Blackboard Learn seamlessly integrates with Collaborate Ultra, offering a powerful platform to Collaborate And Learn effectively within your online courses. This guide provides a comprehensive overview of accessing, creating, editing, and sharing Collaborate Ultra sessions directly from your Learn environment, enhancing the virtual learning experience for both educators and students.
Understanding the Course Room in Learn
Every Learn course automatically includes a dedicated Course Room, readily accessible to all enrolled staff and students. This default room serves as a convenient space for spontaneous meetings or open discussions. However, to structure your online interactions and ensure clarity for students, creating specific sessions is highly recommended. Pre-scheduled sessions clearly indicate when instructors will be present and available for live interaction, or to facilitate concurrent learning activities.
Course Room (Class Support website, scroll to the lower part of the page for Learn Ultra information)
Creating and Scheduling Sessions in Learn to Collaborate
Leveraging the seamless integration, adding a Collaborate Ultra session to your Blackboard Learn course is a straightforward process. By scheduling sessions within Learn, you create dedicated virtual spaces that foster collaborate and learn environments. Remember to make these sessions easily accessible to your students by adding a direct link to Collaborate within a relevant content area of your Learn course. This ensures students can readily find and join your virtual classrooms.
Alt text: Screenshot of the Blackboard Learn interface displaying options for scheduling recurring Collaborate Ultra sessions, emphasizing efficient online session management for educators.
Scheduling Repeat Sessions for Consistent Learning
For courses with regular meeting schedules, the Repeat Session feature significantly simplifies session management. Instead of creating individual sessions for each occurrence, you can establish recurring sessions on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. This is particularly useful for lectures, tutorials, or study groups that meet at consistent intervals. The persistent session link ensures students always know where to go for each meeting, promoting consistent collaborate and learn opportunities throughout the course duration. You can easily find the Repeat Session checkbox within the Event Details section when setting up or modifying a session in Learn.
Recording and Sharing Collaborative Sessions for Review
Capturing your Collaborate Ultra sessions through recording is a valuable tool for enhancing the collaborate and learn process. Any moderator within a session can initiate recording, allowing for the session to be archived and reviewed later by students. These recordings become available within Learn once the session concludes and can be downloaded as MP4 files (if download settings permit). This feature enables students to revisit discussions, review key concepts, and catch up on missed sessions, reinforcing their learning and promoting flexible study habits.
For detailed instructions on starting, viewing, and downloading Collaborate recordings, please refer to the provided documentation. Further information on uploading MP4 recordings to platforms like Media Hopper Create and adding subtitles for accessibility can be found on the Recording and Storage Management page.
Recording and Storage Management
Accessing Your Collaborate and Learn Sessions
Joining a Collaborate Ultra session is simple for all course members. Through the Collaborate link integrated into your Learn course content, students can access all scheduled sessions. To enter a session, simply click on the active session name followed by the Join Session button. Inactive sessions are displayed in grey. Instructors may enable early access to sessions, typically 15 minutes before the scheduled start time, allowing participants to test their audio and video settings and prepare for a smooth collaborate and learn experience.
Consult the comprehensive guide for detailed instructions on joining sessions and troubleshooting any access issues.
Inviting External Guests to Enhance Collaboration
To broaden the scope of your online sessions and facilitate external contributions, Collaborate Ultra offers the option to invite guests via a unique guest URL. This feature is particularly useful for bringing in guest speakers or collaborators who are not enrolled in your Learn course. When creating a session, you can enable and copy a guest URL to share via email or registration processes. However, exercise caution when distributing guest links, avoiding public platforms to maintain session security. For events requiring broader outreach, consider sharing the link through controlled channels like email invitations or event registration systems. More detailed guidance on session security is available in the Session Security Tips for Using Collaborate guide.
Session Security Tips for Using Collaborate
If you require further assistance:
Related Links
Quickstart guide for using Collaborate in Learn
Advice on Planning or Participating in a Session
