Directories School of Arts and Sciences University of Pennsylvania

Technologies for Teaching in Case of a Flu Outbreak, Fall 2009

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SAS faculty can use a variety to technologies for teaching to minimize distruptions caused by an influenza outbreak at Penn.

For more information about Penn's response to the threat of influenza in 2009, please visit http://www.upenn.edu/flu and http://www.sas.upenn.edu/home/flu/

Blackboard The Blackboard course management system is the easiest way for you to manage your course online. When you create a Blackboard site for your course, you and your students will have access to a wide variety of useful tools.	Basic information about how to setup and use Blackboard for your class Detailed information about how to use some of the most popular features
Stay in touch with your class There are easy ways you can get messages to your students	You can send email to everyone in your class through Blackboard or use the Announcement feature in Blackboard. The University has set up a Class Mailing List for every official University course. You can access your class list through Courses In Touch. See detailed information about using class mailing lists
Distribute course materials Blackboard makes it easy to put documents online, including your syllabus, readings, powerpoint files, etc.	See instructions about how to add content to your Blackboard site Library staff can assist with adding reserve readings to your Blackboard site
Conduct online discussions Discussion boards allow you and your students to post and reply to questions. It's also a useful way to engage students in review & comment on each other's work.	Use the discussion board feature in Blackboard to facilitate asynchronous, written discussion. Discussion boards can be configured for a variety of uses, including to allow anonymous posts. Use Wimba voiceboards for asynchronous oral discussion. Voiceboards work much like text-based discussion boards, but allow users to post voice recordings. This is especially helpful for language instruction, but can also be useful for activities such as public speaking practice. The Blackboard virtual classroom can be used as a simple chat room to conduct "office hours" or review sessios online
Collect assignments from your students	Use the Blackboard Assignment Tool to collect and and manage your students' written work
Help your students work with each other You can configure your Blackboard site with features that will help your students contact each other and work together	The Group tools in Blackboard can help your students stay in touch, exchange documents, collaborate on projects or ask and answer questions. The wiki tool in Blackboard makes it easy for students to collaborate on projects
Pre-record lectures or demonstrations It's possible to record some of the material you would ordinarily present in a lecture. You can then post these recordings to Blackboard and make them available to your students.	Record voice narration to go with your Powerpoint slides Use "screencast" software to make a recording of your voice along with any activity on your computer screen. See our page about options for how you can record lectures or computer demonstrations outside of the classroom.

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