Blackboard Collaborate: Strategies and Considerations for Institutional Adoption
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Presented at BbWorld16 - Since adopting Blackboard Collaborate in 2012 as part of its integrated cross-platform solution with Blackboard Learn and Mobile, Northern Illinois University (NIU) has been achieving tremendous success with its comprehensive online learning and collaboration tool. With over five hundred Collaborate sessions being hosted each academic semester for delivering live classes, meetings, and monthly online faculty development sessions, it's no surprise that NIU decided to take the next leap forward in upgrading to Collaborate with the Ultra experience. In this session, we will share NIU's recent Blackboard Collaborate roll-out strategy, practices, and lessons learned. Learn how NIU's carefully planned adoption approach has been helping to make anytime synchronous collaboration simpler, more reliable, and more enjoyable. Bring your own questions and experiences and join in the discussion!
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Blackboard Collaborate: Strategies and Considerations for Institutional Adoption
- 1. Blackboard Collaborate: Strategies and Considerations for Institutional Adoption
- 2. Presenters Jason Rhode Director Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center Northern Illinois University jrhode@niu.edu @JasonRhode Jeff Geronimo Senior Consultant Blackboard, Inc jeff.geronimo@blackboard.com @jeffminor Stephanie Richter Assistant Director Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center Northern Illinois University srichter@niu.edu @slrichter
- 3. Northern Illinois University Overview • Main campus in DeKalb, IL located 65 miles West of Chicago • Total enrollment: 20,130 • 1,174 Instructional faculty • Student to instructor/faculty ratio: 15:1 • Online programs: 8 undergrad, 7 graduate, 7 certificates
- 4. Blackboard Usage at NIU As of Fall 2015: • 96% of students • 92% of instructional Faculty/Staff/TAs • 67% of course sections • 4.18 course sections per student on Blackboard
- 5. Blackboard Collaborate at NIU 2012 • Gradual rollout of Blackboard Collaborate • Held preview workshops • Piloted with a small group of faculty • Dual deployment for 2012-2013 2015-2016 • Graduate rollout of Ultra experience • Began using for workshops May 2015 • Piloted with a small group of faculty • Dual deployment for 2016-2017 2008 • Committee of faculty reviewed web conferencing tools • Wimba Classroom was selected • Faculty Development begins offering online workshops to demonstrate use of web conferencing
- 6. Blackboard Collaborate at NIU • Blackboard Collaborate since 2011 • Fully-integrated in Blackboard Learn, available to all Blackboard Courses and Communities • 400+ sessions per year • Used for variety of purposes in f2f, blended, and fully- online courses
- 7. Rollout Strategy Generate excitement and introduce slowly Model practice Communicate A LOT Identify user needs with survey or chats Pilot with key faculty both experienced and novice Model new features in online workshops Track use and collect feedback Notify users of change & training
- 8. Rollout Timeline May 2015 Faculty Development offered first online workshop using Collaborate Ultra Featured Ultra on website - niu.edu/blackboard Spring 2015 Faculty & staff participated in Collaborate Ultra technical preview
- 9. Rollout Timeline Fall 2015 Surveyed users on features in Collaborate vs. Ultra Opened up use to more faculty, sessions created in SAS Communicated new features via newsletter, workshops Summer 2015 Select faculty use Collaborate Ultra for their courses
- 10. Survey Results Have not used 14% < 1 year 4% 1 year 11% 2-3 years 39% 4 or more 32% Length of Collaborate Use Most Used Classic Features PowerPoint Audio Set-up Wizard Polling Recordings Telephony Whiteboard 59% 59% 44% 41% 41% 37%
- 11. Survey Results Most Anticipated Ultra FeaturesMost Important Classic Features Session Recordings Application Share Blackboard Learn Integration Displaying Video Bb High quality audio and video Faster, sharper application share Java-Free, browser-based Modern user experience Polling
- 12. Rollout Timeline Summer 2016 Added Blackboard Learn integration - Ultra using LTI and Classic using Building Block Officially announcing availability of Ultra Spring 2016 Ultra used for full-day Teaching Effectiveness Institute First hands-on training on Ultra
- 13. Faculty Feedback “I used the tool for a course offered to first-year graduate students, many of whom work full-time and are considered mid- career. They found it extremely useful to interact with the instructor without making the trek to the campus.”
- 14. Faculty Feedback “I had never used Blackboard Collaborate, yet learning how to use Blackboard Collaborate Ultra was very easy. The process is very intuitive and the students also seemed to pick it up easily.”
