Blackboard

From TechHelp

Contents 1 Using Blackboard as a Student 1.1 Log in 1.2 Navigating Different Classes 1.3 Uploading a File to your Teacher 1.3.1 Adding a File to the Digital Dropbox 1.4 Using the Discussion Board 1.4.1 Adding a New Thread 1.4.2 Reply to Threads 2 Using Blackboard as a Teacher 2.1 Log in 2.2 Changing Your Password 2.3 Adding a Banner 3 Creating Your Course 3.1 Storyboarding Your Course 3.2 Adding Announcements 3.3 Creating Content Areas 3.4 Adding Documents to the Content Areas 3.5 Adding an Image or Movie to your page 4 Adding Functionality 4.1 Assignments 4.2 Tests and Quizzes 5 Basic HTML 5.1 Basic HTML Text Formating 5.2 Font Size 5.3 Font Colors 5.4 Font Type 5.5 Adding Hyperlinks 5.6 Bulleted and Numbered Lists 5.7 Adding Images 5.8 Adding Marques

[edit] Using Blackboard as a Student

[edit] Log in

If you are a member of a Blackboard system the first thing that you need to do is find out what the web address for the system is. For this example we will be showing the Monroe 1 BOCES site. So for logging in you would need to open your web browser and go to http://blackboard.monroe.edu. Once you are there you will see a screen like this

From here you will want to enter your username and password. This will give you access to your personal page. On this page you will see a list of classes that you are enrolled in as well as any classes that you are teaching. By clicking on the course name you will go to that course. So if you are a student enrolled into all of your years courses you will see a list of those courses.

[edit] Navigating Different Classes

You can always see the different classes that you are enrolled in on the My Institution tab in Blackboard.

This will show both the classes that you are enrolled in and the classes that you are teaching. To go to a class simply click on the name of the course. For example if I wanted to go to the Blackboard Training Course in the above example I would simply click on the title of the course. The next page you would be brought to is that courses main page. Each of the course pages may look a bit different but the navigation is essentially the same.

There are basically three ways to navigate a page in Blackboard. You can use the

• Course area buttons
• Breadcrumb trail
• Course map

The Course area buttons are defined by the teacher of the course, but are always on the right hand side of the page. The Breadcrumb trail lists where you are within the web site. So for example if I look at the top of a course I will see Courses>Course Name> My Location. Each of the names will have a link to the area except the area you are in. The Course Map shows the entire course that is available to you. This is a quick way to navigate to a specific area of the course. Simply click on the + sign to expand the folders, and once you have expanded the folder enough to view the section you are looking for simply click on the section to open to the information that you want.

[edit] Uploading a File to your Teacher

As a student in a course you have the ability to upload a file to your teacher. Using what is know as the Digital Dropbox in Blackboard you can send you teacher a file. To access the digital dropbox as a student you will need to click on tools.

This will give you a page that lists all of the different user tools in Blackboard. Simply clicking on digital dropbox link you will be brought to the digital dropbox.

The digital dropbox gives you two options for upload Add File and Send File. The difference between these two options is that Add File adds the file to the students dropbox, while the Send File button uploads the file directly to the teacher. So to send a file directly to your teacher click on the Send File button. This will open a window that allows you to specify the file that you want to upload.

As a student at this page you will want to first give your file a name.

Note: As a teacher you will want to make sure that you have set a way to have students name their assignment so that as they upload their files to the dropbox you can easily sort through them.

Then simply click on the browse button to find the file on your computer that you want to add. Once you have added the file you can add additional comments to the file so that you know what the file is. When you have finished filling all of this information out you will want to click the Submit button.

Then you will see a screen that lets you know that your file was successfully received.

[edit] Adding a File to the Digital Dropbox

As a student you can add a file to your digital dropbox to upload to your teacher later.

To do this you can click on the Add File button, which will open a window which will let you add a file to your digital dropbox.

As a student at this page you will want to first give your file a name.

Note: As a teacher you will want to make sure that you have set a way to have students name their assignment so that as they upload their files to the dropbox you can easily sort through them.

Then simply click on the browse button to find the file on your computer that you want to add. Once you have added the file you can add additional comments to the file so that you know what the file is. When you have finished filling all of this information out you will want to click the Submit button. You should receive a pop up warning telling you that the file has been added to your digital dropbox, but not submitted.

Now later on if you want to send the file, you would select the Send File option. To select the file you would use the drop down menu on the Send File page.

