Blackboard Collaborate™ gives you the functionality you need in a 21st century teaching and learning environment, such as two-way audio, multi-point video, interactive whiteboard, application and desktop sharing, rich media, breakout rooms, and session recording. Educators and students can engage as if they were in a traditional classroom, with as good as, or even better,
outcomes.

Since 2009, the Wimba Classroom collaboration tool has been integrated into Blackboard at NIU and has been used by faculty, staff at teaching assistants for online web conferencing activities ranging from online lectures, office hours, to group activities.

In July 2010, Blackboard purchased both Wimba and Elluminate (another competing web conferencing platform) and has been in the process of developing a new “next generation” product that combines the best features of both Wimba Classroom and Elluminate and has released this new web conferencing platform, Blackboard Collaborate 11. Blackboard Collaborate includes a redesigned, easier-to-use interface that simplifies many of the tasks presenters typically perform. Institutions like NIU that currently have Wimba Classroom are encouraged to begin transitioning to the new Blackboard Collaborate as soon as possible.

To see Blackboard Collaborate in action, short demos are available online at http://www.blackboard.com/Platforms/Collaborate/Resources/Recorded-Demos.aspx

New Features

A few of the notable new features in Blackboard Collaborate include:

• Completely redesigned user interface for an improved user experience
• Web tour, allowing for moderator to show web pages to participants and maintain control
• Audio buffering, allowing for better audio quality
• Up to 6 simultaneous video streams
• Ability for end user to change video quality
• Countdown timer
• Annotations on whiteboard persist throughout session
• Multimedia presentation tool

Blackboard Collaborate continues to offer the same great seamless integration with the Blackboard learning management system that NIU faculty have grown accustomed to and expect with Wimba Classroom.

Moderator User Interface

Feature Comparison: Blackboard Collaborate vs. Wimba Classroom

While Blackboard Collaborate does include many new features not previously in Wimba Classroom, since it is built on the former Elluminate architecture, there are a few features previously in Wimba Classroom that are not currently available in Blackboard Collaborate 11, including:

• Persistent settings and content
• Content organized by presentation
• Tracking information available to moderator
• Telephony (per our installation)
• Informal polling open ended question types
• Mobile archives downloadable by students (mp3/mp4 files)

A full comparison of the feature differences between Blackboard Collaborate and Wimba Classroom is available here.

Blackboard Collaborate Preview

View this online preview of Blackboard Collaborate offered 4/27/2012 to see the new interface and features first-hand and learn more about NIU’s options for moving forward with upgrading to Blackboard Collaborate. | view online archive | view podcast in iTunes | view mp4

Limited Release Availability – Summer 2012

NIU is currently testing Blackboard Collaborate and seeking feedback from existing Wimba Classroom users concerning the timeline for upgrading from Wimba to Blackboard Collaborate.

Blackboard Collaborate will be available on a limited release basis during Summer 2012 for any faculty/staff or teaching assistants who would like to use the tool within their Blackboard courses or communities. If interested in using Blackboard Collaborate during the limited release this summer, please contact Jason Rhode at jrhode@niu.edu to express your interest.  Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center staff are available to provide assistance to those interested in using Blackboard Collaborate this summer.

Based on the feedback received from faculty, Blackboard Collaborate will likely become available campus wide by Fall 2012 and replace Wimba Classroom by Spring 2012.

As previously shared, NIU is looking ahead to new features coming to Blackboard. Here are three short videos that provide a closer look at timesaving new features faculty can expect to see in Blackboard when NIU upgrades to Blackboard Learn, Version 9.1, Service Pack 8 (SP8) later in 2012:

Delight in a modern experience with the SP8 Theme

Get around faster with Task Based Navigation

Change it once and it updates everywhere with Automated Regrading

Learn more about Blackboard Learn’s latest release, SP8, at blackboardlearn.com/new. More details on teaching with Blackboard at NIU is at niu.edu/blackboard.

