Blackboard Collaborate Tools


Ideas for using Blackboard Collaborate Tools
Dr. Kate Allman

Highlights
Audio/video with moderator and attendees

Share screen to show content
Whiteboard where all attendees can write
Chat with everyone send a message to individuals
Breakout groups with ability to set up to switch groups
Record session for later use.

Collaborate Ultra is a web conferencing tool that allows faculty to synchronously communicate online with students. It works within Blackboard so no extra software is needed.

Add a session within your Blackboard course.
1. From the content area select Tools and More Tools

  1. Select Blackboard Collaborate Ultra….
  2. Select Submit.

Check the audio and video settings in My Settings.
Click the My Settings button at the bottom of the page.

This will open your My Settings. Click Select Set Up your Camera and Microphone to set up your audio and video. Follow the on-screen prompts to set up your audio and video.

Navigating Collaborate Ultra
Collaborate Ultra consists of several areas:

  • Media Space: Thecontent of the session is displayed here.
  • Session Menu: Open to navigate session information and tools.
  • Collaborate Panel: Engage with participants and modify your session settings.

Chat
To chat with session attendees, click on the purple button in the bottom right corner to open the Collaborate Panel. Click on the Chat bubble icon to initiate a chat.

You can choose to send a message to everyone or individual participants.
Tip: Tell students to click the Raise Hand feature instead of chat during screen sharing.
The Chats may be saved for the session.

Sharing
The moderator may share their screen and specific open files. The moderator may give a student moderator privilege during the session to be able to share their screen by using change roles. Click the circled dots beside someone’s name to see options (Make moderator, Make presenter, Remove from session)

Click the box with the arrow icon in the bottom right of the panel. Select the Share Applications/Screen option. Choose “Just an Application” to share a file for a specific application (a PowerPoint, Word Doc, etc). Open the files before you share the screen.
Select “Entire Screen” to show the entire desktop.
Note: Collaborate Ultra runs in a web browser rather than a stand-alone program. If you share your web browser, you will get a mirrored effect. Open a new tab before continuing to bump yourself out of Collaborate Ultra. This changes the URL and stops the mirrored effect. Ultra is still running in a separate tab. Just click on the tab to go back to Ultra. You will see the mirror effect again. Click “Stop Sharing” at the bottom of the screen to return to the normal Collaborate Ultra room.

Start breakout groups

  1. Open the Share Content panel from the Collaborate panel (bottom, right)
  2. Select Breakout Groups, Start Breakout Groups.
  3. Select Create a new group to add more groups (up to 20 groups).
  4. Assign attendees to groups. (Note: You cannot assign groups ahead of time outside the meeting).
  5. Optionally, select Allow attendees to switch groups, if you want attendees to be able to move to another group on their own.
  6. Select Start.

Recording a session:
The moderator of the Blackboard Collab Ultra should go into their settings and allow the users to download the recordings.
For the moderator:
1. Go into Tools and go to Blackboard Collaborative Ultra
2. Where it says Course Room, on the left click the 3 dots and go to Edit Settings
3. Check Allow Recording Downloads.
Then, the users should be able to download the video.
For the users:
1. Go into the recording, using the link for the session.
2. On the upper left hand side there was a tab with 3 lines, click that.
3. If the moderator has given access to download recordings, you should see a setting that says Download Recording. Click that and you should be able to download the recording

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