Mastering Blackboard Collaborate: A Beginner's Guide to Essential Features (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: Hello, my name is Tori Winn, and today I'm going to show you some Blackboard Collaborate basics. Blackboard provides a great tool for synchronous communication with your students called Blackboard Collaborate. Blackboard Collaborate allows you to talk directly with your students with audio and visual tools. You can also use Blackboard Collaborate to record lectures that students can watch at a later date. To use Blackboard Collaborate, locate your control panel on the bottom left-hand side of your screen. Then select Course Tools. Then select Blackboard Collaborate. On this page, I am able to join a Blackboard Collaborate room, edit my room options, create a link to Blackboard Collaborate for my students, or invite guests to my Blackboard Collaborate page who are not enrolled students at WSU. In this video, I'll show you the basics of Blackboard Collaborate rooms. If you'd like to learn more about linking to Blackboard Collaborate, editing rooms, or sending invites to guests, watch our Blackboard Collaborate Next Steps video. To join a Blackboard Collaborate session, select Join Room. Blackboard Collaborate will now open in a new window. Please note that you must have Adobe Flash downloaded in order to use Blackboard Collaborate. As you can see, I am currently the only one enrolled in this classroom. If other students or instructors are logged into our Blackboard Collaborate room, it will appear like this. I will be able to see each of the users on the screen as long as they have turned on their camera and microphone. As people join our Blackboard Collaborate room, I will see updates in my top right-hand corner of the screen. To turn on my camera and microphone, I need to select the camera and microphone buttons at the bottom center area of my screen. I know that I am allowing Blackboard Collaborate to access my microphone and camera because my microphone icon has turned green, and my video now appears in the bottom left-hand corner. To turn off my microphone or my camera, I need to re-select the icons. Now that I've turned on my camera and microphone, and turned them back off again, let's talk a little bit about what tools are available in Blackboard Collaborate. At the bottom right-hand corner of my screen, there is an icon with a purple arrow. This is where I can chat, share my screen, see a list of participants, and change my audio and video settings. Clicking on the settings icon that appears will take me to my settings page. On this page, I can upload an icon and adjust my camera and microphone settings. Below these options, I can adjust my notification settings or the session settings. If I want to allow my students to share their audio, share their video, post chat messages, or draw on the whiteboard tool, I can control these settings here. If I want to use Blackboard Collaborate for a lecture tool, I am able to share my screen, conduct a poll, or share files or a whiteboard with my students. To use each of those tools, click on the tool link. Now that I've selected the whiteboard tool, my students will see this as their primary screen. I can use different tools to amplify my lecture, like this. To close out of a shared tool, select the stop button on the far right-hand side of your screen. If you want your students to be able to ask questions during your lecture or chat about the subject matter, you can give them access to the chat tool. Clicking on this icon will open up the chat functionality available in Blackboard Collaborate. At the top, I can select who I chat with. For example, I can limit the chat function so that I am only speaking to the moderators. If I want to say something in my chat function, I type something here. Don't forget that you can also include emoticons in your chat functionality. If I want to see a list of who is participating in this Blackboard Collaborate room, I can click on the participant icon here. If at any time I want to record my session for students to view later, I can select the record option available at the top, left-hand side of my screen. Then I'll select start recording. My session with my students is now being recorded for future viewing. To stop my recording, I'll select the menu option at the top, left-hand side. Then select stop recording. My recording will now appear for my students on the Blackboard Collaborate page in Blackboard. To exit Blackboard Collaborate, I'll exit out of this screen. My recording will now appear for my students on the Blackboard Collaborate page in Blackboard. This may take a few minutes to appear. Students can now view my recording at their convenience. Now that you've learned the basics of Blackboard Collaborate, watch our Blackboard Collaborate Next Steps video to learn more.