Faculty Sneak Peak Opportunity From Bb

Faculty if you use McGraw-Hill digital content learn how to integrate it in Bb Learn and test it out without messing up your course in CourseSites.  The CourseSites team has integrated McGraw-Hill’s digital content and tools into CourseSites, enabling you to pull content, assignments and assessments from McGraw-Hill’s proven learning object repositories—including eTexts, video, interactive exercises, and more. Your students will stay actively engaged with the media-rich, high quality content found in this seamlessly integrated, total course solution.  

Join us for a webinar on Wednesday, November 13, 2013 at 1:00 PM EST (Time Zone Converter) on how to enhance your course(s) with rich, engaging content and activities from McGraw-Hill Higher Education.

Attend the webinar and receive  a $5 Starbucks gift card for your time! (US attendees only) Register Now

 

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Blackboard, Inc (Bb) has released the next version of Bb Learn. It is known as Service Pack 14 (SP14). This version that will be loaded on SU during the holiday break, so get a sneak peak of the new features on CourseSites. You can even upload your existing course into Coursesites and see how the changes will affect your current course design or prepare you Spring courses now. 

Coursesites will be upgraded to Blackboard Learn, Release 9.1, Service Pack 14 will take place Thursday, November 14th at 11:00 p.m. EST until 5:00 a.m. EST on Friday, November 15th (Time Zone Converter). During this time the system will be unavailable. Please plan accordingly.

Highlights of New Features and Enhancements Include With SP14:

• Achievements - Allows instructors and course designers to designate criteria for issuing rewards to students in the form of both Badges and Certificates. Students can see which rewards they’ve earned and what is required of them to receive additional rewards, providing insight into learning progression toward defined competencies.
• Date Management - Addresses the problem with dates not shifting when course content is copied from one course to another.  Using “Date Rollover,” instructors will be able to have the system automatically “shift” content and tool dates in a course in a highly efficient way.  
• Grade Center Improvements - Provides a new default option for the order in which grades are displayed.  Grading Schemas can now have values greater than 100%.  
• Groups Management -Improves the experience of managing Groups with large numbers of students in a course. It adds capabilities to the existing workflows for Group creation and management. This feature applies to both Courses and Organizations.
• Course Messages Notifications -  Adding Course Messages to the Notifications framework provides visibility and notifications in My Blackboard, and in the "What's New" module on both the institutional and course module pages.
• Inline Assignment Grading -  Instructors now have the ability to expand the grading window to full screen. 
• Inline Grading for All Collaboration Tools - The sidebars for grading Blogs & Journals, Discussions, and Wikis have all been updated to present an experience consistent with the Inline Assignment Grading sidebar.

Want to learn more?  Check out Bb's Quick Hits videos and  join them for a webinar discussing the latest and greatest changes on Monday, November 18, 2013 2:00 PM EST (Time Zone Converter).