This edition of our eLearning Technologies newsletter is filled with tips about copying content between Blackboard Classic and Blackboard Ultra, as well as featuring a few webinars that support accessibility and collaboration. Let us help you make the most out of your precious summer schedule.
In this issue:
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Front row: David Nivala, Kim Kenward, Katie Clark, Colleen Cameron, Barbara Stevens, Kelley Senkowski, Landon Nalepinski and Vince St. Germain
Second row: Noah Campbell, Stephanie Webber, Justin Melick, Matt Roberts, Kyle, Mai MohamedNour and Glenna Decker
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Hello! Get to know the eLearning Technologies Team
The recent Michigan Blackboard User's Group Spring Conference provided the perfect opportunity to take an updated photo of the eLearning Technologies team. If you missed the conference, the presentation resources are available at https://mibug.app/
The eLearning team includes 15 full-time staff dedicated to digital learning. Although our primary focus the last twelve months has been preparing and assisting with our migration to Bb Learn Ultra, our mission extends beyond Blackboard. We are here to support faculty, contribute to teaching excellence, and enhance student success through:
Spread over three campuses, we help faculty deliver the next generation of teaching and learning.
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Virtual Office Hours for Blackboard Ultra
Have a Blackboard Ultra question? Need some advice? Virtual office hours are back this Spring/Summer semester from 12 - 1 pm. Stay as little or as long as you need in one of our upcoming sessions being held on May 23rd, May 25th, May 31st, June 6th, June 8th, June 12th, and June 14th. Registration is not required. Use this Zoom meeting link to access our office hours.
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| Walk-in Assistance for Blackboard Ultra
In addition to your dedicated eLearning liaisons and our virtual office hour appointments, we have two graduate assistants available Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday (9 - 4) to help with Ultra questions. Stop by KHS 4450 on the Allendale campus. No appointment is necessary. Daniel Rikkers and Sam Nyarega are ready and eager to help you with Blackboard Ultra.
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Three Tips for Copying Content from Blackboard Classic to Blackboard Ultra
Do you have content in a Blackboard Classic course that you want to bring to your Blackboard Ultra course? This article includes the following:
- Copying Individual Content Items
- What Not To Copy
- Issues and Exceptions
IMPORTANT NOTE: When copying in Ultra, you'll want to be in the destination course—the course where you want the copied content to go. This is the opposite of Blackboard Classic.
Tip 1: Copy Individual Items from Classic to Ultra
When copying content from Blackboard Classic to Blackboard Ultra, we recommend copying item by item instead of doing a full course copy. This method allows you to copy and organize content more efficiently and allows you to rethink your course structure. See this article for detailed instructions on how to copy individual items.
Tip 2: What Not to Copy
When it comes to copying content from Blackboard Classic to Blackboard Ultra, there are several items that we do not recommend copying. Instead, these items should be manually re-added to your site:
- 3rd Party Content: Often, copying 3rd party content will create duplicates that are difficult to delete. This includes any content from publishers such as McGraw-Hill, Pearson, etc.
- LTI Integrations: The LTIs for Classic and Blackboard Ultra are different and will not copy over. LTI integrations can include Panopto, Padlet, etc.
- Discussion Boards: Discussions in Blackboard Ultra are set up differently than in Blackboard Classic. Copying discussion boards from one to the other may not work as expected. It is best to create a new Discussion directly in Blackboard Ultra and then copy/paste the text from the discussion board in Blackboard Classic.
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Tip 3: Issues and Exceptions When Copying Content
When you copy content from Blackboard Classic to Blackboard Ultra, you may encounter some errors with the copied content. An error report will be available at the top of the Course Content page after each copy process with the number of errors or exceptions that occurred. Typically these errors involve incompatible formatting and settings between Classic and Ultra.
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Copying Content Between Ultra Courses
Once you get your Bb Ultra courses set up, you may want to copy content items between courses to help save time in recreating the course. In Blackboard Ultra, you can copy individual content items or all content items from a course. This article will walk you through how to copy all course content from one Blackboard Ultra course to another.
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Don't Forget your Spring Cache Cleaning
Follow these instructions to clear cache, cookies, and browser history in either a Mac or PC. Clearing your cache often resolves errors or access problems you're having. Knowing how to clear your cache might be especially helpful if you receive error messages when flipping between student preview mode and instructor mode in Blackboard.
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Webinars to help with Accessibility, Brainstorming/Collaboration, Course Design, and Blackboard Data
May 19, 2023 • 11:00am–12:00pm
Blackboard Ally is a powerful tool that allows students to view course content in a variety of formats. Accessibility helps everyone have an improved learning experience. Learn how to create accessible content.
At the end of this hands-on webinar, the learner will be able to:
- Create accessible content using Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, etc.
- Interpret Ally's feedback and understand the accessibility of content
- Use accessibility features in Blackboard Ultra, including accommodations for students and the Accessibility Report
May 23, 2023 • 10:00am–11:00am
June 13, 2023 11:00am–12:00pm
GVSU has a site license for Padlet that is available to all faculty and staff to use with their students. Padlet lets you create a virtual bulletin board where you and your students can write notes and upload documents, photos, slideshows, record videos/audio files or add hyperlinks. During this webinar, participants will learn how to activate their Padlet account and how it can be used for brainstorming, storyboarding, collecting resources (such as images, attachments, hyperlinks, recording videos/audio), gathering the results of group work and much more!
May 30, 2023 2:00pm–3:00pm
Step 4: Navigation
The ability of your students to navigate your course site is critical. Being thoughtful about navigation can lead to student inspiration to dive into the online experience and engage in the course content. How do you build quality navigation into your course? We will discuss what considerations need to be included in your course design and build and how you can experience your own class as a student.
June 6, 2023 • 1:00pm–2:00pm
Holding every student accountable and identifying individuals who are falling behind is made easier in the Blackboard Learn Ultra experience. This webinar will focus on the data and analytics that are available throughout your Ultra Course and include an overview of Blackboard’s Assessment and Accreditation solution, EAC Visual Data. During the session, we’ll guide instructors through the assignment analytics, student progress analytics, and course data that will allow you to measure and boost your students’ performance.
June 7, 2023 • 10:00am–11:00am
Join GVSU's Hypothesis customer success manager, Suzanne George, for this informative session on how collaborative annotation with Hypothesis can be used to make student reading visible, active, and social. In addition to sharing pedagogical best practices for collaborative annotation, Suzanne will demonstrate how Hypothesis can be used with course readings, JSTOR articles, GVSU Save/Vitale Source eBooks, and groups in Blackboard. Participants can expect to come away from this session with a clear idea about how they can start incorporating collaborative annotation into their Ultra courses to improve student success.
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Looking for examples of how to use Hypothesis? Judy Williams (School Counseling, CECI) recorded this insightful video on how she uses a variety of pedagogical approaches and tools to create relationships with her online students.
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Sincerely,
Kim Kenward
Director of eLearning Technologies
GVSU Information Technology
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