Blackboard Collaborate as lecturing tool

How do you stay in contact with your students who study abroad for a semester? Quirijn van den Hoogen (Arts Policy and Arts Sociology) was confronted with this question when planning meetings with students who needed to work on the research proposals for their bachelor thesis. He found out that many of them were not in Groningen at that time, but were studying at other universities in Europe or even in other continents. Quirijn found a solution in providing online group meetings with Blackboard Collaborate, during which the students were informed about the procedures and could ask questions. The sessions were recorded and made available for those who could not attend. Despite some start-up technical and organisational issues, Quirijn is very enthusiastic and will continue using Collaborate.

Collaborate can be integrated in every Nestor course. Students enrolled in that course have access to meetings scheduled by the instructor. Communication can be done via a microphone and optionally a webcam. Instructors can share their screen and thus e.g. show a Powerpoint presentation or website.

Read more on Blackboard Collaborate and other video communication tools.