[edit] Using the Discussion Board

As a student your teacher may set up a threaded discussion board. This gives students the necessary think time that they may need to post their thoughts to a question you have asked. You can also use this area to create an online community outside of your classroom. As a student depending on how your teacher has the class set up you can access the discussion board in a few different ways. One is by simply clicking on the button called Discussion Board. The other way is to click on the Communications button and then clicking on the link to the Discussion Board link. Either of these will bring you to an area that shows all of the discussion threads in your course.

To enter one of the discussion simply click on the the title. Now you will see an area that contains different threads. Depending on how new the area is, and the directions from your teacher, you may have to add your own thread.

[edit] Adding a New Thread

To do this simply click on the Add Thread button at the top of the page. This will give you the ability to add a thread to the discussion. Think of each thread as a topic within a discussion board.

Once you have clicked on Add Thread you will see a screen that asks you to add a subject and message, with the option to add an attachment.

Once you have asked your question or made your statement you can simply click Submit and your thread will appear.

[edit] Reply to Threads

If you are reading the different threads within a discussion and want to reply to one of your classmates you don't have to create a new thread to do this, you can simply reply to their post. While you are reading a thread you will see a button at the end of the tread that says Reply. By clicking on this you will be able to simply reply to the initial thread or any other replies. This is the best way to carry on a conversation in a threaded discussion board.

Once you have typed out your reply you will simply want to hit Submit and you will see that your reply appears and has been labeled as New. This is helpful so that you can see what you have read and what you haven't.

[edit] Using Blackboard as a Teacher

[edit] Log in

To login to Blackboard you have to enter the web address to your Blackboard site. For Monroe #1 BOCES this is http://blackboard.monroe.edu/. This will bring up a screen similar to this.

Once you are at this page you will want to click on the Login button. This will bring you to a place to enter your Username and Password.

Once you have entered your Username and Password click the Login button. This will bring you to your user page.

[edit] Changing Your Password

Once you have logged in for the first time you may want to change your password to something that you will remember. To do this make sure that you are in the My Institution tab and then click on the link on the left hand side of the screen labeled Personal Information.

Clicking on this link will bring you to an area within Blackboard that allows you to edit information that relates to your personal Blackboard account.

The second link on the page allows you to change the password. Simply enter your new password in the Password area, and then reenter your password in the Verify Password area. Once you have done this simply click on the Submit button. You should see a screen that lets you know your user information has been Successfully Updated. Click OK and you will be returned to the Personal Information area.

[edit] Adding a Banner

You can add your own personalized banner to your Blackboard course. You can either create your own in something like Photoshop or use one of the suggested websites below. One thing that you want to take into account is the size of your banner. You will want to keep your banner size roughly 450 by 90 pixels. This will make your banner appear nicely on most computers.

Once you have created your banner you will want to add the banner to your course. To add a banner go to the Control Panel, click on the Settings link, then click on the Course Design link, and then the Course Banner link. Then click on Browse and find where you have saved your banner on your own computer. Once you have located your banner click Submit. You will then see a Successful Completed message simply click OK and you will be returned to the control panel.

Here are some different places to create a banner on your own.

http://www.animationonline.com/S/banner_templates.html
http://coder.com/creations/banner/banner-form.pl.cgi
http://www.flamingtext.com/start.html

[edit] Creating Your Course

[edit] Storyboarding Your Course

Before you begin creating anything you should have some idea of how you want your course to look and feel. This will help you in with the time it takes you to create the course. By planning out what you want to include in your course, for example if you want to organize folders by week or by unit. You can use this worksheet if you would like. Another way to simply do your storyboard may be to outline information in a similar way to the way the curriculum is organized. For example I might organize the units for my 8th grade Social Studies class like this. Making each of the primary bullets a folder and then with in that folder I would put either another folder for each secondary bullet.

8th Grade Social Studies

• The 1920's
  • Prohibition
  • The Model T
  • The Scope's Monkey Trial
  • Stock Market Crash
• The 1930's
  • The Great Depression
  • Alphabet Soup (FDR's Economic Plan)

Once I have my course storyboarded out I would begin to add the different folders that I want to create.

[edit] Adding Announcements

When your students login to Blackboard they have the option to view Announcement from each of the courses that are enrolled in.

You can add announcements for your students as reminders and let them know what is new in your course. To add an announcement you will have to login as a teacher. You should be at the Institution view at this point. You should find your course in the My Courses section of the page. Simply click on the title of the course you are going to be working on. Then you will have to click on the Control Panel link at the bottom left hand side of the page. This will open the Control Panel. The control panel is where you as a teacher will do all of your course updating from adding announcements to course content. To add an Announcement click on the link called Announcements under the Course Tools section of the control panel.

