- Published on
Recording Saving and Downloading Blackboard Collaborate Ultra Sessions
- Authors
- Name
- interglobalmedia
- @letsbsocial1
Today I had a test session
with a fellow City Tech
colleague to make sure that everything would go smoothly for my virtual classes
with my students
in the upcoming weeks. I found out that Blackboard Collaborate Ultra
is even more cool than I already thought, and really simple to use, once you get to know it. I also found a great resource
online that helped me get there. I will share the link in the transcript of this podcast in the form of a post on interglobalmedianetwork.com.
The following are the steps necessary to make a recording
on Blackboard Collaborate Ultra
Screen Sharing, and then to have the ability to download the audio/video
afterwards:
You have to go into Blackboard
to access Blackboard Collaborate Ultra
. For me, I have access to it via my course link on Blackboard
.
First I have to log in to Blackboard
. For those of us teaching at City Tech
, the Home page looks something like the following when we log in
:
There is a link
in the bottom left of the screenshot above. It is the link
to my Blackboard
related course tools
and content
. I have to click on it in order to be able to access Blackboard Collaborate Ultra
Screen Sharing there.
After I have clicked on my course link, I am taken to my course related content and tools. By default, I land on the Announcements
page. But what I really want is to the left of the screen under the title
of my course.
Within the green sidebar, I click on the Tools
link. I am taken to the Tools
available for my course:
The link to the Blackboard Collaborate Ultra
is right there!
Now I have to click
on the Blackboard Collaborate Ultra
link to take me into that tool. When I click
on the Blackboard Collaborate Ultra
link, I am taken to the following:
This is where we can create our sessions!
Next I have to click
on the "Create Session" button
. This is what the window looks like after I have done that:
Now I have to create a title
for my session. You won't be able to save your session details until you have given the session a name! So let's do that right now.
The name I create for this session (created for the purposes of this instructional post) is "Instructional Post Session March 16, 2020"
.
Next I want to make sure I have enabled the settings I want for my session.
I just notice that after I add a session name
, the button "get secure link"
appears. So I click
on the "get secure link"
button, and it immediately switches to "Join session"
.
I make sure that the "Guest access"
checkbox is checked.
I make sure that "Participant"
for the Guest role
is selected, and then there is a Guest
link to share with people you want to participate in the session. It is indeed a secure link as evidenced by "https"
.
Next comes the "Event Details"
. You can select what date you want your session to take place, a start
and end
time, whether you want it to be an open session
(with no end) or a repeat session
.
Then you can decide whether you want people to have early entry
. I like to choose "no early entry"
from the Early Entry
dropdown menu.
You can also provide a description for the session. I might actually do that for my class sessions so that my students know exactly what was covered during that particular class. I will probably do the same for my office hour sessions as well.
Next you can customize your session settings within the "Session Settings"
area towards the bottom of the session window. You can click
on the dropdown icon (⌵) to access the session settings. And this is what is available there:
There is a checkbox
for "Allow recording downloads"
. Make sure to check it!
There is a checkbox
for "Share audio"
. Make sure to check it!
There is a checkbox
for "Share video"
. Make sure to check it!
There is a "Post chat messages"
checkbox
. Make sure to check it! Students may want to post questions for you to answer, and you may also want to share information or even links with them!
I also selected the "Draw on whiteboard and files"
checkbox
even though I don't think I will ever use it, but it is good to do it in case!
I also checked the "Allow attendees to join the session using a telephone"
even though I don't think any of my students will go that route. But again, I check it just in case!
I don't intend to do any private chatting with my students, but I want to discourage private chatting during class, so I check the "Moderators supervise all private chats"
so that no one will want to set up a private chat! They can leave that to Discord
!
Next I go back to my "Event Details"
section to schedule the session. I want to create a session for a few minutes from now so that I can have a bit of time to complete scheduling it and then joining the session.
First I choose "No early entry"
from the Early Entry
dropdown menu.
I make the start date
today (3.16.20).
I make the start time
2:45pm (right now it is 2:38 pm, which gives me plenty of time to complete the session setup). I make the end time
2:48pm.
I don't want an open session
.
I don't want a repeat session
.
Now all I have to do is wait five minutes! But before anything, I save the session by clicking on the Save
button. When I click
on the button, I am taken to the following:
When the time arrives, I click
on the session link
above, and then click
on the Join Session
button in the window I am taken to. This is what pops up after I click
on the Join Session
button:
Next I click
on the microphone icon
and then the video icon
(shown right above).
Then I clic
k on the video icon
, which takes me to a video preview
. There, two buttons appear under the video preview
. One is cancel
, and the other is Share video
. Click
on the Share Video
button. When you have clicked on the Share video
button, you are taken to the following:
You will see there is a little window to the bottom left of the screenshot
of me. That means that my video share
was successful!
Next I click
on the little pink double arrow tab
to the bottom right of the screen. (see above).