The dust has settled on the May 2011 Blackboard upgrade, a major event which took us from Blackboard Version 8.0 to Blackboard Learn, Version 9.1 (Next Generation), and feedback surrounding this current version of Blackboard has been overwhelmingly positive.  Both students and faculty report an overall improved user experience.  Having acclimated ourselves well to Blackboard Learn, there are new changes on the horizon to Blackboard’s interface, features, and overall functionality.  These changes will be ushered in when NIU upgrades to Blackboard Learn, Version 9.1, Service Pack 8 (SP8) later in 2012.

The Blackboard Interface

SP8’s interface changes will be immediately noticeable and more in-line with today’s Web 2.0 experience.  Most apparent, will be the missing editing icons that allow users to drag-and-drop, access, make changes and add content to their course.  These functionalities, of course, will remain but will be replaced by rollover editing, meaning that editing icons are visible only when your mouse cursor hovers over certain areas.  The result will be a cleaner, less cluttered, and contemporary interface.

Faculty Workflows

• Course-to-course navigation: When in a course, you will no longer need to navigate to Blackboard’s main landing page to access your other courses.  You will now be able to move from course to course from within a course by clicking the drop-down menu in the upper left corner of the page.  Additionally, you will be able to specify where you would like to go in the other course.  For example, if you are in one course’s Grade Center, you can jump to the next course’s Grade Center easily to complete your grading tasks.

Course Structures and Course Themes

• Course structures:  When a new course is requested in Blackboard SP8, you will be able to choose from a wide variety of pre-built course structures.  Options will be made available through a set-up wizard, and once selected, changes or customizations to the Course Menu can be made just as they had been able to in the past.  Course structures contain course areas, optional sample content, pedagogical information, and instructions to help you design your course.

• Course themes: Course themes will provide an easy way to create a visually engaging course environment. Course themes will be part of the set-up wizard, but will also be available within the course area.  Faculty can apply an available theme to match their preferences.  Course themes add a background image to the course display and change the color of the interface, including the Course Menu, buttons, and controls. Applying a theme does not affect course content, and a course’s theme can be changed again at any time.

Enhanced Grading

• Negative marking: Negative marking will allow for the application of negative point values for wrong answers on test questions. This allows faculty to prevent (by penalty) guessing on a multiple-choice quiz.  A student would not be rewarded, therefore, for correctly guessing the right answer.

• Automated regrading: Ambiguous or problematic questions in a Blackboard quiz or test will be much easier to correct by simply editing the question directly and having all necessary updates flow automatically to the Grade Center.  For any given question, there will be able to drop, give full credit, change point value, or change the correct answer. After the question has been updated, Blackboard will recalculate the score of all submitted assessments that included the updated question, reflect the update in the Grade Center, and provides notification to both the faculty and optionally to the student for all impacted submissions.

For more details about teaching with Blackboard at NIU, visit www.niu.edu/blackboard

While faculty may be spending more time contemplating the design of their online course offerings, an equally important consideration is ensuring accessibility of their content to students. Just as faculty differ in their level of experience, competence, and comfort in the area of online instruction, they may also differ in recognizing the need to ensure their course content is accessible to students with a wide range of abilities and disabilities. Proactively addressing accessibility issues can support student engagement, encourage quality collaboration, and promote a greater sense of inclusivity and community among students in online courses.

Blackboard, the course management system used at Northern Illinois University, recently developed a resource to address the issue of accessibility. Working in collaboration with a consortium of accessibility minded personnel from universities in the United States and abroad,  this online course was designed with the goal of improving accessibility for its users by encouraging faculty to build courses that are usable and accessible.  This new resource appears to reflect Blackboard’s commitment to expanding accessibility. Blackboard Learn 9.1 was recently awarded National Federation of the Blind Gold Level of Certification.

The new Blackboard resource is in the form of a self-paced course in Blackboard entitled, “Universal Design and Accessibility for Online Courses”.

While the public perception of the term “accessibility” may be tied to a student population with physical or cognitive disabilities, an important feature of Universal Design  is that its inclusive instructional design elements benefits a broad range of learners.  Given the increasingly diverse characteristics of students, (i.e., educational background, age, gender culture, ability, disability, primary language) faculty can design a more supportive learning environment by anticipating the student needs rather than reacting to them.  One example would be to include a transcript of a narrated lecture capture which could be useful for students whose native language is not English.  Similarly, faculty who utilize videos as supplemental course material, might only select videos that have captioning available, a feature that could be beneficial for students with a hearing impairment.

