Many students author assignments in Google Docs, but Blackboard only accepted static files like Microsoft Word documents or PDF files–until now.
Google Assignments, a recently released integration between Blackboard and Google Docs, allows instructors to add a Google assignment similarly to adding any assignment in Blackboard. These assignments even create a column in the grade center. Most importantly, when students use the Google Assignments tool, they can submit assignments without having to download, upload, or export a static file.
This tool also provides additional opportunities for student collaboration. For example, a group of students can submit a collaborative Google Doc that effectively shows each member’s contributions.
The new Google Assignments feedback/grading view gives instructors a multitude of options (many of which are not available in Blackboard’s Box grading view), and offers an originality checker to verify whether students are properly citing sources.
Instructors can also utilize the Google Embed tool to display live Google Docs in Blackboard courses.
If you are interested to try the Assignments or Embed tools, these are already available to you in Blackboard. Contact the Learning Technology Solutions team at LTS@boisestate.edu for more information.