Advanced Learning Technologies

Extending Blackboard

The resources listed below are available for faculty to use. Some are licensed university-wide and others are available only at Advanced Learning Technologies. All resources listed contribute to enhancing courses and the Blackboard experience for both faculty and students. Training is offered by the ALT staff.

Journal LX or Blogging
With Journal LX, instructors can create opportunities for students to reflect on course-related topics and assignments. Students can review and comment on their peers' postings, and instructors can participate with students in the evolving dialog. The journals can be used simultaneously on a course, group, and individual level:

  • Course Blog: The instructor posts course notes, creating an ongoing record and review of course material.
  • Course Assignment Blogs: Groups of students collaborate in creating topic-specific posts, which other classmates can comment on.
  • Personal Journals: Each student in a course creates a journal, either closed for private dialog or open for peer review.

Download Campus Pack Journal Guide for Instructor

Search LX
With Search LX, students and instructors can complete full-text searches in order to find course content with speed and accuracy. The search box and advanced searching options streamline content retrieval. With this tool, Blackboard users at Miami University are able to quickly find information on the Blackboard Learning Management System.

Search results are clearly described by name, content type, relevance score, location, and last date modified. Advanced search capabilities allow users to refine a search by course, organization, content type, or keywords.

Download Campus Pack Search Guide

Teams LX or Wikis
With Teams LX, instructors can organize students into groups and assign each group to jointly author a dynamic website with multi-media content. When the Teams site is done, instructors can view each group member's contributions and grade them accordingly.

With this tool, students are able to create a collaborative website, or wiki, within Blackboard. Content can include rich text, images, external links, and uploaded files. Each student can add content, edit others' contributions, and reformat layout as desired, but a full history of the revisions is maintained and accessible. Teams LX highlights the changes made by each student to a page.

Download Campus Pack Teams Guide for Instructor

Respondus is a tool used to create and manage exams. These exams are created offline in a Windows-only environment, but they can be viewed on both Windows and Macintosh platforms and be printed to paper pr published directly to Bb. Resondus provides many time-saving tools such as the ability to import existing exams from Word processor files.
Learn more about Respondus
Download Respondus Users Guide
Download Respondus Quick Start Guide

StudyMate allows the creation of nine Flash-based activities and games using three simple templates for students to use. The Flash activities can be uploaded directly to Blackboard. StudyMate also imports items from MS Word files and publisher test banks, making it easy to create interactive activities from existing content.
Learn more about StudyMate
Download StudyMate Quick Start Guide
Watch Demo Movies from StudyMate

Articulate Quizmaker provides a set of tools for creating customized Flash-based quizzes and assessments to be integrated with Blackboard. A variety of question types including true/false, multiple choice, multiple answer, fill in the blank, matching and ranking can be incorporated.
Learn more about Articulate

TurnItIn is a plagiarism detection tool used by educators to quickly identify students who submit unoriginal work. TurnItIn effectively checks student papers that are submitted against a multitude of sources.
Learn more about TurnItIn
Download TurnItIn Plagiarism Prevention Instructor Guide
Download TurnItIn Grade Mark Instructor Guide

Articulate Presenter allows the creation of Blackboard courses by adding narration and interactivity to a standard PowerPoint presentation.
Learn more about Articulate

Blackboard's Building Blocks are third party software that can integrate with the Blackboard system and provide added functionality. They are a way for Blackboard to become a multi-tool platform and a richer learning environment from a faculty/student point of view. Courses can be enhanced by including special assessment tools, special editors for developing content, content management systems, and communication tools.
Learn more about Blackboard Building Blocks

Macromedia Flash can be used as a graphical presentation tool in Blackboard to give students a way to interact with a learning object. Some of the Flash learning objects run more like a movie that students watch to gain an understanding of a particular concept.
The links below provide more information about learning objects.
Advanced Learning Technologies
Center for International Education
The New Media Studio
Learning about Learning Objects with Learning Objects
Learning Objects Repository
- Search for a Learning Object!

Macromedia Captivate records all onscreen actions and creates an interactive Flash simulation. Text captions, narration, and interactions can be added. Demonstrations and simulations can be created and make available for students in Blackboard.
Learn more about Macromedia Captivate