The September updates to Blackboard will introduce several significant improvements that will benefit academics, students, and course administrators. These updates focus on enhancing instructional design, improving the course content page, and supporting learner progression. Course Content Page Enhancements As a result of staff and student feedback Blackboard have introduced some changes to the appearance of…

Blackboard have just released one of the most impactful enhancements in course design with Document pages. Document pages are a great way to create and present a variety of visual elements. The good news is that they are now even easier to create, and the new content designer gives you more options on how to lay…

An update to Release Conditions means you can now create multiple rules to govern the release of content to students, limiting access to content until conditions for at least one rule is met.  If you used Blackboard Original in the past this is similar to Advanced Adaptive Release but much simpler to use! You can…

Last year we collaborated with a module leader managing a relatively large cohort of students who wanted to organise the class into groups of students. Her objectives were to: All of this was achieved by using the Groups tool within Blackboard. Groups of Students working together on Discussion Boards A Group Set was created called…

Are you an Edge Hill student looking for a summer opportunity to enhance your employability while earning money and working as part of a team? Look no further than our Digital Student Internship! Starting June 10th, 2024, this 10-week paid program offers three positions, with two interns per role, fostering potential teamwork across positions. You’ll…

Many of us are integrating Padlet into our teaching, learning, and team collaboration. Signing up for a free account grants you access to three Padlet boards initially. Once you’ve used these, if you are a staff member, we can add you to our institutional license, providing you with endless boards! Don’t forget you can embed…

Has your tutor set up a Blackboard Assignment dropbox to allow you to submit a video for Assessment? You don’t need to be a technical whiz to do this just follow the below instructions! Firstly, we always recommend using Google Chrome or Firefox when using Panopto. Pre-recording/Uploading your video using Panopto on a desktop device.…

Document pages are a great new feature of Blackboard Ultra that act like web pages within your course content.  You can add a range of elements to your page such as text, images, videos from the web, hyperlinks and attach files. We have seen lots of good uses of Document pages with our early adopters…

Last year we employed 19 Student Interns to support the transition from Blackboard Original to Ultra with some great results.   One area where this worked particularly well was The Language Centre. Lucy McNally (Foreign Language Programme Coordinator and Language Tutor) did an excellent job of hosting one of our Interns Michelle Hopwood. Lucy completed a…

Microsoft Bookings is a Microsoft 365 app that makes scheduling and managing appointments easy.  Microsoft Bookings can be accessed through your Microsoft 365 account. Launch the app chooser (top left-hand corner) and search for Bookings. Follow the prompts to set up your bookings calendar and it will sync with your Teams/Outlook calendar.  Some of the…