The Blackboard Instructor app now allows you to grade directly within the app on your iOS or Android device (phone or tablet)!
Please see the Grading in Blackboard Instructor video tutorial for more information.
Want to learn more about the Blackboard apps for faculty and students? See Blackboard Mobile Apps for an overview of the Blackboard App for students and the Blackboard Instructor app.
Today’s post is by Lesley grad student, Mike Yaniv.
It is no secret that the reality of being a graduate student means balancing a personal, academic, and financial life. Often, students have jobs, internships and full-time course loads. Consequently, one of the more challenging but critical aspects of being a successful graduate student is not necessarily the course load itself, but managing the flow of information, time, and organization. As students rely more and more on technology to handle an increasing stream of information (and memory retention), good quality applications are not only important but are becoming crucial. The Blackboard mobile app represents a convenient and effective tool that has quickly become integral for managing time and coursework.
Bb Student App screenshot
Opening the blackboard student app presents the student with the activity stream window, which includes recent course announcements, upcoming due dates, and recent course activity (including graded assignments, recent discussion board posts/replies). The app also allows students to easily participate in discussion boards, contribute to blogs/journals and wikis, and even submit assignments. Additionally, by going into the course view, all the information students need is presented in one convenient screen, allowing students to view current grades, due dates, announcements, course content, discussions, and instructor information.
This kind of robust package, combined with a convenient and easy to understand interface, has significantly improved my time management and organization. Navigation through the app is seamless and natural, requiring a very small learning curve while retaining a feature-rich experience.
In order for this app to really live up to its potential, we recommend the following best practices:
Ensuring the quality of content and following a best practice approach to building a course can have a meaningful and positive impact on student performance and experience in a course. Together with the Blackboard mobile app, managing a course has the potential to become less stressful and a lot more manageable.
Blackboard is making big changes to its mobile apps and you get to take advantage of it.
Mobile Learn —> Bb Student —> Blackboard
Blackboard’s Mobile Learn app for students will be removed from app stores on August 1, 2017 with support ending on August 31, 2017. You may continue to use Mobile Learn, but it highly recommended that students switch to the new Blackboard/Bb Student app in order to have the best experience.
Bb Student is getting a new name: Blackboard. Bb Student app is already available and free to download for iOS, Android and Windows devices. With Bb Student, you can view course content and updates, take tests, submit assignments, post on the discussion board, and join Collaborate Ultra web meetings. New features are continuously being added. If you are already using Bb Student, you don’t need to do anything other than update to the latest version when available.
Bb Grader —> Blackboard Instructor
The Bb Grader iPad app allows instructors to grade and provide feedback on student work submitted via the Assignment tool. The app has always had limited functionality. Therefore, Blackboard has created the new Blackboard Instructor app to focus on the needs and workflows of instructors. Blackboard Instructor is due at the end of this month, July 2017. In the meantime, continue to use Bb Grader and keep an eye out for Blackboard Instructor’s launch.
For ongoing information on these apps see our Blackboard Mobile support page. We will be updating it as the changes become available.
Blackboard will be migrating its mobile services to a new server this weekend. As a result there will be no access to Blackboard content via mobile apps during this time.
When: Saturday, July 23, 2016, 12:01am EDT to Sunday, July 24, 2:00am, EDT
Workaround: Use a desktop computer or the web browser on your phone (Safari, Chrome, Internet, etc) to access Blackboard.
Do you have a long list of internet articles you want to read?
Do you have no time to read them right now?
Do you have a long commute but your iPad or Android tablet can’t access the internet when you’re on the bus?
Have you heard about Pocket? No? Well, it might just be the answer to your problem.
Pocket is free app for your computer, cell phone and tablet that will let you save all those articles to read later. Your saved articles will be synced across all your devices so your saved articles are available where and when you want them. No wifi needed.
Image from engadget.com
Download the app to your device and install the extension for your browser. Then when you discover an article you want to read later, simply click the button to save it. It will be waiting for you when you’re ready. You can also tag articles to organize them by topic and listen to the articles using text-to-speech.
Go to https://getpocket.com/ create your account and get started.