Tools for communicating with students
Blackboard course announcements and emails
Instructors of a Blackboard course can communicate with their students via announcements or emails to the entire course, or groups within the course.
Guide: Blackboard – Using course announcements and email to communicate with students
Blackboard Faculty Hubs and Programme Level courses
To communicate with a large cohort of students at a Programme or Faculty level, ask the instructor of their relevant Faculty Hub or Programme course to send an email or course announcement to students.
Guide: Programme Level Courses
Contact the Student Comms team for information about the Faculty Hubs
Using Blackboard Groups
To send more targeted communications to your students, you can create groups in Blackboard. You can email groups, or assign work and discussions to groups.
Guide: Getting Started with Groups
Guide: Emailing Groups in Blackboard
Guide: Groups in Blackboard ULTRA
Creating a contact group in Outlook
If you prefer to send emails to students directly then create an outlook contact group.
- To add students to your Outlook contact group in bulk you could compile a list of student usernames from Blackboard by exporting the Grade Centre or by downloading the group membership, then, separate the list of usernames with a semi colon and paste the list into Create Group: Add Members> From Outlook Contacts.
Guide: Create a Contact Group in Outlook
Guide: Export the Blackbard Grade Centre
Guide: Export Blackboard Group Membership
Creating a Class Teams site which syncs with Blackboard course enrolments
Use the Microsoft Teams integration tool to create a Teams site associated with your Blackboard course. This will create a “Class Team” and will keep the student Team membership in sync with Blackboard/Banner enrolments.
Guide: Creating and using a Class Teams
Communications SharePoint
There are two types of SharePoint site; Communication sites and Team sites. You can use a Communications SharePoint for distributing information to students.
Guide: Creating a SharePoint Online site – a best practice guide
Tools for collaborative & portfolio work
Blackboard
Blackboard Groups
You can create groups of students within your courses so they can interact with each other and demonstrate their knowledge.
Guide: Getting Started with Groups
Guide: Blackboard ULTRA Groups
Blackboard Discussions and Conversations
Improved discussion features in Blackboard ULTRA encourages student interaction with your course. Enable Conversations on documents and assignments or create marked discussions with due dates.
Guide: Creating Blackboard Discussion Boards
Guide: Blackboard ULTRA Discussions
Guide: Blackboard ULTRA Conversations
Blackboard Journals
Journals are personal spaces for students to communicate privately with you. Students can also use journals as a self-reflective tool. They can post their opinions, ideas, and concerns about the course, or discuss and analyse course-related materials.
Guide: Blackboard Journals
Guide: Blackboard ULTRA Journals
Microsoft
Microsoft Sway
Microsoft Sways could be an option for students to share creative portfolios. Sways are interactive digital reports used for creative newsletters, presentations and storytelling. Students can add text and a variety of media to their Sway and continuously update it, and submit the link for review by instructors or classmates. Static versions of the Sways can then be exported to Microsoft Word or PDF to be submitted for final assessment.
Guide: Getting Started with Sway
Class Teams
Collaborative workspaces
Different areas of your class team have unique sharing permissions. Documents can be shared as read-only, or you can allow students editing rights to collaborate on assignments or note sharing together.
Guide: Getting Organised in your Class Team
Continuous assignments
Class Teams Assignments can be a useful tool to continuously track and provide feedback on student work. When you create an assignment in a Class team, you can provide a template in Word or PowerPoint. Each student will get their own individual version of the file to work on and return by the due date. Some modules use this as a portfolio tool – allowing students to work on a PowerPoint template throughout the year. Instructors can access the student work and leave feedback on a continuous basis. A final version of the document is then locked and submitted for marking.
Please note that any final copy of summative assessment should be submitted to Blackboard, Turnitin or eassignments. We do not recommend that summative assessment is submitted to Teams.
Guide: Teams Class Assignments
Creating a Class Notebook
Every class team comes with its own linked OneNote Class Notebook. Your Class Notebook is a digital notebook for the whole class to store text, images, handwritten notes, attachments, links, voice, video, and more.
Teams delivers these essential components of the OneNote Class Notebook experience:
- Student Notebooks – a private space shared between the educator and each individual student. Educators can access every student notebook, while students can only see their own.
- Content Library – a read-only space where teachers can share handouts with students.
- Collaboration Space – a space where everyone in your class can share, organize, and collaborate.
Guide: Teams Class Notebook
Team SharePoint
There are two types of SharePoint site; Communication sites and Team sites. A Team SharePoint can be a stand-alone site, or one associated with a Class Team.
- Sync your SharePoint permissions with Blackboard? If you create a Team SharePoint from your Class Team, the permissions will be inherited from the Class Team. If you created that Class Team using the Blackboard Integration, then the Team SharePoint members will automatically update with the Blackboard users!
Guide: Creating a SharePoint Online site – a best practice guide
Using Document Libraries to create Student Group and Individual Folders
In a Team SharePoint site you can create document libraries with unique permission structures to allocate folders for different groups and individuals. You can manually restrict permissions on folders to allow students to have a portfolio workspace which Instructors can view and comment on.
Guide: SharePoint folder permissions
Locating Student Information
Any member of staff can now use the Student Search feature of the Education Dashboard.
– Look up any student by name, username or ID.
– Look up lists of students enrolled on specific modules, or per faculty/school/department.
– View any student’s PAT details.
– Quickly locate any student’s timetable, ID card photo, programme and current modules.
Finding Student ID number
You may need a student ID number to use Banner or Banner Self-Service.
- You can find ID numbers of any student on the Education Dashboard.
- You can find the ID numbers of students enrolled on your modules in Blackboard in the Photo Roster.
My Tutees
The Education Dashboard allows Personal Academic Tutors access to a list of their tutees, send emails in bulk, view module enrolment information and module marks.
Any member of staff can now use the Student Search feature of the Education Dashboard.
Guide: Education Dashboard
Link: Banner Self-Service
My Students
If you teach a module, you can see information about your students in a variety of ways, such as the Blackboard Photo Roster, MyEngagement (Seats), Blackboard Grade centre, and Banner Self-Service.
Guide: Blackboard Photo Roster
Guide: Blackboard ULTRA Photo Roster
Guide: Blackboard ULTRA Student Overview
Guide: Getting Started with MyEngagement
Link: Banner Self-Service