Tips & Tricks
Organize Your Blackboard Course
Organize your course by content or by modules & content. This will allow the most flexibility with your course than organizing by semester weeks, book chapters, or classes.
Make Your Course Navigation Intuitive
This goes hand-in-hand with your course organization. Make sure that you course is as intuitive as possible for the students to navigate. Eliminate duplication and items that are not being used. Minimize the course menu to only the essential items.
Upload PDF (Portable Document Format) Files
Convert your Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, Excel spreadsheets, and other file types to PDFs before uploading into Blackboard. This is done because PDFs are the most universal/compatible format. Students can use PDF readers to view the document, save it, search for text within the PDF, and print multiple pages/slides per page. You can download a PDF creator for free.
Use FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
Use FTP accounts to house large files that you wish to have in your Blackboard courses. After uploading large files, such as movies, into an FTP account, go into Blackboard and create a hyperlink to the desired file. This will keep your course file size down.
Add a Course Banner
Add a course banner to your Announcements page of your Blackboard course. This will let the students visually know they are in the right place. Include the Course ID and Course Title into your banner. You may also want to place a picture of the textbook cover in your banner.
Utilize a "Master" Course
Using a "Master" course in Blackboard will allow you to keep your content in the same course section semester after semester. You will only have to enroll your students instead of having to copy or re-upload your content into another section.
Combine Multiple Course Sections
Combine multiple sections of the same course into one "Master" course. You can eliminate duplication of efforts by combine students of multiple sections into one course. You can keep these students separatated by section through the creation of Groups and Smart Views.
Use the Blackboard Tools
Assignment, Safe Assign, Peer Assessment, Discussion.
Take Advantage of the Pool Manager
Using the Pool Manager to create your tests and quizzes can save you a lot of time and help curb cheating. It is best to create pools based on objectives.
Challenge Your Assessment Techniques
If you use quizzes and tests, try using several different question types instead of the basic multiple choice and true/false types. Consider letting students provide alternate forms of knowledge affirmation through video, audio, graphics, blogs, etc. You may also consider creating practice assessments for students.
Create Student Groups
Create groups in Blackboard and assign students to each group. Try to make groups as equitable as possible. Groups are good for study sessions, group projects, problem solving, discussing assignments and deepening student-to-student interaction and reciprocity
Use Learning Units
Learning Units enable Instructors to set a structured path for progressing through content within a Course. This allows Students to view content in an intuitive, self-paced style. All types of content, such as items, Assignment, and Assessments may be included in a Learning Unit. The Instructor may allow Students to access content in a Learning Unit nonlinearly or force them to view it sequentially. For example, a Learning Unit on Shakespeare is created, including files, Assignments and an Assessment. The Instructor may require Students to proceed through the Learning Unit in a specific order or they may allow Students to view the contents in any order.
Create an Active Learning Environment
Provide opportunities for students to actively engage in the course content mentally and physically when possible. Students should talk, listen, read, write, reflect, and manipulate content. This can be achieved through a variety of ways, for example; problem-solving exercises, informal small groups, simulations, virtual experiences, realistic case studies, role playing, production projects, in class questions, and other apprentice-like activities. The goal is to have students apply what they are learning and/or think about what they are learning as they are learning in order to learn more and learn more effectively and make it meaningful.
Make Course Content Relevant & Relate it to Students' Lives
Keep you content fresh and up to date. Provide examples that are a part of current events. Relate the content to students' past experiences and have it apply to their lives in some way. Create opportunities for students to integrate knowledge from previous or concurrent courses with knowledge gained in your course.
Chunk Your Content
Break up your material into small manageable sections, a.k.a. "Chunks". Ask pre-planned rhetorical questions after each chunk. Deliver lecture material in ten (10) minute chunks or less.
Use Multimedia & Web 2.0
Use multimedia & Web 2.0 in your course, such as audio, video, graphics (images, graphs, diagrams, charts), virtual reality, RSS, social networking, blogs, wikis, etc. Utilize these items for content delivery, feedback or other types of communication.
Provide Supplemental Content & Resources
Provide more content and resources to allow students an opportunity to view the content from different perspectives, inquire further, gain more in-depth knowledge, and explore external resources if they choose. Provide varied examples, illustrations/descriptions, drawings, images, metaphors, analogies, web links, articles, books, videos, and other reference and resource material that may be beneficial. Ask students to share the articles and resources they find.
Communicate with Clarity
Your announcements, emails, assignments, etc. should be clear, concise, and easy to understand. Use special formatting to call attention to the subject. Provide lists, outlines, visuals, and other scannable techniques. Populate the course calendar with all important course events such as exams, project/assignment due dates, course milestones, presentations, etc.
