New Blackboard Feature of the Week: Text Notifications and Video Everywhere

Text Notifications 

Text and text-to-voice notifications are now an option in addition to email and dashboard notifications (for updating students on assignment due dates, unread discussions and blogs, and when grades, new content, and tests are available). Notification options can be updated under the “Notifications Dashboard”.  To receive notifications via text, a mobile phone number must be entered under “Personal Information” in the My eLearning tab under Tools.

Instructions for Faculty and Students can be found here.

Click here for more information on Notifications.

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Video Everywhere

With Video Everywhere, faculty and students can record and post videos in Bb Learn via integration with YouTube. You must have a YouTube account to create a video using Video Everywhere. You can maneuver your webcam via an icon on the Content Editor (see below). You will only see this icon after you have activated (turned on) the feature.

Note:  You must turn the feature on in each of your courses in order to use it. Once it is activated, faculty and students will be able to record videos from the content editor. To turn the feature on, make sure you are inside your course (or one of your courses), then choose Control Panel, Customization, and Tool Availability.

Additionally, you must use a webcam or headset to record audio.

With Video Everywhere, faculty and students can:

• Record a video using a webcam and embed it in course materials, interactions, and feedback.
• Record video and upload it directly to YouTube.
• Reuse previously recorded videos by choosing from your own “library” of videos.

Click here for more information on Video Everywhere

Known Issue:
Once you have logged into YouTube, the upload widget will not automatically sign you out. To sign out of YouTube, users must both click sign out from the user interface and go to YouTube.com and click "sign out". This is especially recommended for anyone using a public or shared computer.

Privacy:

By default, all videos are recorded under the "Unlisted" privacy setting. An unlisted video does not appear in YouTube.com searches. Only users who know the link can access the video. This does not, however, guarantee complete privacy. If someone gains access to the link, they can view it.

To avoid this, you have the option of changing your privacy setting to "Private". From the video library, access the clip edit settings in YouTube, and change the setting to private. Once you make a video private, only viewers you specifically include can view it (they must have a Google account). In the Video Everywhere library, private videos will display a lock icon indicating they cannot be viewed by anyone other than the author and specified viewers.