Board Builder Getting Started

Board Builder is a tool, exclusive to Discovery Education, that allows users to create digital bulletin boards with a variety of media, including sourced and self-­created resources. The tool can be used in a variety of ways: for topic delivery and engagement, for assessment, and to determine student understanding. Board Builder can also be a universal design for learning instructional strategy, since it allows for various means of representation, understanding, and expression (www.cast.org/udl). This course will teach you how to build, assign, and share a Board;; how to maximize use;; and how students can use Board Builder. Getting Started with Board Builder You can access Board Builder from the builder tools menu found at the top navigation bar.

Students can find the tool in Student Center, in the top navigation bar and in Resource Center.

To start, click on Board Builder to open the interface. Select one of the templates or select a blank template. If you are new to Board Builder, a template is great to get you started, and the rest of the elements can be customized as you build.

1. Title and save the Board before you begin to ensure that you won’t lose your work as you go. 2. Click Continue. 3. Select a folder from My Content, where the Board will be saved. *After the initial save, Board Builder will auto save your work as you build.

Key Elements and Tools

Board Builder’s editing tools are on the left. Here, you can customize your board with a theme that highlights your content. Add Items allows you to add content from Discovery Education or your own files. In the editing tools, you can add content boxes and change fonts, colors, and patterns. To hide the editor tools, click on the x in the top right corner and to show them, click

on the pencil icon.

The top navigation offers more options for your Board. Edit mode allows you to edit all the content on your Board (surrounded by dashed lines). Preview allows you to see what your Board will look like after it’s done. Click back into Edit mode to continue working. Print allows you to save a copy of the completed Board as a pdf. Save allows you to specify information about your Board, such as grade level and subject area. Share allows you to share your Board with the audience you select: your school, district, or the whole DE community;; it also allows other teachers and students to use your Board and edit it, without changing the original copy of the board. Sharing Boards is great for class projects, so that students can springboard off of the content you begin with, saving a lot of transition and setup time. Assign allows you to send your board to a class (or individual), as long as you’ve set up your class through classroom manager.

All boxes in the Board can be adjusted and moved around the page. The template provides a guide on how you can structure your Board, but you don’t have to stick with this. Unleash your creativity by adding new boxes and resizing or layering items.

To move boxes around the page, hover over the box until the grey band appears;; then, holding your mouse (or finger if you are on a tablet), drag the grey band to move the box to its desired location on the Board. To resize boxes, select the edit icon in the top right corner and drag the box corners in or out to resize.

All Boards are saved for future use and sharing on the main Board Builder interface. By selecting Edit, you can open previously saved boards to continue editing or share your boards to a new group of students or fellow educators. Check out the next step to see how you can add content to the boxes within your board.

Board Builder Adding Content

There are four types of boxes you can add to your board: headline, text, media, and attachments. The Headline Box is used as the title description for your board;; however, you can also use this box to highlight content that will surface below it.

Headlines can divide content into: -­ Topics -­ Key points -­ Chapters, as in a short story -­ Stages of an experiment -­ And more To add a new headline, click on Add Items, then Add Headline. Click on the default text and type in your desired headline.

As you move through the next course on 50 Ways to Use Board Builder, you will see a variety of examples that will demonstrate how you can use headlines.

You can change the background by selecting the edit icon on the top right corner of the headline box. Select Background, then choose from one of the options.

You can customize the text within the box. With the text highlighted, you can enlarge it or change the font and color by selecting Text Style in the Editor Tools.

Learning involves developing literacy skills. Text Boxes can be used to add written text to your board to summarize ideas from a concept and ask and answer inquiry questions.

Add hyperlinks to content found online or even create a bibliography of content

As with the Headline Box, once you have added a Text Box to your Board, click on the default text to write your own ideas and insights. Text color can be changed using the Editor Tools. If you select the edit icon on the top right corner of the box, you have some additional options for text boxes including box background, text justification, font size, bullets, and hyperlinking. Board Builder allows you to create links to external sources that you may wish to include in a Board, as references or further exploration.

Teachers and students can use links to enhance their boards and add another dimension to the content.

To create a hyperlink, copy the URL of the site you wish the link to follow. Select the insert link icon and paste the URL in the pop up box. In the final view, which you can preview, the link will become active, opening the hyperlink in a new tab. You will see a variety of creative examples of how text boxes can be used in upcoming course segments.

Board Builder features two important options: Media and Attachment boxes. The Media Boxes allow for the addition of images, video, and audio that can be taken from within Discovery Education, or you can add media from your own devices. With this capability, you can make learning both broad and personal by enabling the uploading of multimedia from any computer or mobile device. To find Discovery Education content, select Search and type in some keywords related to your topic. You will recognize the search results, because they look just like your regular Discovery Education searches. Once you find the right resource, select Add and then Add Resources. Content is inserted within the media box and plays right on the board. If you use the Quick List feature in Discovery Education, adding digital resources is even easier, as you drag and drop the content from your Quick List directly onto the Board or inside a media box.

You can also select media that is stored within your My Content folders. Board Builders are a great way to visually organize the specific resources you’ve selected for your My Content folders, enabling you to create a dynamic interactive for your unit or topic of study. One issue teachers commonly face is transferring content from mobile devices, which can often be time consuming or challenging with a BYOD environment. The third option for inserting media on to a Board is uploading from external devices or locally stored content. After you select Upload, you will be prompted to choose a file from your computer's document library or device’s media gallery.

The Attachments Box is useful for adding additional documents, spreadsheets, or presentations to your Board. Teachers can add rubrics or handouts, and students can create a digital portfolio with content they have created throughout the school year.

Attachments are restricted to specific file types;; in the Upload window you find a list of all of the files types you can add. As with all of the boxes on the Board, backgrounds can be customized and boxes can be resized and moved around the board easily, even on a mobile device. Use the trash can to remove unwanted boxes. If you run out of room, don’t fret! Click the down arrow to add more space and continue building!