A Brief Overview of Blackboard Backpack

Key Student Benefits:

Access Organize Interact

Key Student Benefit: Access

Students can access course content anywhere, anytime

Take Courses with Them

Blackboard Backpack provides an “offline” smart client

Configure and connect to Blackboard server using same URL, username, and password

Single-click content mobilization

Give students a convenient way to access and maintain an up-to-date personal copy of their course materials

Take Blackboard Offline

Blackboard Backpack enables students to synch key course elements from their institution’s Blackboard server to their local computer.

Synched items include:

– Course Content Items

– Announcements

– Assignments

– Calendar Items

– Tasks

Key Student Benefit: Organize

Students can organize assignments, due dates, and content

Students Get Organized

Scheduled course events are automatically integrated with personal calendar and tasks including:– Assignments

– Quizzes

– Tests

Provides a flexible way for students to integrate coursework into their daily schedules

Students never have to miss another lab, assignment, test or quiz

Multiple Calendar Views: Today’s View

Presents unified view of Blackboard and personal appointments

Bold dates on mini calendar indicate activity

Announcements and Tasks are integrated into Today’s View

Multiple Calendar Views: Week and Monthly Views

Enables students to manage a busy schedule a week or month in advance

Users can easily drag and drop calendar items to reschedule

Provides ability to track completed tasks

Organize Materials

Students can organize more than just their classes– Activities/Clubs

– Personal

– Student Business

Easily create, personalize and move tabs– Demote tab to folders

or sub-folders

Key Student Benefit: Interact

Students can interact with, annotate, search, and manage their learning environment

From one place, students can:– Annotate course

materials – Search every word

on every page– Access an

unlimited supply of “digital filler paper” for note taking

– Save on paper printing by printing to “digital paper”

Interact with Learning Resources

Annotate Course Materials

Using their laptops, students can personalize course and research materials in real time by:– Adding notes during

lectures

– Highlighting key research findings

For students with Tablet PCs, Blackboard Backpack as native digital ink support – making annotation even easier.

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Every word in the system is indexed and searchable

Students can search for terms across Blackboard content items, lecture notes, etc.

Searching is fast and students can easily navigate to search term hits

Search results are highlighted for easy viewing

Search Any Word on the System

Digital Filler Paper Enables Note Taking

Note taking is made easy through an unlimited supply of digital “filler paper”

Digital paper type can be changed to fit subject

Notes can be e-mailed to other students or instructors

All notes (including handwritten ones) are searchable for easy organization and retrieval later on

Blackboard Backpack adds a special “printer” to capture any document under a tab or folder

Allows students to turn any static page into an annotatable, searchable and interactive resource

Create Digital Paper Effortlessly

"Backpack helps me use a more dynamic presentation style by making it easier to visibly include student feedback in the lecture material on the fly. Also, my students appreciate that I share my notes with them. And another really significant benefit is my ability to easily capture, store, and search these comments to improve my delivery for future presentations.."

Instructor Efficiency

Steve LiddleAssociate Professor of Information SystemsBrigham Young University

Classroom: – On the fly student feedback– Share notes– Better delivery

Research:– All resources in one place– Available offline– Fully searchable

Try Blackboard Backpack Today!

Visit www.blackboard.com/backpack to download your personal trial copy