FCLD's Aug. 2022 Jumpstart Workshops
GETTING STARTED WITH BLACKBOARD/BLACKBOARD DROP-IN
Tuesdays, noon - 1 p.m. (Webinar) < Click to Attend or stop by FCLD Offices
or by appointment (online or FCLD lab)
Every Tuesday, we offer an orientation and drop-in clinic for Blackboard, the application used to put courses online. If you’re new to Blackboard, you’ll learn strategies for organizing your Blackboard course, review the many tools and features available in Blackboard, and start adding course content items like your syllabus and web links to your course. Be sure to bring a digital version of your syllabus and/or other course materials; this is designed as a hands-on seminar. If you’re using Blackboard already, feel free to drop by with a question or for troubleshooting.
Faculty interested in attending should register by emailing fcld@hartford.edu or calling (860) 768-4661.
ORIENTATION AND QUICK TIPS FOR BLACKBOARD ULTRA BASE NAVIGATION
Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2 p.m. – 3 p.m. (Webinar) < Click to Attend.
Friday, Aug. 19, 11 a.m. – noon (Webinar) < Click to Attend.
On December 17, 2021, the University switched Blackboard to Ultra Base Navigation (UBN). While this did not change Blackboard courses themselves, the landing page did change and this new landing page includes new features such as the Activity Stream, as well as familiar ones such as the Calendar, Grades, and more. Join us for this session where we share some best practices for navigating UBN, finding your Blackboard courses, as well as customizations to make your life easier.
BLACKBOARD ORIENTATION FOR SUPPORT STAFF
Thursday, Sept. 1, noon (Webinar) < Click to attend.
This session is geared to campus staff who are using Blackboard non-academic courses for organizations rather than CRN-based courses. In this session, you will learn Blackboard basics, such as how to manually add and remove users, create announcements, email users, attach documents and organize items in Blackboard. We’ll also introduce participants to non-Blackboard alternatives for organizations, such as OneDrive, Teams, and SharePoint.
GETTING STARTED WITH KALTURA
Friday, Aug. 12, 11 a.m.-noon (Webinar) < Click to attend.
Monday, Aug. 15, 11 a.m.-noon (Webinar) < Click to attend.
Thursday, Aug. 18, noon-1 p.m. (Webinar) < Click to attend.
Wednesday, Aug. 24, 10 a.m.-11 a.m. (Webinar) < Click to attend.
Monday, Aug. 29, 11 a.m.-noon (Webinar) < Click to attend.
Video and audio files should never be added directly to Blackboard; instead, instructors should be using Kaltura (new replacement for Ensemble). Kaltura works like an in-house YouTube, allowing faculty to upload videos to a media library quickly and easily, then link to them from Blackboard and other websites. Faculty who are flipping the classroom, teaching online, using video clips in instruction, or working with student video projects should plan to attend this special information session about Kaltura. Kaltura Capture is a simple, convenient tool that can capture your voice, the action on your computer screen, and webcam video to create lecturettes. You can use it to record audio podcasts, video lectures, or narrated presentations and demonstrations. This session will guide you through the process of recording a narrated screen capture, editing it, and publishing it to Blackboard.
PREPARING TO TEACH ONLINE – EVENING SERIES
In partnership with Online Programs, FCLD again will be offering a seminar series designed to prepare instructors for online teaching and learning. Participating faculty will be enrolled in a Blackboard Course called Preparing to Teach Online and all live sessions will be held in the Collaborate web conferencing room of this course. Faculty interested in registering should email fcld@hartford.edu so you can be added to the course.
THE ONLINE VERSION will meet virtually. ALL four sessions will be held synchronously in Blackboard Collaborate. The series was designed for newer instructors, those who are new to Blackboard, and/or instructors who have never taught online before. Each of the four sessions outlined below will include detailed step-by-step instructions and examples. Participating instructors will apply this instruction in their own courses, developing course content at their own pace.
SESSION 1: PLANNING AN ONLINE COURSE FOR ORGANIZED & EFFECTIVE INSTRUCTION
Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2022 – 6:30 p.m. – 8 p.m.
“What do I need to know to be an effective online instructor?” In this first seminar, we will answer this question, as well as demonstrate best practices for transforming face-to-face courses into online courses, discuss principles of learning objectives and chunking, build a Blackboard Content Folder, and share useful resources, such as a course development template, that will help you as you design your online course. We will share some of the many diverse sources of ready-made course content available on the Internet, and briefly cover important legal concerns, such as accessibility, FERPA, HIPAA, Copyright, and Fair Use.
SESSION 2: BASIC BLACKBOARD & COMMUNICATION TOOLS
Thursday, Aug. 11, 2022 – 6:30 p.m. – 8 p.m.
Just like any instruction, we need to be able to communicate with students, collect assignments, and facilitate group work such as case studies and projects. This seminar covers basic Blackboard tools that are essential for online instruction including Email, Announcements and Alerts, the Assignment Tool, SafeAssign, Annotate for grading Assignments, and some asynchronous communication tools such as Discussion Boards, and Journals.
SESSION 3: FOSTERING COLLABORATION & REMOTE LEARNING BEST PRACTICES
Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2022 – 6:30 p.m. – 8 p.m.
In this session, we will share some tips for asynchronous and synchronous learning. We will be covering how to set up and use Blackboard Groups, Wikis, and discuss Blogs, and show you how to hold your classes online in a synchronous format using Blackboard Collaborate. We will also cover how to integrate your course with collaborative OneDrive documents and how to set up a Microsoft Teams session if you choose to use that with your students.
SESSION 4: TESTS, ACTIVE LEARNING & LECTURE TOOLS
Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022 – 6:30 p.m. – 8 p.m.
In this session, we will be covering how to create tests and rubrics for assessing students, how to do some basic cleanup of the Grade Center, and how to create videos and other media for your courses. Just because you are not face-to-face with your online students, it doesn't mean you can't 'talk' with them, creating video ‘lecturettes’ to engage students and prepare them for assignments. Using audio and video clips, you can demonstrate worked problems, introduce a topic, summarize a complex issue, etc. We will also share some ideas for using quick quizzing and interactive tools, such as Kaltura Quizzes, Quizlet/Cram, Flipgrid, and PollEverywhere.