Blackboard Downtime

Blackboard will be unavailable starting at 4 p.m. December 28, 2007 and will remain unavailable until Midnight, January 4, 2008. Your My.UNL team will use this time for server maintenance.

Spring 2008 Courses Available

Spring 2008 courses have been loaded and are now available. If you are teaching a class and do not see it on your My.UNL page, check with your department and make sure they have listed you as the instructor of record with Records and Registration. All access to Blackboard courses is controlled by Records and Registration data.

Description of Blackboard Training Courses

Instructional Design for Online Courses *
Learn instructional design tips and techniques for teaching online courses. Find out how to use technology to accomplish your course goals.

Introduction to MyUNL Blogs and Wikis*
Learn how to use Learning Objects Journal tool the Team Site tool to encourage student participation. Students can post journals which can be viewed by the instructor or by other students (that is your choice) and the Team Site acts as a Wiki for groups in your course.

MyUNL Blackboard Assessment Tools *
Attendees will learn how to create static and randomized quizzes with various question types. We will also explore the useful survey functionality and see how assessments appear in the gradebook.

**We suggest taking this training class in conjunction with the MyUNL Blackboard Gradebook* training.

MyUNL Blackboard Gradebook *
The Gradebook in Blackboard serves many functions. Learn how to add grades for students to view as well as categorize and set grade scales for letter displays. We'll also see how the gradebook is used to manage uploaded assignments, surveys and graded quizzes. Advanced functions such as exporting and importing grades from Excel spreadsheets will be covered.

**We suggest taking this training class in conjunction with the MyUNL Blackboard Assessment Tools* training.

MyUNL Blackboard Communication Tools *
This workshop will delve into the technical use of discussion board forums as well as explore ways of utilizing them in the class and encouraging student participation.

The Collaboration Tools (formally known as the Virtual Classroom) are tools to interact in real time, not only by text chatting, but also with a shared window for project collaboration or topic exploration. Learn how the tools work as well as ways of controlling large-group discussions.

Teaching with Tablet PC
This course is a discussion of tablet PC functionalities. Find out how these tools can be easily integrated with Blackboard, and into your teaching routine. Let the Tablet PC help improve your teaching and grading. Experienced faculty will share their experiences, and provide helpful hints and tips for using a Tablet PC in your class!