This will open a page that shows the announcements that you have for the course.

In the upper right hand corner of the page is a link called Add Announcement by clicking this you will be brought to a form that allows you to add announcements to your course.

You will want to fill in the information minimally in Subject and the Message text areas. This will be the message that appears to your students. In the Options section of the form you can choose to have this message appear to all students all of the time, or set a time limit for how long the announcement will appear. The Course Link area of the form will allow you to link to a location in your course so that you can direct students to a specific area of the course. Once you have completed the fields with the information that you need to add, simply click on Submit which will bring you back to the announcements area showing all of your announcements. One thing that you will want to be aware of is that by default Blackboard only shows the announcements for one week, you would have to click on the tabs above the announcements to view more than one weeks announcements.

[edit] Creating Content Areas

Since you have used the storyboard to map out your course you will now want to start to build the actual areas within the course. These areas are the navigation buttons along the left hand of your Blackboard course. To build these areas you will need to go to the Control Panel, the link at the bottom left hand side of your main course page. Once you are in the control panel you will see an area labeled Course Options and a link called Manage Course Menu. Click on the Manage Course Menu link. This will open a window that shows you all of the different items that are available to you. It also shows different things that you can add to this menu.

These additional menu items are:

• Content Area - This creates your own button for an area or use one of Blackboard's predefined options
• Tool Link - This allows you to create a quick link directly to one of the tools in Blackboard such as the digital dropbox
• Course Link - This links directly to a specific place in your course if it is an area that your students will access often
• External Link - This creates a link to a web page outside of Blackboard

To add any of these items click on the link to add the content item. For example if I want to add an area called 8th grade Social Studies I would click on Add Content Area. This will bring you to an area where you have a few options. At this page you can give the area your own name, allow guest access (think parents), and whether the area will be accessible by students. Once you have completed this click Submit and you will receive a confirmation that you have successfully completed creating the area.

If you want to change the order of the buttons you can also do this within the Manage Course Menu area. To do this simply click on the number next to the area you want to move. Select where you want the button to appear by the number in the list. So if you want the 8th grade button to be in the middle of a 5 button menu click and select 3. This will move the button to the third space on your menu.

[edit] Adding Documents to the Content Areas

Now that you have an idea on what your course is going to contain lets start adding content to your course. There are a few different ways that you can add content to your course. The first thing is decide what area you want to add your content to. Take a look at your storyboard to decide on how you are going to do this.

For example I want to add a basic syllabus in my course document area. To do this I first need to click on the Control Panel link in the lower left hand corner of your screen. This will bring you to a page which gives you all of your controls.

Once I am at my control panel area I will see a list of the Content Areas that I have defined. By clicking on one of the content areas I will be brought to a page that shows all of the content that I have in that area. I will also see at the top of the page a list of different types of content that I can add.

The different types of content that can be added to a course are:

• Item - This can be basic text or a document
• Folder - Just like a folder on your computer use these to organize your content
• External Link - This is a link to a web page outside of Blackboard
• Course Link - This is a link to a place inside of your Blackboard course
• Test - Add a test that you have created in Blackboard

The most basic way that you can add content is to simply add an item. This allows you to type into a text area, and upload a document of your choice. To do this click on the Add Item link. This will open a window where you can add the information about your item, or simply make the text the item itself.

An Item has a few different fields where you will want to add text to name and describe your content. The different fields are:

• Name - You can either choose a predetermined name or add your own
• Color - If you want to add colors to separate different items you can do this to the name
• Text - This is where you can add a description and additional information on the item, or use this to make the item itself
• File to Attach - This is the document that you are adding from your computer
• Name of Link to File - This is the name that will appear as a link to your file
• Special Action - This allows you to make certain content act in a specific way
• Make the content available - You can choose to hide content from students allowing you to pre-plan
• Add offline content - If you want to have students access a file on a CD you can do this here
• Track number of views - This will let you know how many people have accessed the content
• Add meta data - This is if you want to add information about the document
• Choose date restrictions - This makes content only available for a set amount of time

The fields that you should fill out are a Name, Description, and then finally the content itself. To add a document first click on the Browse button. This will open a window that will let you browse your computer for the specific document that you want to add. Click select the file that you want. Now you will want to give the file a name, such as assignment 2. Next you choose a Special Action if you would like.

