March 14, 2020 
Are you faced with teaching live online for the first time? Does your school have Collaborate Ultra? Collaborate Ultra is an excellent tool for teaching live online – I have used it every class day for a few years now.
You can be up and running with Collaborate Ultra in about an hour. I have created two videos to help with using Collaborate Ultra for first time users.
In these videos, I am focusing on the tried and true methods I use in teaching my own large classes live online – I share tips and tricks I have learned over the years. Sometimes the official Blackboard documentation is not practical or clear. I deliberately boiled the video content down into the one hour so it would be doable and not overwhelming to faculty new to this teaching method.
Here are the links to the two videos related to teaching live online with Blackboard Collaborate Ultra. One is a quick overview. The other recording is of the training session I did with faculty live online in Teams.
- How to teach live online using Blackboard Collaborate Ultra – Abridged version (8:43 minutes): https://youtu.be/it5rvJ8HrYQ
- How to teach live online using Blackboard Collaborate Ultra – Unabridged version (1:06 hour): https://youtu.be/c7KTl8ZzlzI
In the longer training session, we discussed a variety of topics, including software for prerecording lectures versus having class live with Collaborate Ultra.
Here are some documents you may also find useful:
- A Word document containing the email that I send to my students at the beginning of the semester about how they get online with Collaborate Ultra.
- A Word document that contains a screenshot of how to access the Collaborate Ultra recordings (it is not obvious to most users.)
- PowerPoint slides that I use at the beginning of my class sessions related to Collaborate Ultra.
Edit the above documents as needed to fit your own situation.
Please let me know if you have any questions – I am happy to help!
Wendy
Accounting in the Headlines 
?Dear Wendy,
I can’t thank you enough for all you do for accounting faculty! I was just sitting here going through the materials from my own institution because I need to learn this by Monday at 9! We never had this tool available before yesterday, so it’s new to all of us.
Thank you again for your generosity in sharing all of your materials.
I hope you and your loved ones stay healthy.
Best regards,
Carolyn
Carolyn J. Christesen, MBA, CPA Department Chair and Professor, Accounting Westchester Community College (914) 606-6876 http://www.linkedin.com/in/carolynchristesen
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You will be okay! View the shorter video as an overview – and then watch the longer video to learn some tips and tricks. Good luck – and don’t hesitate to reach out if you need anything.