BLACKBOARD: STUDENT ORIENTATION

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BLACKBOARDSTUDENT ORIENTATION

• Welcome to Blackboard Online courses Orientation!
  In this Orientation, you will find instructions
  for logging in, navigating and utilizing the
  Blackboard course management system.
• Think of Blackboard as a tool to help you
  complete your online course or class. After
  viewing the material presented here, we hope you
  will find Blackboard easy to use and intuitive.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Get Started
• Login
• Access your courses
• Announcement
• Faculty Information
• Course Documents
• Assignments

• Discussion Board
• E-mail
• Student Manual
• Grades
• Groups
• Student Homepage
• Virtual Chats

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Get Started

• Click Blackboard on the Main Page or go to
  http//blackboard.mst.edu to access your
  Blackboard account.

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Login

• You will need your Missouri ST userid and
  password to access Blackboard Online courses.

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Access Your Course

• When you have successfully logged in, your
  homepage will come up on your screen which lists
  all of the courses you are enrolled in under "My
  Courses"

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Access your courses continued....

• Access your Blackboard course list by clicking
  the Courses tab located in the title bar of the
  Blackboard page.
• Once you are in the Course List section, you can
  view a detailed list of the courses you are
  enrolled in. You will be able to see the course
  ID and instructors.

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Access your courses continued....

• Clicking on the link to your course name will
  take you to the main page of the requested
  course.
• The navigation area of each course page consists
  of a series of links or buttons located along the
  left side of the screen.
• Selecting any of these will take you to the
  corresponding area of the course.
• Some of these links or buttons may or may not be
  in your course depending on how your instructor
  has set it up.

Course Menu Options
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Announcements

• When you first enter a Blackboard course site,
  the Announcements page for that site is
  displayed.
• You can also display the announcements for your
  course by clicking the Announcements button in
  the left-hand menu.

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Announcements continued....

• Like announcements in a traditional classroom,
  your course instructor may post announcements
  about assignment changes, due date reminders,
  etc.
• Many instructors post a Welcome announcement,
  which welcomes you to the course, directs you to
  access and read the course syllabus, and points
  you to your first assignment.

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Announcements continued....

• Its important to regularly check your course
  announcements.
• By default, announcements are listed for seven
  days to avoid cluttering this page with older
  information.
• Your instructor can override these default
  setting and have an announcement listed for more
  or less time.
• You can still access older announcements by
  clicking the VIEW ALL tab at the top of the
  Announcements page.

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Faculty Information

• Many online instructors use the Staff Information
  area to introduce themselves to you by providing
  information about their professional backgrounds
  and research interests.
• They can also can provide you with their contact
  information, such as phone numbers, mailing
  address, and office hours.
• Students can create similar introductory pages
  using the Homepage tool in Blackboard.

Note Some instructors will have information here
while others will not. It is important to check
for this information because it can help you be
successful in your course.
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Course Documents

• In the Course Documents area, you often will find
  important documents for your course, such as the
  course syllabus, presentation files, and
  electronic journal articles.
• In Blackboard, a document appears as a link,
  similar to an attachment in many email programs.
  By clicking the link, you can open and view the
  document.
• Once you have opened the file, you can use it as
  the application allows, such as printing it or
  saving a copy of it on your local computer.
• To open the document in a separate window, you
  are able to right-click on the link and select
  open in new window from the pop-up menu.
• Remember, to open a file, you must have an
  application capable of opening that type of file.
  For example, you cant open a Visio chart file
  unless you have Microsoft Visio installed on your
  computer.
• Fortunately, many software publishers provide
  free viewer programs which can be downloaded from
  their websites and installed on your computer.

• These viewer programs allow you to view, but not
  edit, an existing file.
• Microsoft viewer download page
• http//office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA01
  0449811033.aspx
• Acrobat Reader download page http//www.adobe.com
  /products/acrobat/readstep2.html

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Assignments

• For many online courses, instructors use the
  Assignments area to organize course assignments,
  such as required readings, projects, term papers,
  discussion topics, etc.
• Course assignments are frequently organized into
  folders. Some teachers organize their courses by
  timeframe, such as Week 1 or Unit 2, whereas
  other teachers may arrange their courses by
  topic.
• If you find assignment folders, just click the
  folder name, which is a link to the assignment
  items within that folder. Your assignments for
  that week or topic will be displayed

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Assignments continued

• From this area, you can write comments to the
  instructor or grader and upload the file.
• You have three options at the bottom of the page.
  
• Click Cancel to exit the upload assignment screen
  without saving any changes.
• Click Save to save the information that you have
  entered and be able to return later to continue
  working.
• Click Submit to submit that information to the
  instructor.

NOTE Once you click submit you can not make any
changes unless the instructor enables you to.
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Assignments continued

• Once you have submitted the assignment you can
  view that information.
• You will also see the grade and comments from the
  instructor once the instructor has graded the
  assignment.

NOTE An exclamation point ! indicates the
item still needs to be graded by the instructor.
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Discussion Board

• In a traditional classroom, you have time to ask
  questions and also spend time answering and
  discussing questions posed by your teacher.
• In an online class, this can be done using the
  Discussion Board tool in Blackboard.
• You can access the Discussion Board through the
  Communications area.

