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MCC Daily Tribune

Virtual Campus Reminders: Preview Week Begins August 19th!

Preview Week Begins August 19th!

First, we want to commend everyone for their hard work and dedication over the summer to get their courses set up using Blackboard and Zoom! We know how challenging this was to learn something new. For our newest users of Blackboard, here are a few tips as we begin the semester:

Preview Week begins, Wednesday, August 19th for any courses that have a start date of August 26th.

Note: If you are teaching a late start course, your course becomes available on Blackboard seven days prior to the scheduled course start date.

  • Students will be automatically enrolled into the Grade Center of your course during Preview Week.
  • Student enrollment is based on your training record in Banner. If you have not taken the proper level of Blackboard training, you may not see your students.

Preview Week is a period of time where students can login to your course to get a feel for how to navigate the online space and begin planning their schedules based on your course activities.

  • For online course sections, Preview Week may include an Icebreaker discussion, the ability to view Course Information and Course Schedule documents, a brief quiz on the course information, or some other no/low stakes activity.
  • For remote sections, Preview Week may include a copy of the Course Information Sheet, Course Schedule, how to contact you, and any information about synchronous sessions.

Please be aware that students can see your materials in Blackboard that are posted and made available during this week. If there is content that you do not want students to access, you may choose to hide these areas in your course or date restrict them.

Here are some best practices for starting the semester:

  • Send a welcome email to your students with clear instructions on how to access your course. If you are planning live zoom sessions, make sure students are aware how to join your meeting (for example, do they click on a link in their email, via Blackboard, etc.)
  • Share your Course Information Sheet and Schedule
  • Share Tech Support Resources: You do not have to act as the primary tech support for your students, however if you are using technology that is external to MCC, such as third party vendors or software (Pearson, Cengage, McGraw, etc., make sure you have clear instructions in your course for how students access your materials).
    • The Student Technology Help Desk (292-TECH) can assist students with basic account management, email, Blackboard Login issues, and more.
    • The SUNY Online Help Desk (1-844-OPEN-SUNY) can assist students with Blackboard related questions, for example submitting assignments, tests, seeing grades, and more.
    • MCC Student Tech Help Guide and the Student Login to myMCC/Blackboard may be helpful to share with your students.
    • Online Learning Orientation: This is a mini Blackboard course that walks students through an introduction to Blackboard and provides support information for online learners
    • The Tech Help Tab in myMCC houses a lot of this information and more in one easy location: Go to Students tab, Technology Help sub-tab

Andrea Gilbert
Instructional Technologies
08/17/2020