What is Blackboard Learn?
Blackboard Learn is a learning platform, in use at UM since 1999. Blackboard Learn creates an account for every student and employee, as well as a website for every course. Instructors and students are automatically enrolled in their Blackboard Learn course sites as they enroll in their courses during registration. During the fall semester, approximately 15,000 unique users log in to Blackboard Learn each week. Since UM has approximately 12,000 undergraduates, that means almost every student logs in weekly.
How is Blackboard Learn used?
Class use of Blackboard ranges from helping with the administrative tasks of the instructor, to providing online learning activities that are an integrated part of the course. Instructors make class materials available on Blackboard, including syllabi and PowerPoint handouts, so that students can access them whenever and wherever they want. They also use the email facilities to send a message to the entire class, or to post an announcement on the class announcement board. Some instructors have integrated quizzes and self-assessments to help the students learn how they are doing in the course, and provide scores that go directly into the Blackboard grade center. A few instructors have redesigned their courses to take advantage of the capabilities in Blackboard, such as discussion boards, journals, wikis, and more. Each year an increasing number of instructors use Blackboard course sites to enhance learning in their classes.
How is Blackboard Learn configured?
Blackboard is a "managed hosted" system, located in Virginia, managed by the Blackboard company. Blackboard support performs all updates, applies patches, runs diagnostics, and monitors the system 24 hours a day. UM manages the application by scheduling updates, providing the data needed to create courses and users, training faculty, and staffing the Blackboard help desk. Blackboard uses CaneID for authentication and is in the process of switching from CAS authentication to Shibboleth. There are approximately 9,000 course sites generated each semester. The system is upgraded twice a year: once during the summer and once during the winter break.
How else can Blackboard Learn be used?
In addition to course sites, Blackboard supports organization sites, which are used by committees, departments, and non-academic units to share documents, send email, hold discussions, provide internal training, and more. As long as all the participants are either UM students or employees, this is an easy to use solution for any group to create a shared space.
How can you learn more about Blackboard Learn?
If you would like to talk with someone about how Blackboard works, or how you might make use of it, please send an email to: [email protected] or call (305) 284-3949 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.
Blackboard Learn is a learning platform, in use at UM since 1999. Blackboard Learn creates an account for every student and employee, as well as a website for every course. Instructors and students are automatically enrolled in their Blackboard Learn course sites as they enroll in their courses during registration. During the fall semester, approximately 15,000 unique users log in to Blackboard Learn each week. Since UM has approximately 12,000 undergraduates, that means almost every student logs in weekly.
How is Blackboard Learn used?
Class use of Blackboard ranges from helping with the administrative tasks of the instructor, to providing online learning activities that are an integrated part of the course. Instructors make class materials available on Blackboard, including syllabi and PowerPoint handouts, so that students can access them whenever and wherever they want. They also use the email facilities to send a message to the entire class, or to post an announcement on the class announcement board. Some instructors have integrated quizzes and self-assessments to help the students learn how they are doing in the course, and provide scores that go directly into the Blackboard grade center. A few instructors have redesigned their courses to take advantage of the capabilities in Blackboard, such as discussion boards, journals, wikis, and more. Each year an increasing number of instructors use Blackboard course sites to enhance learning in their classes.
How is Blackboard Learn configured?
Blackboard is a "managed hosted" system, located in Virginia, managed by the Blackboard company. Blackboard support performs all updates, applies patches, runs diagnostics, and monitors the system 24 hours a day. UM manages the application by scheduling updates, providing the data needed to create courses and users, training faculty, and staffing the Blackboard help desk. Blackboard uses CaneID for authentication and is in the process of switching from CAS authentication to Shibboleth. There are approximately 9,000 course sites generated each semester. The system is upgraded twice a year: once during the summer and once during the winter break.
How else can Blackboard Learn be used?
In addition to course sites, Blackboard supports organization sites, which are used by committees, departments, and non-academic units to share documents, send email, hold discussions, provide internal training, and more. As long as all the participants are either UM students or employees, this is an easy to use solution for any group to create a shared space.
How can you learn more about Blackboard Learn?
If you would like to talk with someone about how Blackboard works, or how you might make use of it, please send an email to: [email protected] or call (305) 284-3949 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.