And why it won’t frighten you!

What’s New in Blackboard 9.1

New Features

Global Navigation Communication

Calendar Discussions Video Everywhere Content Editor

Grading Retention Center Inline Grading Item Analysis

Global Navigation

Located in the upper right corner, the new global navigation menu provides one-click access to My Blackboard, Courses, and Organizations.

My Blackboard

Accessed from the Global Navigation menu, My Blackboard consolidates information from all your Courses and Organizations. Posts Calendar Dates Retention Center

Calendar The Calendar Tool has been enhanced to display a

consolidated view of all events from the Institution, Courses, Organizations, and the personal calendar.

Calendar events are now color coded by course and due dates for assignments and tests are automatically added.

Discussion Board

The Discussion Board has been redesigned to be more practical. Forum descriptions are given when you create a thread

so that you can include instructions. All of a thread's posts are now visible at the same time

on one page. A new feature requires students to post to a

discussion before seeing other students’ posts.

Content Editor

The new content editor is more robust and gives you more options when entering text. HTML Remove formatting Preview Mashups

Video Everywhere

Video Everywhere is a new tool in the content editor that can be used by both instructors and students to record video using a webcam.

These videos can be embedded into the site wherever a content editor is available- tests, assignments, Discussion Boards, and more!

Content Collection

The Content Collection allows you to manage content by organizing it in folders and by centrally storing it within Blackboard.

The Content Collection makes it easier to manage permissions for your content, place content into your Blackboard sites, and share content among users.

Video

Inline GradingInline Grading streamlines the grading process. It allows instructors to view, comment on, and grade student assignment files without leaving the grading page.

Image Source

Retention Center The Retention Center

provides an easy way for you to discover which students in your course are at risk and to communicate with these students to begin immediate improvement.

It also provides information on your involvement in the course so that you can become more aware of how you contribute to student achievement.

Video

Item AnalysisItem Analysis allows instructors to evaluate the quality of each test question and helps you recognize questions that might be poor discriminators of student performance. Poor questions can be identified and then quickly changed with the Automatic Re-grading feature.

Oldies (But Goodies!)

Just because we’re updating to a new version of Blackboard doesn’t mean anything is being removed. You can still use great features, such as: Blogs, Wikis, and Journals Learning Modules Smart Views in the Grade Center

help.blackboard.com

Blackboard has reinvented their support site! The new site features detailed guides, helpful videos, and more information on the new features.

Content has also been organized by user groups, making it easy to find information just for instructors.