The Center For Excellence in Learning Technology

You probably know that CSI will be upgrading to Blackboard 8 for the Spring 2009 Semester. The majority of the features and settings are the same, but there are some important changes that require some attention. Among them:

• Grade Center, a feature rich gradebook
• a new Discussion Format
• SafeAssign– Blackboard’s answer to TurnItIn
• Blackboard Scholar, a social bookmarking tool

Here are some preliminary dates for workshops this Fall:

 What’s New in Bb 8 

• Tuesday, October 28 from 3 to 4:30pm
• Wednesday, November 5 from 2:30 to 4pm
• Thursday, November 6 from 1:30 to 3pm
• Tuesday, November 18 from 2 to 3:30pm
• Wednesday, November 19 from 5:30 to 7pm

 

  Using the Grade Center

• Friday, November 21 from 2 to 3:30pm

  Blogs, Wikis, and Discussion Boards in Blackboard 8  

• Monday, November 24 from Noon to 1:30pm

 

  Incorporating Blackboard Scholar into your courses  

• Tuesday, November 25 from 2 to 3pm

 

  Using SafeAssign 

• Tuesday, December 2 from 2 to 3:30pm

Please join us to prepare for next semester! Please RSVP to williams@mail.csi.cuny.edu
All workshops will be held in 1L-214. Please feel free to suggest or request other times

We wrapped up our early-Fall 2008 workshops this week with another edition of Why wiki? …or blog, or discussion board?. We’ll be offering more workshops toward the end of the semester, mostly focused on our upcoming upgrade to Blackboard 8.0. Blogs, wikis, and discussion boards will definitely be a part of those.

If you are interested, take a look at the materials from today’s workshop

• Why wiki? …or blog, or discussion board? slides in pdf format
• Why wiki? …or blog, or discussion board? handout in pdf format

Here are the presentation and handouts from our recent “Best Practices in Online Materials” workshop. I plan to run this workshop again in the coming months, but please feel free to contact me with any questions on the topic.

• Best Practices for Online Materials slides (pdf)
• Best Practices for Online Materials handout (pdf)

You may have noticed an iTunes U option in your Blackboard courses this semester– we are pleased to announce that iTunes University is now available at CSI. iTunes U allows you to share media files with your students within your Blackboard courses via iTunes:

In order to get started with iTunes U, click on the iTunes link in your course control panel to request that an iTunes U site be created for your class.

I’ll be in touch with you about how to get started. Once you have the page created, you can add an iTunes Link to any content area in your course.

We’re working on some documentation for this process right now, but feel free to check the online forums at Apple.com, or contact CELT.

UPDATE: As of 1:30pm, Blackboard is up and running as normal.

As many of you may already know, CUNY’s Blackboard servers are currently down. I am assured by CUNY CIS Help Desk that efforts are being made to restore access. I will post again when Blackboard is available. Sorry for any inconvenience.