Merlot
MERLOT Search, a Building Block for The Blackboard Learning System™ is now
available.
This tool will allow instructors to search for educational materials available through the
Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching (MERLOT) without
exiting their Blackboard course. MERLOT (www.merlot.org), a free and open resource
features more than 12,000 online educational materials and more than 25,000 members
representing the higher education community. Blackboard Building Blocks are software
applications which extend the Blackboard e-Learning platform.
MERLOT Search allows instructors to search the MERLOT repository directly from
Blackboard, saving time and additional steps. Instructors can apply search results to
select specific learning resources and embed links to them in their Blackboard course
Web site.
This Building Block, available free of charge and open source through the Blackboard
Building Blocks® catalogue streamlines the process of searching for and using learning
objects cataloged by MERLOT from within the Blackboard environment. In addition,
MERLOT has developed Blackboard® taxonomy within the MERLOT learning
directory, to make it easier for MERLOT users to identify Blackboard-specific training
materials.
Discussion Grader
The Discussion Grader simplifies the process of evaluating a student's participation in
Blackboard discussion forums by allowing an instructor to access to a single page with
every message that a student has posted to a particular forum, number of words per
message, and number of original messages and replies. After evaluating this information,
the instructors can then easily enter a grade for the student which will be stored in the
Blackboard gradebook for the course.
Note: The Discussion Grader Building Block uses a combination of public and nonpublic APIs. Because of this it is not known whether updates to Blackboard Learning
System delivered via Application Packs, patches or hotfixes may disrupt the functionality
of the Discussion Grader Building Block. There is no support available for this Building
Block.
Advanced Group Management
This Course Tool extension appears in the instructor's control panel and provides an
alternative to Blackboard's built-in group management tools. It includes the same
functions as the built-in tools, with the following additional features: (1) summary
display of all groups, their membership count, and enable features in one matrix; (2)
ability to view/modify membership assignments to all groups in one display page, and
thus more easily balance group assignment tasks; (3) random assignment of students to
groups, whether overlapping membership or disjoint; (4) simultaneous multiple deletes of
groups.
Blackboard Content Player (advanced Users)
The Content Player Building Block enables instructors to upload and play content that
conforms to SCORM, IMS, or NLN standards to a course. This tool is available to
instructors through the Control Panel. From an Instructor perspective they can use this
tool within the content areas as they add/modify content items within their course.
Instructors and Students interact with IMS, SCORM, and NLN content just as they would
with other types of Content Items.
Students accessing IMS, SCORM, or NLN Content Items simply select the Content Items
from within the course. A new browser window opens and displays the content.
When Adding SCORM, IMS, or NLN data, the Instructor can enforce sequential
navigation and add Content Items to the Grade book. When a Student completes a
package the results are automatically reported in the Grade book.
The Content Player Building Block supports content that conforms to the IMS Content
and Packaging 1.1.3 standard with the webcontent attribute. Information about the
standard can be found at: http://www.imsproject.org/content/packaging/index.cfm
The Content Player Building Block supports content that conforms to the SCORM 1.2
standard. Information about the standard can be found at: http://www.adlnet.org
The Content Player Building Block supports NLN content. NLN content conforms to the
SCORM 1.2 standard. The UK NLN Materials Team is responsible for commissioning
and developing over 750 hours of high quality e-learning materials for the NLN that
highlights the potential of using e-learning materials in learning and teaching, and offers
advice on best practices in integrating the NLN materials into teaching and learning
schemes. http://www.nln.ac.uk/