Why Use Blackboard?
Workshop
presented by
Luba Iskold
August 27, 2006
How can Blackboard help you with
traditional, face-to-face classes?
You can use Blackboard to:
☺ Provide course materials to students
☺ Communicate with those students
☺ Hold synchronous (chat) and asynchronous
(threaded bulletin-board-like) discussions
☺ Assess student learning via quizzes,
exams, graded assignments, etc.
☺ Post student grades during and at the end of the course
Use Content Management if you …
● Wish to put your course materials up on the Web, so students have
access to those materials 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (assuming
they have an Internet connection).
● Don’t want to hear another student say, "I'm sorry, I lost my
copy of the syllabus. What was the reading for today?”
● Want students to listen to lectures, rather than frantically trying to
write down everything you say
● Wish to archive your lecture outlines or notes so students
can read them later
● Your students find the most bizarre "readings" on the Web that they
mistakenly believe are authoritative. You, however, prefer to give
your students a list of Web resources to use - ones that you’ve prescreened
Use Announcements, e-Mail,
Surveys if you …
● Want to remind students of important upcoming
deadlines, etc. (Announcements)
● Wish to inform students re co-curricular events
that are related to your course (e.g., Center for Ethics
events; guest speakers; plays, movies, etc. –
Announcements, email, external links
● Want to send important information to all students in
your course or to targeted groups of students (E-Mail
Feature)
● Wonder how students are reacting to the course and
wish to solicit feedback from students about how the
course is going (Survey Manager)
Use Discussion Boards
and Forums if you …
● Wish to monitor student engagement with course
material (e.g., what they actually read, understand,
etc.
● Know there are students in your class who are not
participating in class discussions, but who have
interesting things to say about the readings; and you
wish to learn what they are thinking
● Would like to invite an outside expert to participate in
your discussions
Use Assessment and
Self-assessment features if you …
● Would like students to be able to assess their
understanding of the material *before* their actual exam
(post practice exams, etc.)
● Create your own on-line quizzes
Use Groups in Blackboard if you …
● Divide your students into peer-editing groups, and they
need to share drafts with one another
● Assign collaborative projects, and want to make it easier
for students to work as a group
Use Online Grade Book if you …
● Find it hard to keep track of student grades, and the endof-semester grade calculations take forever
● Wish to make the students' grade information available
to them, but in a secure way