Now, at the bottom to the right are several icons
. The first is a Chat
icon, the second a Share Content
icon, and the third is your Audio and Video Settings
icon.
The default active icon
is the Chat
icon, as shown right above. Now I can click
on moderators
(since I am the moderator/professor of the class), and this is what appears:
There is an input
to the bottom right which has the placeholder "say something"
. There, I can just chat, or I can also share links
from around the web. I choose to share links from around the web, and especially related to the topic(s) of the lecture. First, I may want to link to the slide deck
related to my lecture. I will do that now.
As you can see (above), I have just shared a link in the Moderators
chat area. Now, if I click
on that link to my slide deck
hosted on Github
gh-pages, I will be taken there, and my students will also see the contents of the slide deck
. Now I can start my lecture.
If I want to share any other content, I can share more links. This way, they also have reference
to the links
later when they download
the session. That's why chat
is good as well. There is written reference and possibly links to content to refer back to later.
Next I can click
on the Share
icon. I could have done this earlier. In fact, right at the beginning, if it had been appropriate.
You see the "Share Application/Screen"
and then below that, "You are sharing an application"
. Before the second line appears, there is a "Share Application/Screen"
button you have to click
if you want to share your screen with your session participants. Once the button has been clicked, and the screen
looks something like the above, you are good to go! It really does not matter if you have shared the screen at this point, because that part is only necessary when you want people to see what is on your screen. Perhaps you were not even ready until this point. I know that I was not!
The Audio and Video Settings
looks something like this:
At this point, the main thing I would want to adjust is the Speaker
volume. It seems that mine is on max here. However, if I want it to be louder, I could make the volume on my computer louder!
Now I will say something so that I can see how my audio is doing. And then after that, I will end the session.
So what I did is click
on a hamburger
icon (shown in the screenshot prior to this one), and this is what appeared in the responsive menu
after clicking on the hamburger icon
(screenshot right above). So what are the options there?
First it says Start recording
. Well, I didn't do that previously either. So now I can click
on "Start recording"
. All I had set up before, was sharing video. My participants can hear me. I can hear them. But we are not recording our session
yet. By clicking on "Record Session"
, and making sure that screen share
is enabled, video share
is enabled, and audio
is enabled, we are ready to start recording our session
.
In the screenshot right below here, you will see a small video camera
icon in the upper left corner of the screenshot with a little red dot
in its center. That indicates that a recording
of the session is taking place
.
I don't need to make a long recording of this instructional test of Blackboard Collaborate Ultra
. I want to end the session and subsequently leave it now.
First I click
on the hamburger icon
again. Then I click
on "Stop Recording"
. Now my screen looks something like this:
As you can see, in the top left corner, there no longer is a little video camera
icon.
Now I want to leave the session. I click
on the hamburger icon
again. At the bottom left of the screen
is a button called "Leave Session"
. I click
on that to leave the session! And this is what I am taken to as a result:
I was very satisfied with the session, and I select "Excellent"
and then click
the "Submit and Exit"
button.
After I click
the "Submit and Exit"
button, I am taken to the following:
This confirms that I have left my session!
But now I want to be able to download
my session! I go back into the Blackboard Collaborate Ultra
tool for my course. I have kept that window open the whole time so that I can easily get back to it when I need it! As a reminder, this is what it looks like/where it is:
Now comes the fun part! Accessing the saved video
and downloading it to my laptop.
Again, there is a hamburger icon
(three lines) that you have to click
on in order to access any saved sessions for download
.
When I click
on the hamburger icon
, the following appears:
There are two links to choose from on the left. The first is "Sessions"
, and the second is "Recordings"
. I choose "Recordings"
.
A very important detail to remember and note: just because you have recorded a session does NOT mean that it will be available for download after. You must make sure that you have selected the "Allow recording download"
checkbox in order for the recording to be downloadable later. For example, I have a whole bunch of recordings here, but only the most recent recording (this current session recording entitled Instructional Post Session March 16, 2020 / recording_1
) is available for download.
To the right, you will see little circles with dots in the center. If you click
on one of those, you will get the following recording options:
I purposely clicked on the session I created for this post to prove a point. Here, there is a download option available. If I click
on that, I can download
the video and view it on my laptop
. However, if I click
on another circle related to a video which I did not make downloadable, the following recording options will appear:
There is NO download option here! I know this to be a fact, because I never tried to make any of my previous lectures downloadable. However, I did record them.
When I click
on the download option for this session, I am taken to my downloads
area on my laptop
and the following appears:
And success! I have successfully downloaded my session!
On another note, Discord
is currently undergoing massive server outages. Many of us will not be able to get in for a while. That means I will be making an increased number of announcements on Blackboard
to communicate with my students! Thank God for Github
as well!
I will be embedding this episode of Plugging in The Holes along with a transcript in the form of a post on interglobalmedianetwork.com for your hearing and reading pleasure. I will be including the related resource links mentioned in the podcast of course. Always do. Bye for now!