Other Features

Attendance

Collaborate takes attendance and shares the information with moderators and instructors. Collaborate tracks when you join and leave a session. It also tracks how long you are present in the session on average. 

It doesn't matter if you join from a course, browser, phone, or a mobile app. Your attendance is tracked.

The only time your attendance is not tracked is if you join a session using Anonymous dial-in. When you use Anonymous dial-in, your phone is not paired with your account or session profile picture. This means that Collaborate doesn't know who you are and can't track you.

Attendance in your Blackboard Learn course

If you've joined a Collaborate session from your Blackboard Learn course, and your instructor has assigned attendance grades, your attendance in the session is added to your overall attendance grade.

Not sure if you are using Blackboard Learn? Jump to Join Sessions to find out.

Raise your hand

Raise your hand to answer a question or get another moderator's attention. Select Raise Hand.

With your keyboard, press Alt + H.

Not raised

Raised

Status and feedback

Change your status to away or let others know how you feel about something said or shared in the session. Use feedback to react to presentations.

Profile picture has a menu with options to go to the My Settings panel, mark yourself as away, leave a session, or use emojis to react to something in the session. Feedback appears at the top of the Attendees list.

From the main stage, select your profile picture.

Feedback appears with an attendee's profile picture on the main stage, in the Attendees panel, and in Chat. After 30 seconds the feedback disappears.

The Away status stays until you return and select I'm back!

A summary of the feedback selected appears under the panel heading. It shows the current feedback with a count of attendees using it.

You can sort the attendees by feedback in the Attendees panel. For example, if you want to know who is happy about what was said, select Happy under the Attendees heading. Only those who are happy appear.

Mark on shared content

When moderators share a blank whiteboard they want to collaborate with you. Use Collaborate’s editing and markup tools to participate.

Moderators may also choose to allow participants to mark up their shared file during a session in their session settings. Look for the editing tools to collaborate.

The new markup tools is available to everyone by 19 August 2021.

When files or a blank whiteboard are shared in a session, you can use annotation tools to edit and mark up the document during the live session. You’ll find the annotation tools at the top of the screen. These tools are available for both the moderator and participant roles unless the moderator turns it off in Session Settings.

Moderators can share an annotated file in the main room with breakout groups. More on sharing files with breakout groups.

Document view settings

  • Pan: Move the whiteboard or shared file on the page.
  • Zoom and Fit: Zoom in and out of the page or adjust the view to fit the page or width.

Annotations

  • Drawing, Brush, and Eraser: Draw freehand on the page with various colors, thickness, and opacity. Select the eraser to remove annotations. You can erase parts of a freehand drawing with the eraser or select the Delete icon to delete the whole drawing.
  • Text: Add text directly on the page. You can move, edit, and change the text and select the font, size, alignment, and color of the text.
  • Shapes: Choose Line, Arrow, Rectangle, Ellipse, Polygon, and Polyline. Each shape has its own settings to change the color, width, opacity, and more.
  • Clear Annotations: Annotations are saved in the session. You can share something new, go to a new slide, or stop sharing. The annotations remain. Moderators can use Clear Annotations to delete all annotations from all pages.
  • Highlighter: Select areas on a shared file to highlight. As you highlight text on the page, an additional menu opens. You can highlight, strikethrough, underline, squiggle, or comment on the highlighted section. The highlighter is only available on shared files. It's not available on the whiteboard.

    Upload a blank file of several pages to have a multi-page whiteboard.

Original experience of whiteboard markup tools

The new markup tools is available to everyone by 19 August 2021.

Look for the tools to mark up shared files and whiteboard.

  • Select: Use the arrow to select an object on the whiteboard. After you select it you can resize, move, and delete it.
  • Pointer: Use the hand to point to different areas of the visible slide. Attendees see the same hand on their screen.
  • Pencil: Use the pencil to draw free hand on the slide. 
  • Shapes: Use shapes to draw a rectangle, ellipse, or a straight line. 
  • Text: Use text to type text anywhere on the slide. 
  • Clear: Use Clear to delete everything on the slide.

    To delete just one thing off the slide, select the item and press Delete on your keyboard.

  • Stop Sharing: Use stop to remove the slides or whiteboard from the screen.

  • Show View Controls/Hide View Controls: Use view controls to adjust the slides or whiteboard on your screen. You can Zoom In, Zoom Out, see the slide in Actual Size, or select Best Fit. These actions are visible only to you. For example, others won't see you zoom the content in or out and you won't see what others zoom.

    Best Fit takes advantage of your screen real estate. Content adjusts to be completely viewable in the available area. It displays as large as possible while keeping the aspect ratio intact.

  • Next Slide/Previous Slide: Move to the previous or next slide. Select the slide name to view all slides.

    With your keyboard, press Alt + Page Down to move back a slide and Alt + Page Up to move forward a slide. On a Mac, press Alt + Fn + Down Arrow or Alt + Fn + Up Arrow.

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