FTRC and Blackboard Offer New Service and Documentation
by Leslie McCoy
Now, the Faculty Technology Resources Center will be happy to assist faculty in creating customized animations and graphics for their courses. The new service includes assistance crafting specialized Flash animations and detailed still images according to instructor preferences. See examples of animations and still graphics at http://ftrc.uc.edu.
The FTRC has also pre-created course banners for instructors to download at their leisure and use in their Blackboard courses or syllabi. Instructors may browse through a list, sorted by discipline, of available image banners, and save their favorites. We will be adding more headings; however, if you don’t see your specialty listed, the FTRC welcomes instructors to request custom banner. Instructors may find the course banner list at http://ftrc.uc.edu.
Over the winter quarter break, we upgraded the Blackboard system. An upgrade to Build 40 has improved Discussion Board appearance, and addressed issues regarding the deletion of grades in copied courses, and previous problems with assigning forum access to individuals. Users will find improved downloading of E-Portfolios and compatibility with Java Runtime Environment 1.6. Also, Blackboard now brings UC updated SafeAssign and Scholar features, improving the functionality of each. Many grading issues within the SafeAssign feature have been resolved with its version 1.1.2. Scholar's 1.2.1 update has eradicated several bugs and improved stylization.
New, comprehensive documentation on video editing on Mac computers is available. Video Editing on an iMac details the use of Apple’s iMovie and iDVD software to create and edit stunning, high quality videos. Easy to use, step by step instructions with screenshots cover topics ranging from importing video content from multiple recording types and adding audio clips, to creating chapters within the movie and saving it to a DVD. For more information, please call the FTRC at 556-1602.
UCit’s Blackboard Support Team has updated its Blackboard Basics and Beyond instructor guide for Blackboard 7.2. Now in its third edition, the guide walks instructors through getting started with Blackboard to put their course materials online. From an introduction to the system and login process to instructions for creating assessments and keeping track of grades, the guide is tailor-made for users of the University of Cincinnati’s unique Blackboard environment. Check out this great resource on the Blackboard help pages at http://blackboard.uc.edu/help.
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