While the learning objectives of this self-paced, online course focus on applying, promoting, and expanding awareness of Universal Design principles, the online course also includes modules on Accessibility for Online Learning, Assistive Technology, and Learning Styles.

While the public perception of the term “accessibility” may be tied to a student population with physical or cognitive disabilities, an important feature of Universal Design  is that its inclusive instructional design elements benefits a broad range of learners.  Given the increasingly diverse characteristics of students, (i.e., educational background, age, gender culture, ability, disability, primary language) faculty can design a more supportive learning environment by anticipating student needs rather than reacting to them.  One example would be to include a transcript of a narrated lecture capture which could be useful for students whose native language is not English.  Similarly, faculty who utilize videos as supplemental course material, might only select videos that have captioning available, a feature that could be beneficial for students with a hearing impairment.

Discussions on design guidelines for universal accessibility include helpful suggestions to keep the webpage layout simple and consistent, use alternative text for images, and the need to design large buttons. Assistive Technology provides enhancements to interacting with software and hardware required to accomplish required task (i.e., screen reader, hearing aide, and voice recognition software). The module on Learning Styles offers suggestions for designing appealing material with different learning styles in mind in order to more effectively engage learners.

This course will be available to faculty through the Blackboard course management system in March 2012. It will appear as a new course in the “My Courses” module.

Faculty are encouraged to explore this new resource.  In  addition, they are also invited to visit a resource compiled by Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center, ‘Resources for Accessible Teaching’ available at www.niu.edu/facdev/resources/accessibility. For questions, contact Dan Cabrera, Multimedia Coordinator for the Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center.

Red ink in the margin used to be the standard for providing feedback on assignments. Hand-drawn diagrams helped explain complex information and detailed processes. Scientific and mathematical equations could be easily written by hand. As education became more digital, it became harder to manage these simple tasks with the tools that were available. Microsoft Word has reviewing and commenting tools that can provide feedback, but it is difficult to provide the same quantity of feedback electronically. Mind-mapping tools can create diagrams, but they lack the feel and spontaneity of hand-drawn diagrams, and they can be time-consuming to create. Scientific and mathematic notation can be created with specialized software or with very basic tools available in Microsoft Office or the Blackboard text editor, but again these tools are time-consuming to use.

However, there is a better way. Digital pens, previously in the realm of graphic designers and digital artists, have become more accessible for daily use. These tools can be used like a pen to sketch or write, but the products are digital, so they can be easily duplicated, shared, or posted for students to access.

There are many different types of digital pen devices. The two most common are:

Tablet computers
Touch-screen tablets, like the Apple iPad or Samsung Galaxy Tab, can be used with a stylus for handwriting input. On these devices, specific apps, many of which are free, make the writing possible. The most common apps are for drawing on a whiteboard (which is great for creating diagrams), taking hand-written notes (which can be used to provide students with class notes or to create handouts), or annotating on a PDF (which is ideal for providing feedback on student work).

Pen Tablets

Pen tablets, like the Wacom Bamboo tablet, connect to a computer via USB. The tablets function similar to a mouse, but with added writing functionality. For example, at NIU, a faculty member in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures has been using a Bamboo tablet to add corrections to and to comment on her students’ written work using Adobe Acrobat X Pro.  Not only can pen tablets create handwritten work, but they can also help to create narrated lectures. By using a screencasting software like Jing or Camtasia, it is possible to record audio while writing or drawing.

The possibilities are endless for the use of digital handwriting. Just a few possibilities are:

• Providing handwritten feedback on assignments that students submit electronically
• Handwriting scientific or mathematic notation that can be time-consuming to create using text-based software
• Creating flowcharts or diagrams without using advanced software
• Providing notes on in-class work, like student presentations or performances
• Creating narrated tutorials by using screencasting software to record the computer screen and audio as the content is written or drawn
• Drawing or writing more easily on the whiteboard of web-conferencing software, like Wimba or Blackboard Collaborate

These tools can help to bring a stronger sense of faculty presence to courses because handwriting is more personal than type. For complex material, it is quicker and easier to write or draw by hand, but these devices make it easy to have an electronic copy of the result.