Digital Education Resources

Take your online instruction to the next level
Online instruction and learning offer unique challenges and benefits for educators. The Education Technology Center, the Learning Solutions Center, and the Office of Applied Scholarship and Education Science at Mayo Clinic provide resources to teach in a digital environment.
As the situation continues to evolve, visit the COVID-19 Updates page for the most up-to-date information.
Connect virtually with learners
Virtual tools supported at Mayo Clinic
Get online in a hurry with our curated list of virtual tools. These tools can help support and enhance teaching and learning.
- How do I connect?
- Facilitating a virtual session
- Matrix of virtual connection options
- Moving face-to-face lectures online
Blackboard Collaborate: Virtual classroom
Blackboard Collaborate is a virtual classroom application to power your online teaching and web conferencing needs. It is a real-time video conference tool that lets you preview documents, share your screen, and use a virtual whiteboard to solicit input form learners and interact with one another in real time.
- Application sharing
- Attendee panel
- Managing permissions
- Share files
- Sharing PowerPoint files (video)
- Using chat
- Using the whiteboard
Instructional strategy and best practice
- Emergency Remote Instruction Checklist (Quality Matters)
- Going Online in a Hurry: What to Do and Where to Start (ChronicleVitae)
- Preparing for Emergency Online Teaching (The Chronicle of Higher Education)
- Responding to Novel Coronavirus: A Faculty Triage Guide for Decision Making (Webinar, University of Maine)
- Virtual Class Now! How to Move Your Education Online in a Hurry (Educator’s Central podcast)
Build and maintain an online presence
Moving your face-to-face lectures to an online setting can be challenging, but we have resources to make the transition easier.
Blackboard Learn course guides and resources
Blackboard Learn is the learning management system (LMS) that we use at Mayo Clinic to deliver online courses. Use Blackboard as a place to house your syllabus, reading materials, discussion boards, assignments, quizzes, grades, references, resources, and more.
Adding interactive modules to Blackboard (SCORM)
Storyline 360, Articulate Rise, and Captivate are tools that help you create engaging and interactive eLearning content. With these, you can create slideshows and embed videos for a richer online learning experience. SCORM is a set of technical standards for eLearning products. It provides the communication method and data models that allow eLearning content and LMSs to work together.
- Inserting streaming video into Storyline 360
- SCORM: Uploading to Blackboard
- Storyline publish setting for Blackboard
Instructional strategy and best practice
- Blended Learning — The Fundamentals (Educator’s Central podcast)
- Modules … A Piece of Cake, Right!? (Educator’s Central podcast)
- Modules, Make it Count (Educator’s Central podcast)
- PIVOT MedEd faculty resources (external website)
- Teach Remotely — Best Practices (Harvard University)
- Teaching in the Age of COVID 19 — Pros and Cons of Popular Online Tools (infographic)
- Tips for Using Your Phone to Record Video (two-minute video)
Engage and interact with learners digitally
As you move into teaching remotely, explore the many tools to help keep your learners engaged in the course material.
Engagement tools
Blackboard Learn Interactive Tools offers tools for learners to self-reflect, collaborate, and communicate. Students can share ideas and gather feedback using discussion boards, blogs, and journals. Wiki tools provide collaborative spaces where students can work together and build upon each other’s contributions.
Deliver your lecture online with Blackboard’s Kaltura tool. Use Kaltura Media to create video content. With Kaltura Media, you can upload files, create webcam recordings, or screen captures for your course.
- Adding Kaltura Media to a content area in your Blackboard course media gallery
- Adding Kaltura Media to your Blackboard course media gallery
- Kaltura playlist in Blackboard
- Kaltura help site: Video exchange
- Video Exchange 101
- Video Exchange 102
TurningPoint
Use TurningPoint to create online scheduled assessments, conduct polls, and manage results entirely online. TurningPoint is integrated into Blackboard.
VoiceThread
Use VoiceThread to upload, share and discuss documents, presentations, images, audio files, and videos. Users can comment on VoiceThread slides using the microphone, webcam, text, phone, or audio-file upload. VoiceThread is integrated into Blackboard.
