Online Learning Environments
Blackboard course sites provide a platform for a full-featured, virtual classroom, especially when combined with the capabilities offered by Zoom video conferencing.
Blackboard
Every course at Hamilton has a Blackboard space that can serve as a virtual classroom. Blackboard offers an online learning environment for students who may be unable to attend your class on campus.
An introduction to Blackboard’s capabilities is available using Hamilton’s “Learn How to Use Blackboard” course. You will find a link for the course—along with links to all of the courses you are currently teaching—in the “My Courses” section of your “My Blackboard” page. This course is organized into a number of modules, each of which contains information on how to use various parts of Blackboard (content, discussion board, online assignments, tests) which should prove useful to teaching online.
- blackboard.hamilton.edu (Login with your Hamilton username and password.)
- Learn How to Use Blackboard (Login required.)
- LITS Blackboard Learn Support Page
- Blackboard Learn Help for Instructors
Zoom
Zoom provides a platform for capturing lectures or engaging in real time interactions with students. Zoom videos can be saved locally, to Google Drive or to the cloud. Saving to the cloud provides your students with a transcription and the ability to either stream or download your lecture.
There are a number of state and federal laws that impact the recording of students during online synchronous sessions. To address these legal requirements, and to protect the privacy of our online students, Hamilton College has created guidelines and procedures. (See link below.)
