Blackboard

Blackboard is a secure digital learning environment used by students and teachers to exchange information, provide tools for educational purposes and stimulate collaboration. It is a user-friendly learning environment used by the majority of the universities in the world.

To reduce top-down mentality Blackboard provides the means to collectivize knowledge by students. In Blackboard, students can share and review each others essays, but also discuss specific topics related to the various courses they participate in. On our YouTube channel you can see how to do various common tasks in Blackboard 9: YouTube CSW UvA

Online quizzes

Blackboard provides the option to conduct test students’ knowledge with online assignments during the semester. Teachers can decide whether they want to grade assignments or just use them as indicators. Whereas the initial investment to create an assignment is quite high, it will save you time in the coming years.

Communication

A main functionality within Blackboard is its communication tools. Teachers and students can e-mail their groups, use the discussion board, make announcements or even use chat for instance answering questions during open office hours.

Submitting Assignments

Teachers can make assignment requirements available in their course, determine the period in which students can upload their assignments and also grade it in Blackboard. By choosing to create an Ephorus assignment (see below) the work will also be checked on plagiarism. Once students uploaded the assignments the teacher can download all the files in one zip-file compressed folder that contains more files .

. To see how you can make an Ephorus Assignment in Blackboard, see this video: