Blackboard Collaborate Ultra

Blackboard Collaborate Ultra

Welcome to the Blackboard Collaborate Ultra guide. Blackboard Collaborate Ultra allows you to meet with your students virtually inside your existing Blackboard course.

This tutorial will walk you through the steps for creating a Blackboard Collaborate Ultra session, providing a link to the session anywhere you'd like inside your Blackboard course, and using the basic features including chat, moderating the participants, sharing your screen, and recording the session.

Ready to get started? Click the forward arrow below.

Creating a Session Inside Blackboard Course

Log in to Blackboard. Navigate within Blackboard to your course.

Inside your course, look under Course Management on the left side. Click to expand Course Tools. 

Click on Blackboard Collaborate Ultra.

Creating a Session

Click Create Session. Give your new session a name by typing it in the New Session field. 

Event Details

Choose a start date and time and end date and time using the dropdown menus.

It's a good idea to allow students to enter the room a little early so the default of "15 min before start time" under the Early Entry menu is good how it is.

Session Settings

Expand the Session Settings to determine what Participants can and cannot do in the room. Leave the default attendee role as Participant.

Determine if Participants can share audio, share video, post chat messages, and draw on the whiteboard/files by unchecking the box next to an option if you want an option disabled. Students will enter the room as Participants and will be muted until they unmute themselves.

Creating a Link to Your Session

Copy the Guest link and click Save. 

Creating a Link to Your Session

Navigate to the folder inside your Blackboard course where you would like students to find the link to the Collaborate Ultra session.

Hover over Build Content. Click on Web Link.

Creating a Link to Your Session

Enter a name for your link. Paste the URL you copied earlier into the URL field. Click Submit.

The link will appear in the folder you chose. This is where the students will click to enter the session. 

Teaching in the Session

Several minutes before your virtual class meeting time, log in to Blackboard and navigate to your course. Click on Course Tools then Blackboard Collaborate Ultra. Click on the session you created previously. Click on Join Session on the right side.

Work through the options to set up and test your camera and microphone.

You are muted when you enter the room. Click on the microphone symbol at the bottom to unmute yourself when you’re ready for the students to hear you. You can mute yourself again at any time by clicking on the microphone symbol.

Collaborate Panel

Click on the purple arrows on the right side to open the Collaborate panel.

Using Chat

The first tab of the panel is Chat. You can receive and send messages to the Participants in the Chat panel. Remember to check this periodically while teaching to see if a student without a microphone has asked a question. It is often a good idea to use the chat exclusively (by selecting no audio for Participants in the Session Settings) for large groups to decrease background noise and feedback.

Participants

The next tab is the Participants list where you can see everyone who is in the room and their status (Participant, Presenter, or Moderator). You will see yourself listed there as a Moderator.

If you need to mute just one Participant, you can do that by clicking on the circle with three dots inside of it next to their name then click Mute. You cannot unmute them directly though. If you want to unmute a Participant, click next to their name then click on Promote to Presenter. Once a Presenter, you can click again to demote them back to Participant.

Sharing Your Screen and Other Content

The third tab is Share Content which allows you to share a blank whiteboard, share an application or your entire screen, and share files. Click on Share Application/Screen you will get a popup window where you can select to choose your entire computer screen, a single application window, or a single Chrome browser tab. Be aware that when sharing your entire screen students will be able to see anything you pull up or uncover by moving windows around as well as any notifications you receive during the virtual class session.

Here is an example of the whiteboard.

 Here is an example of sharing a single Chrome tab.

Changing the Session Settings During the Session

The final tab, which looks like a gear, is the settings tab. Under Session Settings, you can mute all Participants if needed by unchecking the box next to Participants can: Share audio. You can check the box again to give Participants the ability to unmute themselves at any time.

Recording

If you wish to record your session, click on the three lines menu in the top left then click Start Recording. Remember to click again when you are ready to finish recording.

Certificate

Please enter your name and email address to retrieve a copy of your completed quiz.

You can enter multiple email addresses separated by commas. If you are doing this for a class, you may need to enter your instructor's email address also.

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