Brunel Blackboard Learn

As you will no doubt be aware, the next academic year is already looming and what better way to see it in than a brand new template for your Blackboard Learn Course?

So here are some of the features you can expect to see…

- A brand new Course homepage containing a notifications dashboard, keeping students updated on module activity with alerts for new content and impending deadlines
- Grade Centre columns created by the template will be hidden by default to allow you to better control when to release grades

The template will be applied to any newly created Courses in Bb Learn- so it will be available for all 2013/4 Courses.

Of course, if you wish, you may decide not to use the template and simply to copy your 2012/3 Course content over to next year, removing the bits you don’t want. Either way, design your Course the way you choose!

A sneak peak at the new template!

Seems like spring is finally here and in the true spirit of the season, we are having a bit of our own spring clean in the LTT!

The time has now come to close the doors on u-Link. This will finally be shut down on 3rd June. Students and staff will soon be sent an email to remind them to download any materials before u-Link is gone for good.

And we are pleased to announce that we have some brand new Blackboard Mobile Learn training lined up for those of you who would like to learn more about the mobile app. Learn how to create a mobile compatible test that students can complete on the go, see how your Blackboard Learn Course looks in the app and discover tips to make your Blackboard Learn Course more mobile friendly!

Places can be booked via the Staff Development website here.

A big thanks to all of you that popped in to the Tech Zone today. We had a great time and hope you left feeling inspired.

In fact it seems that some of you were so inspired that we are going to be doing it all over again… tomorrow at the Business School Staff Day!

So if you fancy a Tech Zone round your School or Department, drop us a line – ltt@brunel.ac.uk

The Tech Zone 2013: a source of inspiration!

Hi everyone,
Just a quick note to let you know that we are aware of some problems that affected access to Blackboard Learn earlier this afternoon. However it is currently available but we are monitoring the situation.

It has been a busy week for the LTT… we are gearing up for the Tech Zone at this year’s Learning & Teaching Symposium which takes place next Wednesday (1^st May 2013) in the Mead Room (Hamilton Building).

This year’s theme will be “How many Learning Technology Tools do you use?”

Did you know that the LTT currently supports a total of 138 tools??!! How many do you use? If your curiosity gets the better of you, come and find out more!

Plus if you want to get more involved, find out about how you can become a Blackboard Champion at the event.

And a final word for those of you with a sweet tooth… last year it was Haribo… come along to unveil this year’s mystery sugar fix!

Spot us at the Tech Zone… we’ll be the ones wearing these badges!

Some great news to mark the end of the week… the Computer Centre (in collaboration with the LTT) managed to successfully install a patch to resolve the group blogs issue yesterday.

Hopefully that means we will get lots more people blogging now (just as I am currently doing!)

Have a great weekend all… and let’s hope the weather continues to improve

Thanks to a few eagle-eyed students who noticed an issue with the Group Blogs tool in Blackboard Learn, we now have a patch available to fix the issue!

The good news is we can (with the help of the Computer Centre) get this installed tomorrow.
This means that Blackboard Learn will be down between 7-9am tomorrow (11th April). Hopefully you won’t miss it too much

We will update you after it’s back.

You may have noticed a difference in Blackboard Learn this Valentines day as we have launched a new theme!

To find out more about the exciting new changes that this offers, take a look at our guide

You’ll be using a more modern interface, with controls appearing when you need them rather than taking up valuable screen space. The new design is also more in keeping with other Brunel sites and resources…

We’re pleased to say we’ve resolved the issue with Blackboard that some students were experiencing. Access should now work as normal – thanks for bearing with us and apologies for the inconvenience!

Some students are currently experiencing issues with their modules not appearing in Blackboard.

We’re working hard on resolving this as I type this, so please bear with us and we apologise for any inconvenience! I will update this blog when the problems are resolved…