Latest features in Collaborate ULTRA
Gallery view
Collaborate Ultra has introduced a new way of viewing participants – the Gallery view.
Gallery view allows Moderators, Presenters, and Participants to see up to 25 participants at a time or to zoom in on fewer videos. Attendees can also scroll through as many as 250 active cameras using arrows on the side of the screen.
Moderators are also able to start a private chat, promote an attendee, mute their microphone, or remove them from a session directly through their video display.
Gallery view is now available for all participants if enabled through session settings and permissions.
Other displays
The other two viewing options are Speaker and Tile view. These highlight the active speaker and display up to four cameras.
Chatbot
Teaching while resolving technical problems can be challenging, which is why Blackboard has introduced a new Support Chatbot that can help troubleshoot audio, video and connection problems.
The Chatbot appears on most error pages when students and staff are unable to access Collaborate, but it can also be found in the settings menu during live sessions.
@Someone in chat
The text chat area now allows you to use the @ symbol to message someone directly, making it easier to follow the conversation and reply to comments and questions.
Whiteboard editing tools
Better formatting:
You and your students can now change the pencil thickness, fonts and font size, as well as use a greater number of shapes with color fill and arrows.
Improved Usability
It’s easier than ever to copy, paste, duplicate and reuse elements in the whiteboard. You can also now erase part of the annotations or clear the whole board.
Greater interaction between yourself and breakout groups
You can now annotate a slide or whiteboard in the Main Collaborate room and share it live with students across multiple breakout groups. You can also bring a breakout group’s own annotated file into the main room together with its annotations!
Annotations are now saved!
Previously, any annotations made to a slide, image, or blank screen disappeared the moment you moved on or closed the whiteboard, but now you can share something new, go to a new slide, or stop sharing and the annotations will remain! This is great if you get your students to share early ideas and then return to them at the end of a lecture or presentation to see what might have changed.