Category: Blackboard Wikis

Collaborative Documents available in Blackboard Ultra

James Woolley [jbw] Blackboard, Blackboard Blogs, Blackboard Wikis, Interactive Tools, Technical Updates, Ultra Leave a comment
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One of the great new enhancements that we’ve got in Blackboard Ultra is the ability to embed collaborative documents.

For those of us who did much of their teaching online during the Covid pandemic, you will recall us espousing the benefits of loading a collaborative document in the chat. We’ve now been working to enable this on our Blackboard Courses and we are pleased to say that they are available for you to use on your 2023-24 courses.

This means that your students will be able to collaborate together outside the classroom, on Blackboard in their own time. There are 3 types of document available for students to collaborate on:

  • Word
  • Excel
  • PowerPoint

We’re going to be using the collab docs for blog and wiki alternatives. But, if you want to maybe get your students to mind map, generate ideas, or build on each other’s notes, take a look at the collab docs. You could also use it to get students to sign up to groups. You can use the group feature in Ultra courses to limit the item to a specific student or group of students. 

Want to know how to do it? Take a look at Blackboard’s guidance on Microsoft OneDrive and collaborative documents.

Blackboard Ultra: Wiki Alternatives Overview

James Woolley [jbw] Blackboard, Blackboard Wikis, Ultra Leave a comment
Blackboard Ultra icon

This blogpost outlines the solutions that the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit are working on for Wiki activities. Once these solutions have been tried and tested, we will work on providing guidance for colleagues.

Background

Wikis are a collaborative tool used for a number of assessed and unassessed activities at Aberystwyth University.

The tool is not currently available in Blackboard Ultra (despite our enhancement requests) and is not on Blackboard’s roadmap of development.

The unavailability of the Wiki tool has been included in all parts of the decision-making process to highlight it as a risk in the move to Blackboard Ultra.

In their very nature wikis are collaborative giving students the opportunity to contribute as part of a group. Students can produce media rich resources linking to external content, videos, and images. The content can be arranged over a number of pages, with a structure pre-given by the tutor.

This blogpost outlines a number of options for Wiki equivalences. The options are listed in order of LTEU preference.

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Interactive Blackboard Tools Case Studies – Wikis

James Woolley [jbw] Blackboard, Blackboard Wikis, Blackboard Wikis, Interactive Tools, Uncategorised Leave a comment
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This case study is based on and includes extracts from the Student-led Planning of Tourism and Hospitality Education: The Use of Wikis to Enhance Student Learning book chapter written by Dr Mandy Talbot (Aberystwyth Business School) and published in the Routledge Handbook of Tourism and Hospitality Education.

What tool do you use and how? 

Dr Mandy Talbot used Blackboard wikis to facilitate ‘a student led, collaborative learning project (…) on the second year, bachelor degree module: international tourism development. (…) The module course work required students to work in small groups to identify and evaluate the tourism development strategies that were being followed in given tourist destinations and to compare these with approaches being taken elsewhere. Due to the collaborative and interactive nature of the assignment the most suitable web tool was the wiki.’

Why did you choose this tool? 

Before implementation of wikis ‘students undertook the exercise by creating and delivering a group PowerPoint presentation of 15 minutes to the class, with a further 10 minutes for questions.’ Dr Mandy Talbot changed the format of this assessment in order to:

  1. ‘Improve the cohesiveness of student group work: The wiki format provides a collaborative work space for students to develop their work’
  • ‘Provide students with more opportunity to interact with the work of other groups: The wiki format enables students to visit each other’s’ presentations over an extended time period. Wiki pages also have comment boxes which enable students to pose questions and engage in discussion on the other sites.’
  • ‘Develop student IT skills: Students will learn how to create and structure web pages’.

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Call for Case Studies – Blackboard Interactive Tools

Anna Udalowska [aeu] Blackboard, Blackboard Blogs, Blackboard Discussion Boards, Blackboard Journals, Blackboard Tests, Blackboard Wikis, Interactive Tools Leave a comment

We are looking for staff who would like to share their experiences of using Blackboard interactive features, e.g. blogs, journals, wikis, tests, discussion boards. We welcome case studies in any format, e.g. short text, a video, voice memo. These case studies would be included on our blog and used in future training sessions. Please sent your case studies to lteu@aber.ac.uk 

To learn more about different interactive Blackboard features:

Blogs & journals:

Interactive Blackboard Tools Series – Journals and Blogs (Part 1)

Blackboard Tools for Group Work (Blogpost 2): Blogs

Wikis:

Blackboard Tools for Group Work (Blogpost 3): Wikis

Tests:

Blackboard Tests – Creating Online Assessment Activities for your Students

Discussion boards:

Blackboard Tools for Group Work (Blogpost 4): Discussions

E-learning Enhanced: Interactive Blackboard Tools Training Sessions

James Woolley [jbw] Blackboard, Blackboard Blogs, Blackboard Discussion Boards, Blackboard Journals, Blackboard Tests, Blackboard Wikis, Interactive Tools, Teaching Continuity, Training and Support Leave a comment

Distance Learner BannerThe Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit is pleased to be running our E-learning Enhanced training sessions again this semester.

We’ve got a session scheduled for each of Blackboard’s Interactive Tools: Discussion Boards, Wikis, Tests & Quizzes, and Journals & Blogs. In addition to this, we’ve got a number of Welsh Medium workshops on ‘What can I do in Blackboard?’ as well as some more CPD opportunities.

Blackboard Tools are incredibly versatile and can be adapted for a wide variety of different learning activities: from formative and summative assessment to peer and online learning community building, from reflective activities to the creation of resources. As with all technology enhanced learning, the key is the design of the activity and how that is linked to learning outcomes. Putting the teaching need first and choosing the most appropriate tool will result in meaningful engagements with the task.

These sessions have been designed in such a way to foreground the learning design of the activity as well as the technical creation. Participants will be given the opportunity in these sessions to design a learning activity using the relevant tool and will be provided with technical videos and tips for best embedding their tools in their teaching.

See below for dates and times:

DateSession
22.02.2021Designing and Using Blackboard Discussion Boards
26.02.2021Beth allaf ei wneud gyda Blackboard?
03.03.2021Designing and Using Wikis for Online Collaborative Activities
11.03.2021Creating Blackboard Tests and Quizzes
17.03.2021Using Blackboard Journals and Blogs for Learning Activities
22.03.2021Beth allaf ei wneud gyda Blackboard?

You can see our full list of CPD and book your place online: https://stafftraining.aber.ac.uk/sd/list_courses.php. All our sessions are designed to be run online via Teams. You will be sent a calendar invitation with a link to the session beforehand.