Journals & Blog/Wiki alternatives in Learn Ultra

You can create journal assignments that are student-directed to encourage students to reflect on the learning process. You can also create instructor-directed journal entries to further encourage student participation and engagement. While Blogs are not available in Ultra Course View, self-reflective Journals and collaborative Discussions provide a familiar alternative. Class collaboration can also be accomplished using OneNote Class Notebook and OneDrive Cloud Collaboration now integrated in Blackboard.

🏴This information applies only to the Blackboard Ultra Course View.

Journals

• Students may make unlimited entries
• Students and instructors can decide the number of items that appear per page
• Students and instructors can discuss the entry in comment
• Instructors have a count of graded journals

Select the number of entries displayed per page.

View the improved page navigation.

View of the count of graded journals and students filtered for grading.

Create a Journal

On the Course Content page, select the plus sign wherever you want to add a journal. You can also expand or create a folder or learning module and add a journal.

Select Create > Participation and Engagement > Journal.

Type a meaningful title to help students find the right journal in the content list. If you don't add a title, "New Journal" and the date appear on the Course Content page.

Add a prompt to set expectations and guidelines: You can use the options in the editor to format text, attach files, and embed multimedia. If you don’t add a prompt, students see a message that you haven’t added instructions for this journal.

Show or hide the journal: New journals are hidden by default. Students can't see a journal until you choose to show it. You can create all your content ahead of time and choose what you want students to see based on your schedule. You can also set availability conditions based on date, time, and performance on other items in the course gradebook. On the Course Content page, students can see when you set the journal to show.

Grade a journal's contributions: To motivate students to post insightful contributions, you can make a journal count for a grade. Select the gear icon to open the Journal Settings panel. When you choose to grade a journal, more options appear such as the due date and maximum points. The maximum points apply to one or more entries made by a student. You can also use Ultra's grading tools, like feedback and rubrics, to grade journals.

View and Comment

When someone contributes to a journal, an activity icon appears next to the title on the Course Content page. Select the title to open the journal in a new layer. You can also open a journal from your Activity Stream.

After you comment, a student can make comments to continue the conversation. You can also start a new thought with a new entry in a student's journal.

Participation and Grades

For ungraded journals, the Participation view provides an easy way to view student entries. Graded journals have a Grades & Participation view. Access either view by selecting the journal assignment on the Course Content page. Select either the Participation or Grades & Participation view beside the arrow at the right of the Journal page.

Both views display each of your students’ names in a list, organized alphabetically by surname. You can search by a student’s first name or surname in both ungraded and graded journals. Entering a student’s name limits your results to only students matching your search terms.

Use the Student Status menu to see only students who have made no entries, or students who have made an entry. By default, the menu is set to view all student statuses.

Graded journals allow you to sort by grading status through the Grading Status menu. Statuses available are:

• Needs Grading
• Needs Posting
• Completed
• Nothing to Grade

You can override or post grades from the Grades & Participation view.

Want to know how many times a student participated in a specific journal? Select a name to view only that student's entries.

More on enabling journal grading

Entries and Comments

After you select a student’s name in the list in either the Participation or the Grades & Participation view, the student's name, number of entries, and entries appear. Any entries you add are also added to the count.

Select the Comment link below an entry to add your feedback.

You and the student can add unlimited entries and comments. You can use the options in the editor to format text, attach files, and embed multimedia. The word count appears below the text box just as it does for students.

Open an entry or comment's menu to access the Edit and Delete functions. If anyone deletes an entry, all comments about the entry are also deleted.

The number of comments appears in a link below each entry. A "New" label appears with a count of new comments. Select the Show Comments link to open the comments section. Select the Hide Comments link to collapse the comments section.

You can select another student in the Participants view to view entries and add comments.

More on the journal grading workflow 

Edit and manage

You can change a journal from graded to ungraded as long as there are no entries or comments. Once entries and comments have been submitted, you can't change the journal type.

If you delete a graded journal, the journal is removed from the Course Content page and the gradebook.

Conversion and copy

You can also convert journals from an Original to an Ultra course as part of the Ultra Course Preview. Original Course View journals, prompts, and settings are included in course archives and exports and are converted in the Ultra Course View. Only journals from content areas in Original courses appear in Ultra courses on the Course Content page. At this time, comments and student entries aren’t included when you restore an archive.

At this time, if you copy only journals from an Original course to an Ultra course, the graded journals only appear in the gradebook, but you can't edit the content or show them to students. Ungraded journals aren't copied. We recommend a course export or archive to convert the journals that appear in Original's content areas to Ultra.

Blogs

Blogs are not yet available in Learn Ultra. Consider transitioning blog assignments to a weekly discussion board. Blog posts can be replaced with discussion threads and comments with replies/posts. You can organize discussions in folders and Allow students to create discussions topics.

For blog assignments where the intent is to be privately viewed between you and the student, consider transitioning to a weekly journal entry. You can make both a journal and discussion assignment count for a grade and add a rubric.

OneNote Class Notebooks also provide an integrated alternative, you can write directly in a student's private notebook or use a collaboration space to encourage students to work together as as you provide real-time feedback.

Wikis

Wikis are not available in Ultra Course View and are not planned for future development. Consider using OneNote Class Notebooks or OneDrive Cloud Collaboration for collaborative writing and editing.

OneNote

OneNote Class Notebooks have a personal workspace for each student, a content library for handouts, and a collaboration space for activities. You can add a OneNote Class Notebook from Books & Tools or the from the Course Content Content Market menu.

You can edit your OneNote Class Notebook to rename and Add a description.

To create a wiki in a Microsoft OneNote Class Notebook, you will need to create a new OneNote section or document during the setup process. 

Create a new class notebook: Use this option if you are creating the OneNote wiki for the first time.

Add or remove new students: You can automatically add students from your Blackboard roster as they access the notebook from your Ultra course.

Add or remove teachers: You can manage if other instructors are able to access and administer this notebook.

Manage notebooks: You to configure various aspects of the notebook including enabling or disabling the Collaboration Space, set permissions to this space, add additional sections of the notebook once it has been created and copy the notebook link.

You can create a name for your class notebook or wiki.

You can review the default class notebook sections created for you.

You can Automatically add students from your LMS as they access this notebook.

You can click to edit the named sections and Add section for your wiki.

Preview the Teacher notebook and Student notebook, then click Create.

Once created, you can Open in OneNote or Open in OneNote Online. You can Download the Class Notebook Add-in, which includes page distribution, quick review of student work, and easy access to the Class Notebook app.

OneNote Desktop:

OneNote Online:

Getting started with the collaboration space

The Collaboration Space is open to everyone in a class, and all class members can read or write on anything in this part of the notebook. You and your students can also add sections and pages to customize the space.

For example, if a class splits up into group projects, each group could create a section where students can work together and share project-related materials. You can also create private sections in the Collaboration Space.

A Collaboration Space is better than a document on a file share or shared drive for the following reasons:

• Multiple people can edit a document at the same time
• Changes are merged automatically
• The Collaboration Space section group is available offline for everyone
• Keep your class on the same page

OneDrive Cloud Collaboration

OneDrive Cloud Collaboration allows you to collaborate on files without leaving Learn Ultra. Encourage participation and engagement by embedding OneDrive files directly in your course content and collaborate in real time with Microsoft Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, or Excel spreadsheets.

• To add Course Content, select Create
• Scroll down to Participation and Engagement, select Cloud Collaboration

• Select an existing file