At a Glance

• Quizzes
• Interactive Elements
• Lessons
• Publishing to Blackboard

Description/Overview

SoftChalk can help you to introduce active learning opportunities and improve engagement. SoftChalk is a program that can be downloaded from the KU Technology website at no charge to the faculty member. It can be used to create interactive elements, quizzes, modules, or an entire course housing a variety of media. SoftChalk "Lessons" can be published directly into Blackboard and can tie into the Grade Center.

Getting Started

Download SoftChalk and watch tutorials on KU Technology's SoftChalk support page.

Use Cases

Quizzes

If you're looking to assess student comprehension or wanting to give students the opportunity to master content, you can use the quizzing feature in SoftChalk. You can create standalone quiz questions (called "quiz poppers") or a series of questions contained within a quiz group. In addition to the standard types of questions (True/False, Multiple Choice, Short Answer, etc.) you can create hotspot questions where students have to click on the correct portions of an image. The results from quizzes can be sent to the Grade Center within Blackboard.

Interactive Elements

Course content can be repackaged using interactive elements(called "activities") as a disruptive way to help keep students engaged. SoftChalk activities include:

• Charts
• Crossword Puzzles†
• Did you Know
• Drag and Drop†
• Flash Cards
• Hot Spots†
• Jigsaw Puzzles†
• Labeling†
• Ordering†
• Photo Album
• Seek a Word†
• Slideshows
• Sorting†
• Tabbed Info
• Timeline
• Align*†
• Identify*†
• Pairs*†
• Presenter*
• Selection*†
• Sequence*†

*Indicates a "mobile-friendly" activity.
†Indicates an activity whose score can be recorded in Blackboard's Grade Center.

Lessons

Every SoftChalk document is called a "lesson." Lessons may be comprised of one or more pages. An entire course could be presented from within one SoftChalk lesson.

Publishing to Blackboard

SoftChalk lessons can be published directly into your Blackboard course from within the SoftChalk application. SoftChalk lessons appear as a clickable link within Blackboard and the lesson opens up in a new tab or window. SoftChalk scoring is automatically populated into Blackboard.

Additional Resources

You can find additional and more detailed information on KU Technology's SoftChalk support page.