Here are a few practical tips on getting started.<\/p>\n
Bling it up<\/strong><\/p>\n Our institutional VLE Blackboard can<\/strong> be made to look more interesting.\u00a0 It’s down to you…<\/p>\n Signpost<\/strong><\/p>\n Make the journey really clear on your course and use weekly emails\/announcements to reinforce what’s to be done and reflect on what’s been good.\u00a0 Use one of the new module templates based on our Blackboard baseline<\/a> so that students get a consistent experience.<\/p>\n If you include a link to a document tell the students what you want them to do with it – read it? skim it? make notes on specific points? focus on pp 14-19?<\/p>\n Include some getting started material – how the course is organised,\u00a0 how to get help, how to subscribe to discussion boards (so you get notified when someone posts!)….<\/p>\n Set expectations of how much time student should spend on sections of the material, so that they know what are the essential parts and don’t burn out on the introductory elements.<\/p>\n Media<\/strong><\/p>\n If you are going to be making any videos think about where you are going to host them.\u00a0 You can then include them on Blackboard with links or embed code.\u00a0 We have a few choices:<\/p>\n Once you have the video hosted make sure you add your captions so that these play in the embedded player.<\/p>\n Making videos<\/strong><\/p>\n If you don’t want to spend money – you can make great narrated powerpoints, talking heads or screen captures without spending money…<\/p>\n If you have a longer lead time and need some professionally produced media get in touch with our crack Digital Media Services<\/a> team.<\/p>\n Recording Audio<\/strong><\/p>\n Have a smartphone?\u00a0 Use a “sound recorder” app on your phone to record an audio track. Or you could download and use Audacity<\/a> to record and edit yourself!\u00a0 You can upload audio to ReCap and NUVision.\u00a0 \u00a0On ReCap you can add bookmarks (eg three views on one question<\/a>).<\/p>\n Polls and Quizzes<\/strong><\/p>\n Blackboard quizzes can look a bit scary, so if your questions are formative and you don’t need to know who answered what you can use Google Forms<\/a> or Microsoft Forms<\/a> to make a quiz.\u00a0 Then you can embed the quiz, provide a link to it (or both), and share the results back.<\/p>\n Prototype and Get feedback<\/strong><\/p>\n Ask colleagues or students to comment on your initial designs: does it work? Does it make sense? Is it clear what you are being asked to do?\u00a0 Are the discussion spaces inviting?<\/p>\n Talk to colleagues<\/strong><\/p>\n Shamelessly pick the brains of colleagues who have done similar projects! You will have more ideas together.<\/p>\n Talk to LTDS<\/a> for “how-to” support on Blackboard, ReCap, ePortfolio and for tips on designing your learning materials.<\/p>\n Connect with NUTELA<\/a> and join in their workshops and community (there is free pizza and pop).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Here are a few practical tips on getting started. Bling it up Our institutional VLE Blackboard can be made to look more interesting.\u00a0 It’s down to you… add images to items think about what you can embed – Video, Slideshare, Polls and quizzes Add links to discussion boards – and if you use these make … Continue reading “Blended Learning 101”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1008,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nualadavis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nualadavis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nualadavis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nualadavis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nualadavis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nualadavis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":141,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nualadavis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132\/revisions\/141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nualadavis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nualadavis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nualadavis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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