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Discussion Board continued....

• You can also access the Discussion Board by
  clicking the Discussion Board button in the
  left-hand menu if your course instructor has
  enabled that button.
• Online discussions are organized into forums,
  which identify an electronic space for discussing
  a specific question or problem. Sometimes,
  instructors also include a discussion forum for
  asking general questions about the course content
  or assignments. Within a forum, messages are
  organized into threads, which begin with one
  persons answer to a question or problem and
  include all replies to that initial posting.
• The Blackboard Discussion Board tool enables you
  to have asynchronous, threaded discussions. Using
  this tool, you can read messages posted to the
  discussion board by your instructor and
  classmates, and they can read messages posted by
  you, anytime and anywhere. By reading other
  peoples messages and replying to those messages,
  an electronic discussion occurs, similar to
  hearing what other people say in a classroom
  discussion and responding to those ideas.
• Having a discussion in this way can be confusing
  at first because multiple conversations are
  occurring and these conversations unfold slowly
  over time. However, the research on asynchronous
  discussions shows that students like having time
  to read and construct thoughtful replies, and
  that this results in more in-depth discussions.

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E-mail

• Blackboard includes an E-mail tool which allows
  you to easily email your instructor and other
  students. You can access the E-mail tool through
  the Communications area.
• With the Blackboard E-mail tool, you can send an
  email message to everyone in your class or just
  to selected individuals.
• When you use the Blackboard E-mail tool to send
  e-mail, Blackboard sends your message to the
  e-mail address which each Blackboard user has
  listed for their Blackboard account.
• By default, this e-mail address is their Missouri
  ST e-mail address, but they can change this to
  another address. As the sender, Blackboard
  automatically sends a copy of your message to
  your e-mail account for your records.
• To protect student privacy, you address e-mail
  messages by name, so e-mail addresses are not
  revealed to other students. Also to protect
  privacy, Blackboard sends messages using Blind
  Carbon Copy (BCC) addressing, so the other
  recipients do not know who has received the
  message.
• Because of this, it is important that you include
  a descriptive subject line, including the course
  number, for your e-mail message. Otherwise, the
  recipients may assume your message is spam or a
  computer virus.

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Student Manual

• To help you learn more about Blackboard and how
  to use specific Blackboard tools, an online
  Student Manual is available within Blackboard.
• You can access the Student Manual through the
  Tools area or by clicking the Bb Student Manual
  button in the left course navigation area if your
  course instructor has enabled that button.
• To help you locate the information you need, the
  online Student Manual is organized in both a
  table-of-contents and index/search format, and
  individual help topics are often linked to
  related topics. Individual help topics can also
  be printed if needed.

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Grades

• Blackboard has an electronic grade book tool.
• If your instructor has enabled this tool, you can
  check your course assignment grades and evaluate
  your performance.
• You access your Grades through the Tools area.

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Grades continued...

• Individual assignment grades can be displayed as
  points, percents, or letters depending on your
  instructors grading policy.
• Total points and class averages are automatically
  calculated, so you can compare your performance
  with the course grading scale and with other
  students in your class.
• Additionally, grades from Blackboard
  quizzes/exams are linked to detailed pages of
  your submitted quiz/exam answers.

Note These grades are not your official course
grade. Your instructor determines your final
course grade at the end of the semester and
submits it to the Registrar.
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Groups

• Blackboard has a Groups tool to assist group
  members as they work on their class project.
• The ability to work collaboratively with others
  is seen as an important skill, and being able to
  work collaboratively online, in our global
  economy, is even more important.
• You can access your Groups through the
  Communication area.

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Groups continued...

• In this area, you will have access only to your
  groups.
• When you click on your group name, which is a
  link to your groups electronic workspace, you
  will have access to a private discussion board,
  chat room, file exchange, and e-mail.
• These tools work just like the ones available to
  the entire class, except only you and your group
  members have access to this space.

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Student Homepages

• With Blackboard, you can create a homepage
  introducing yourself to your instructor and
  classmates.
• By completing and submitting an online form, you
  can talk about your educational and professional
  background, include a digital photograph of
  yourself, and share your favorite websites.
• You can also learn about the other students in
  your class by viewing their homepages. You access
  the Homepage tool through the Tools area.

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Virtual Chats

• Using virtual chats, you can have a real-time,
  online conversation with your instructor and
  classmates, similar to Instant Messaging.
• You can post messages to others in the chat
  session, and you can read the messages posted by
  others.
• You access the Collaboration (Chat) tools through
  the Communications area.
• The Blackboard collaboration tools include a
  whiteboard, web browser, and other useful
  features.
• Your instructor can archive a chat session, so
  you can review what was discussed later.

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Congratulations!You have completed the
Blackboard Orientation!

• Get Started
• Login
• Access your courses
• Announcement
• Faculty Information
• Course Documents
• Assignments

• Discussion Board
• E-mail
• Student Manual
• Grades
• Groups
• Student Homepage
• Virtual Chats