What to Look Forward to in Blackboard for Fall 2014

On August 26, 2014, myLesley will be upgraded to the latest version of Blackboard (Blackboard Learn 9.1 April 2014). This scheduled myLesley upgrade will resolve known issues and include several new features and enhancements that are especially useful for faculty. They include:

Student Preview – Quickly View Your Course as a Student
Toggling the new Student Preview button provides instructors with the capability to see and experience their myLesley courses exactly as their class does. While in Student Preview mode, instructors can perform the following student activities: submit assignments, take tests, create blog posts, create journal and wiki entries and view traditional student only tools, such as My Grades. For more information, review the Details or watch the Overview Video below.

SafeAssign
SafeAssign, the tool that reviews assignment submissions for plagiarism, is now integrated as an option right in the Assignments tool and also includes a suite of new reporting features. For more information, review these Details.

Atomic Learning
Atomic Learning is a free service available to all Lesley students and faculty. Atomic Learning features hundreds of self-paced video tutorials on popular software tools and online resources. You can now add these tutorials directly to your myLesley course for students to review without needing to login to a different site. See our Atomic Learning tutorial for more information.

Achievements Tool
The Achievements tool allows instructors to define criteria for issuing rewards to students in the form of both Badges and Certificates. Students can see which rewards they’ve earned and what’s required of them to receive additional rewards, providing insight into learning progression toward defined competencies. For more information, review the Details or watch the Overview Video below.

Anonymous Grading
Instructors can hide student names from submitted assignments for anonymous grading. Review the Details for more information.