Center For Instructional Design And Technology

Welcome to the Blackboard Online Support Center for St. Ambrose University
Support is available for you at BlackboardSupport@sau.edu
Center For Instructional Design and Technology

https://blackboard.sau.edu

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What's new in Blackboard 7.1

BLACKBOARD SUPPORT:

Center For Instructional Design And Technology
Support e-mail:
BlackboardSupport@sau.edu

Teaching with Blackboard:

Planning & Designing Your Course

1. Plan strategies

2. Design and develop the structure
a. deciding where you're going to put your files in Bb
b. designing an organizational structure

3. Plan strategies for your course materials

4. Prepare materials for electronic delivery

1. Plan strategies

As you plan your strategy for integrating Blackboard into your instruction, consider:

a) What conventional or technological tools you already use in your course and how they might be converted or improved upon as part of a technologically integrated course.

b) Your own background and comfort level with technology:

though you need not be an expert, you should be comfortable enough with the tools you choose to use that you can illustrate procedures and provide answers to basic questions
- if your comfort level is low - starting out slowly would be wise. Once the students have a bad experience, it will be difficult to recover.
- the CIDT is available to help.
  - make a reservation with an CIDT consultant for more personalized assistance.

c) Technology can be included to these varying degrees according to your needs:

improving access to course materials.
enhancing student communication.
managing a completely paperless classroom.

d) Integrating technology into a course will create some special expectations among students, and may also cause some friction:

when students do complain or technology fails, be prepared to offer alternatives and compromises if necessary.
as an instructor, it is important to maintain student morale while being both firm and encouraging.

e) Compared to a traditional lecture course, a course which uses technology usually requires a greater degree of participation and interactivity from students.

2. Design the structure and organizational scheme

Before you begin uploading your course content into Blackboard, it is very important to first design an organization and plan for your course site.

This is an important first step because once you have created your organization on Blackboard and have uploaded files, there is no way to move folders or documents. The only way to do this is by creating new folders and uploading each document again, one at a time.

This involves:

a. deciding where you're going to put your files in Blackboard

b. designing an organizational structure for your materials

Decide where you're going to put your files in Blackboard

The best way to arrange online content for your course depends upon what components you wish to incorporate.

You can create folders in any of these Blackboard areas to organize your materials. You can also place text to describe the folders and documents you provide for student use. You can also use this text to set expectations for the student - both what they will find in the folders and what you expect them to do with these materials.

Once you've decided where in Blackboard you're going to post your files, you need to further define the organizational structure of your course.

Decide on an organizational structure for your materials

If you've been teaching your course for a while, you probably already have a solid course organization that is easily transferable to the Blackboard online environment - no need to change your structure unless you plan to improve it.

If this is a new course, or if you'd like to revise your existing course organization, follow these steps:

Step 1: Begin designing the structure of your course by building on the instructional goals and objectives that you have defined:

What topics do your instructional goals and objectives encompass?

Step 2: Then answer these questions:

How many sessions, weeks are there in a semester or term?

What are the components or subtopics of your course?

-- overview
-- lesson objectives
-- lecture notes
-- activities -- readings
-- handouts
-- labs
-- case studies

Step 3: As you begin to work through these issues, you will see possibilities for logical organization of your course. Suggested organization schemes include:

by week

by topic

by type of material

by textbook chapter, unit

Step 4: Once you've decided on an organizational scheme for your course site, make an outline or hierarchical flow chart or your course.

Step 5: Next, create a a file structure on your computer to mirror that hierarchy. This also ensures a "back-up" of your course materials and course site structure.

Step 6: Then create that same file organization on your Blackboard course site.

Step 7: Develop a timeline for making course components available to students. If too much information is available, the students might not focus on the current unit.

3. Plan strategies for your course materials

With Blackboard, you can:

upload existing documents to the the Blackboard server in their native file formats (e.g., .doc, .ppt)

Maintain documents in their native formats:
It is advisable to maintain your existing course materials in their native file formats because Blackboard-created documents are not usable outside of Blackboard (i.e., cannot be imported into another application).

That is why it is especially important to start with your course structure on your local machine - if you decide not to use Blackboard in the future, your course structure and materials can be reused in any platform.

4. Prepare materials for electronic delivery

If you have course materials that are paper-based and you would like to post them on Blackboard, you need to prepare the materials in various multimedia formats for electronic delivery. This may include:

scanning graphics

converting handwritten lecture notes to PowerPoint presentations

creating homework assignments in Word

converting existing documents to PDF format (e.g., for documents where formatting must be consistent across all platforms, for documents which contain lots of graphics, mathematical symbols, etc.)

filming video clips of presentations (e.g., guest lectures) that you would like to capture

The CIDT is able to provide faculty assistance with preparing course materials for electronic delivery through:

consultation with an CIDT consultant
the use of CIDT Lab facilities and equipment