
Visit the Blackboard FAQs for additional blackboard information
or email or call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418