- 15. Faculty Feedback “I have used Blackboard Collaborate on several occasions both for teaching as well as to work on research projects with colleagues in other parts of the country. I like the features of being able to share files on the screen as we discuss items.”
- 16. Faculty Feedback “The technology seemed to work well and everyone who has used it liked the overall look and feel. Overall, very positive, very easy to use. Love it.”
- 17. Mobile Blackboard Collaborate Ultra • From a Learn course • From a link
- 18. Logging In to Bb Student from a Learn Course Enter your Information -----Your school name -----Your username and password -----Your password Tap Log in Access the session from within a course
- 19. Logging In to Bb Student Using a Link Link Sent via Email Launch of Bb Student Enter the Session
- 20. Tips for Adoption • Learn as much as you can - join previews, attend roadmaps, attend office hours • Survey users to determine what is important to them • Model use of Blackboard Collaborate • Build excitement • Communicate early and frequently Ideas: blog posts, newsletters, social media, email
- 21. Tips for Adoption • Invite key faculty to participate in a pilot • Collect and share feedback from faculty and students • Be clear about limitations; share the roadmap • Offer hands-on opportunities for faculty to try features • Offer in-session assistance for first-time users
- 22. Questions? Jason Rhode jrhode@niu.edu @JasonRhode Jeff Geronimo jeff.geronimo@blackboard.com @jeffminor Stephanie Richter srichter@niu.edu @slrichter
- 23. Don’t forget! Rate this session in the BbWorld App.
Editor's Notes
- Why do we people care…
- Good news/bad news: Good news was many of these features were available or in development. Bad news was they were not all available
- Even worse news – we had no way to deliver Learn integration at the time of the survey. That meant we had to wait until after our upgrade to October 2014 to officially roll out. Also, no video or polling but those rated very highly as important Still, there was a fair amount of excitement about some of the new features
- Faculty were blown away by Ultra in our TEI. Other staff wanted to hold their own institutes, as well More current users moved, and continued to have very positive feedback
- “Open Bb Student and search for the full name of your institution. If you’re unable to find your institution, try modifying your search. If your school is part of a larger institution or district, try searching for that name instead. Log in with your Blackboard Learn username and password. These are typically the same credentials you use to access your Blackboard courses on a computer. Review the First Time User Orientation. The first time user experience provides an introduction to Bb Student. It provides a brief overview of the feature set and showcases the user experience developed to help expedite workflows for students and directs them to the content they need the most. This video will run on it’s own or you can swipe to move it.”
- “For those of you that have downloaded Bb Student and want to participate in today’s practice activities, this is how you’ll log in to our session today. For the best experience, we recommend that your device be fully charged and/or plugged in before you continue. Also for today’s session, I’m going to ask that you go to your device settings, specifically to sound, and put your device on vibrate or turn the sound off. Tap the link provided by your instructor or session moderator. Typically, this link may come in an email, a calendar invite, or may be posted in a course. For our practice today, this will be the same link you used to access the session from your desktop browser. The experience might be slightly different depending on your device. On iOS devices, after opening the link from your instructor, you might see a pop-up window that asks if you want to open the page in Bb Student? Select Open. On Android devices, the Collaborate session opens directly if you are already logged in to Bb Student. Your mobile web browser provides access to join the session using Bb Student, and if not installed, allows a user to download and install the app. Tap Join session using Bb Student to launch the session in the Bb Student app. If you are not authenticated within Bb Student, a link will appear below Type your school’s name that reads Join Collaborate without logging in. Tap on this link. Enter your name and click Join. For the purposes of our session today, enter your name with a dash behind it and mobile. I’ll add an example to the chat. (Shawn-Mobile) This will allow you to stay on the browser based application as well if you’d like to note the difference between the experiences. If you’re participating in today’s hands-on practice, once you’ve connected via your mobile device, you will want to mute or, if desired, log out of the desktop application to avoid a feedback loop.”
- “Provide the session link to students in an easy-to-find place. Display it prominently in your course with a note that the link must be opened in a mobile web browser on a phone. Better yet, email the link to students so it's easy to open in a mobile web browser. Give students the link to this help page and instruct them to review it before your Collaborate session. Use a URL shortener such as bitly.com or tinyurl.com (both available in English only) for your Collaborate session. Shorter links are easier for students to type into their mobile browsers. If you want students to present during a session, advise them to log in to Collaborate with the Ultra experience in the desktop web browser instead of the app. Only the desktop version allows slide advancement and multi-page document navigation while sharing a file.”