The Faculty Center for Professional Development would like to invite you to participate in one of the virtual training and/or drop-in sessions being offered during the week of Monday, Sept. 14 to 18:

  • Creating Tests/Quizzes and Surveys in Bb :  The tests and surveys tool in Blackboard gives you the ability to create assessments that help you gauge student progress and understanding of course material and concepts. This workshop will go over the basics of how you create tests/quizzes and surveys, assign grading criteria, and then deploy them into your Bb online classroom. 
  • Using the Blackboard Grade Center: The Grade Center in Blackboard is a place for instructors to track student performance. Faculty can create grade columns for any graded activities they want to record such as projects, discussions, and quizzes. This workshop will go over the basics of how you can use the Bb Grade Center to calculate grades, organize student-submitted assignment documents, create weighted columns, and exclude certain assessments from final score calculations.
  • Using Bb Collaborate: Similar to Zoom, Blackboard Collaborate Ultra allows instructors to hold synchronous class sessions or office hours fully online. Bb Collaborate affords you the ability to communicate with students live or allow the students to watch recorded sessions all from the security of your Bb online classroom. This workshop will go over how to set-up, launch, moderate, and record sessions using Collaborate, as well as, answer any questions you may have about it.
  • Taking Attendance: Using the NEW Bb Attendance Tool:The Attendance tool allows instructors to manually record whether a student is present, late, absent, or excluded for each “class meeting” or Collaborate Ultra session. This workshop will go over the basics of how to set-up and utilize the new attendance feature now available for use with all your courses on Blackboard. 
  • Faculty Center Virtual Drop-in Center: In addition to this week’s workshops, we are also adding an extra Virtual Drop-in session. This week, the Drop-in Center will be open from 10:00am to 11:00am, 2:000pm to 3:00pm, and 6:30pm to 8:00pm, Monday through Friday. As with the workshops, Drop-in Sessions can be accessed via the direct links below, or by using the Virtual Drop-in Center button located on the main page of the Faculty Center Info Hub (CSI) Bb Organization, which is available to all teaching faculty at CSI. 

There is no sign-up needed to participate in any of the sessions. To attend, simply click on the access link provided next to the session date/time you want to attend anytime within 15 minutes of the start of the workshop. Once clicked, Blackboard Collaborate will appear at the top of the screen. It will show the specific training session you are joining and offer a place for you to type your name (please enter both your first and last name to ensure that you receive credit for having attended). Select Join Session after typing your full name.

For more information or questions about any of the trainings listed above, please contact ISS Program/Technical Specialist, Kristen Lindtvedt at kristen.lindtvedt@csi.cuny.edu.

By Kristen Lindtvedt