Last month we had a blog post which discussed some draft guidelines for staff about the use of externally provided tools, such as social media websites, for teaching purposes. As mentioned in the previous article, there can be advantages to using the newest and most up to date tools for teaching and learning purposes, but…
This is part of a regular series of articles exploring some of the terms used in e-learning (view other articles in the series). We’ll do our best to break down the jargon and explain what things are from a basic perspective. In this instalment we focus on the Blackboard Content Collection. This is a software system which is closely integrated…
This is part of a regular series of articles exploring some of the terms used in e-learning (view other articles in the series). We’ll do our best to break down the jargon and explain what things are from a basic perspective. Screencasts are similar to screenshots in that they capture what is happening on your computer screen. However, while a screenshot…
The IT Skills Team has created an online version of their popular training course ‘Tame Your Inbox’ which focuses on managing your email inbox more effectively. The online course takes place in Blackboard over 10 days and consists of a daily screencast, activity and links to optional resources. The first cohort will start on 3 May, though staff can complete…
This is part of a regular series of articles exploring some of the terms used in e-learning (view other articles in the series). We’ll do our best to break down the jargon and explain what things are from a basic perspective. Books that are available in an electronic format are known as e-books. e-books have gained in popularity recently. Many…
This is part of a regular series of articles exploring some of the terms used in e-learning (view other articles in the series). We’ll do our best to break down the jargon and explain what things are from a basic perspective. Screenshots are a way of taking a picture of what is currently on your computer screen. However you don’t…
External websites such as social media are increasingly being used for teaching purposes. Staff doing so often want to take advantage of new opportunities not available inside of Blackboard, use more feature rich versions of tools like blogs or wikis or experiment with opening elements of their teaching or research up to the wider world. Staff have also used such external…
This is part of a regular series of articles exploring some of the terms used in e-learning (view other articles in the series). We’ll do our best to break down the jargon and explain what things are from a basic perspective. Twitter and microblogging is the topic today. Twitter is a company and website which allows users to keep a…
This is part of a regular series of articles exploring some of the terms used in e-learning (view other articles in the series). We’ll do our best to break down the jargon and explain what things are from a basic perspective. Google Scholar is our item of interest today. It would be hard to have not heard of Google (just…
Did you know that you can display images as part of your Blackboard content? Some staff may want to show images inside their Blackboard content items, either to make the content more attractive or to make key diagrams, tables or photos more visible to students. This has been possible in Blackboard for the last few years, but many staff are not…