Other interactivity tools
- FlipGrid: Free video discussion board application (externally supported)
- Screen-O-Matic: Free screen recording web application (externally supported)
- Open Board: Free whiteboard application (externally supported)
Instructional strategy and best practice
- Establishing Online Learning Environments (infographic)
- How to Promote Active Learning in a Digital Classroom (infographic)
- How to Use Discussion Boards (University of Huddersfield)
- Humor & Pedagogy: Funny is Not a 4-Letter Word … it’s 5 (EP:06) (podcast)
- Learning Styles — Unpacking the Myth (EP:12) (podcast)
- Promoting Learner Engagement Online (infographic)
- Reflecting on Reflection — The Value of Making Meaning (EP:07) (podcast)
- Sticky Learning — What Binge Watching Teaches Us About the Goldfish Myth (EP:08) (podcast)
- Tips for Online Learning Success (infographic)
- Virtual Breakout Rooms — When to Use It and When Not To (Learning Solutions Magazine)
Assess and evaluate
Maintain your course learning outcomes by delivering assessments and evaluations online through a variety of resources. Blackboard offers a variety of assessment tools so you can facilitate meaningful and memorable learning activities.
Blackboard tests
Use tests and surveys to measure student knowledge, gauge their progress, and gather information from learners.
- Create deploy and grade Blackboard tests
- Exam validation checklist
- Improve testing with item analysis
- Viewing the attempt statistics
Respondus 4.0 test authoring
Respondus 4.0 is a powerful tool for creating and managing exams that can be printed to paper or published directly to Blackboard.
Test proctoring
Proctorio ensures total learning integrity of every assessment, every time. It uses facial and voice detection, lockdown browser, and disables right-click copy and paste and print. Proctorio is integrated into Blackboard.
- Proctorio faculty guide
- Proctorio student guide
- Proctorio best practices for faculty
- Proctorio best practices for students
Proctorio support
Email: support@proctorio.com
Phone, faculty: 480-428-0692 or 866-948-2093
Phone, students: 480-428-4089 or 866-948-9248
Blackboard assignments
Explore our resources to help you get started with creating assignments using Blackboard.
Blackboard rubrics
Rubrics can help ensure consistent and impartial grading and help learners focus on your expectations. Learn how to set up these scoring tools in Blackboard.
Surveys and evaluation
Learn how to navigate Blackboard’s grade center and implement ungraded surveys to gauge your learners’ progress.
Instructional strategy and best practice
- I Kahoot and So Can YOU: An Online Tool for Assessing Learners' Understanding (video, externally supported)
- Writing Quality Multiple Choice Questions — Theories, Tips, and the Titanic (EP:10) (podcast)
Training sessions and workshops
Questions about moving your content online? We’re here to help! We’ve created a number of training sessions and workshops tailored to your education needs. Connection information, dates, and times are on the ETC Training Calendar intranet page. Contact us to receive regular updates from the ConnectEd Newsletter and the Blackboard Users Group.
Workshop descriptions
Blackboard Basics (1 hour)
Blackboard Learn is the learning management system (LMS) used by Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science to deliver digital content, assess learners, and track learner progress. In this session, you’ll learn about the basic functions in Blackboard.
Blackboard Collaborate (1 hour)
In these workshops, you’ll learn about the key features and core functions of the Collaborate user interface. You’ll also learn about session roles and how to effectively manage the communication tools, understand audio indicators, manage session and participant interaction, display the whiteboard and PowerPoint content, and record a session.
Blackboard Grade Center (1 hour)
In this session, we’ll review the grade center functionality and how you can use it to track learner progression.
Blackboard Reports (1 hour)
In this session we will explore Course Reports available to instructors in Blackboard. Course Reports provide a wide array of information regarding student activity, content usage, course standards, and course objectives.
Create, Deliver, and Proctor Exams in Blackboard Learn (90 minutes)
This session covers the principles of Proctorio used to remotely proctor Blackboard exams. Learn about the process for creating, delivering, and grading tests in Blackboard. We’ll also explore the student view and optional feedback settings.
Enterprise Surveys (1 hour)
Enterprise Surveys is a tool you can use to collect feedback. You can send a survey to specific Blackboard course participants or upload a list of email addresses (including non-Mayo Clinic email addresses).
Learning Lounge
The Learning Lounge provides one-on-one support for educators who are moving their face-to-face educational offerings online. This is a drop-in virtual space where you can ask specific questions about your education, courses, or content.
Learning Studio
The Learning Studio from the Learning Solutions Center brings focused seminars and workshops covering specific topics inspired by trending conversations and interests in education.
Proctorio Overview (1 hour)
Proctorio’s Learning Integrity Platform combines machine learning and advanced facial detection technologies to remove human error and bias. In this application overview, we’ll discuss the Proctorio/Blackboard interface, review the exam settings, and best practices. You’ll learn how to create templates and access the Proctorio grade center.
VoiceThread (1 hour)
In this introduction to VoiceThread, you’ll learn how to create a VoiceThread presentation, engage with the presentation, discuss permissions and sharing options, and review the Blackboard interface.