Blackboard 9.1 Update 3 - November workshops available, the groups feature gets better, a timeline

Register for 'Meet Blackboard 9.1' November sessions
The Faculty Technology Center has scheduled one-hour workshops on Blackboard 9.1 during the weeks of Nov. 7-11 and Nov. 14-18. Sessions will be held in the FTC Lab (UAA/APU Consortium Library, Room 214), in Gordon Hartlieb Hall, Room 204 and via eLive. Check out the schedule and pre-register here. FTC is also willing to schedule a session to accommodate your department. Please email Louise Butler at lkbutler@uaa.alaska.edu to arrange. All sessions will be hands-on with topics to include: user interface, control panel access, adding content and the upgrade timeline. There will be time to get answers to all of your burning questions.

Groups are groovier in Blackboard 9.1
The groups feature has been updated and improved in Blackboard 9.1. Creating a group is now a one-step process. If you are creating groups to do a project, you can also create a group set. These two videos by Blackboard explain creating groups and creating group sets. Visit Blackboard's On Demand Learning Center for more instructional videos. Please note that when groups are created, they automatically show up in the students' navigation menu.

Keeping up with the upgrade
Check out our first video on the course menu in Blackboard 9.1.

We will post announcements about the upgrade on the Blackboard login page. Here is the timeline for the upgrade:

• Work on spring courses now (they are in your courses list in Blackboard)
• Blackboard unavailable Dec. 23 - Jan. 8
• All course materials upgraded in place (possible exception of blogs and wikis)
• All courses available in Blackboard 9.1 on Jan. 9, 2011

Questions? Comments? Email ftcdesign@uaa.alaska.edu.