The different Special Actions include:

• Create a link to this file (default)- This creates a link to the file allowing you to open it or save it
• Display media file within the page - This will let you add pictures and movies to your page without opening a new page
• Unpackage this file - This will allow you to upload an executable file

Then you can choose if you would like to make the content avaiable to your students or have it appear on a certain day. Once you have completed this information simply click Submit and you will be told if your content was uploaded successfully. Note: if you choose either Display media file within the page or Unpackage this file you will have additional options to fill out

[edit] Adding an Image or Movie to your page

If you choose to add an item that is an image or movie to your page and don't want to have students have to open an additional page to view the content you can do this by selecting the Display media file within the page option when uploading an image or movie. If you do you will be asked additional questions in the next window that you see.

The different options relate to the way that you want the image to appear in relation to the text on the page. The different options are:

• Alignment - This aligns your image like you might align text in word
• Placement - This lets you choose if you want students to read the text before the movie or after the movie
• Border - You can add a border to your image up to 5 pixels
• Alternate Text - You should add alternate text in case a student uses a screen reader
• URL - If you want to link the image to a website add the entire link here
• Launch in new window - This will launch a new window if you are adding a URL to the image

Here is a list of content that Blackboard accepts.

[edit] Adding Functionality

[edit] Assignments

Once you have logged into your course, you will want to navigate to the Control Panel. Once you are at the Control Panel, you will want to click on the link labeled Assignments in the upper right hand corner of the Control Panel page.

At this point you have the following options if you have not created any content prior to this.

You can:

Add an Item

Which allows you to simply create a basic test question as if you were adding content in other areas of Blackboard.

Add a Folder

This allows you to add a folder to organize your content.

Add a External Link

This allows you to add a web link to the area.

Add a Course Link

This allows you to link to another area inside of your Blackboard Course.

Add a Test

This allows you to add a test that you have already created or create a test.

[edit] Tests and Quizzes

Blackboard allows you to create tests and quizzes for students. One option is to create individual tests or to create tests from a pool of questions. Each of these has its benefits and short comings.

creating from a pool If you have a group of questions that you have already created in a word document or perhaps a list of old regents questions that are available in an electronic format you can add these to a test pool.

Blackboard has a specific way to upload questions that are from an electronic document. The first step is to get the questions into Blackboards format. So get your list of questions, open up Excel or another spreadsheet program.

[edit] Basic HTML

There are a lot of different things that you can do to dress up your basic text area in Blackboard. The text areas in Blackboard allows you to add HTML tags. A tag is anything that looks similar to this <tag>.

[edit] Basic HTML Text Formating

You can add HTML tags in the plain text areas that you normally enter your descriptions. This is something that you may or may not want to try. If you want to experiment you can always test it in a hidden area of your Blackboard Course.

To add italicized text you can simply add the following tags to the text that you want italicized.

<i>text that you want italicized</i>

To add underlined text you can simiply add the following tags to the text that you want underlined.Note: Underlining should be used sparingly as it may confuse the user into thinking that text is a link.

<u>text that you want underlined</u>

[edit] Font Size

HTML font sizes are usually measured from a zero point. Zero font is usually the default size. From the 0 point font sizes can be presented from –6 to +6. The negative number sizes are incrementally smaller than zero with negative 6 as the smallest text size and positive 6 as the largest text size.

<font size=”+1”>Today is Tuesday. </font>

[edit] Font Colors

HTML colors can be displayed by using a color name or a color code number. There are references on the web that will show you what colors will look like whether displayed by color name or color code number.

One location you can check for color references is: http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_colors.asp

More than one text command can be entered in the beginning font tag. When more than one font command is entered, the word font is typed once, and then a space follows that. Then you would place a descriptor such as color or size, then an equal sign, and in quotes the specifics of the command.

The example below would result in a size and color change to text.

<font color=”blue” size=”+1”>This is blue text, one size larger than 0</font>

[edit] Font Type

Within the font tag, command for a type of font like Arial, Comic Sans MS, or others can also be added. Note: some fonts won't appear to your users unless they have the font loaded on their computer

<font face=”Comic Sans MS”>  text here </font>

If font face was to be included with other font tags it might appear something like this:

<font color=”blue” size=”+1” face=”comic sans ms>Blue text one size larger with Comic Sans
Font Type</font>

[edit] Adding Hyperlinks

Hyperlinks can be added to announcements, a folder, or any document description by the following method. To add a hyperlink you can simply add the following tag.

<a href="http://www.google.com">Link to Google</a>

[edit] Bulleted and Numbered Lists

Here is an example of a bulleted list html code:

Students are required to have the following school supplies

Tags to create an unordered list.

 <ul>
 <li> Bullet One
 <li> Bullet Two
 <li> Bullet Three
 <li> Bullet Four
 </ul>  
 

• Bullet One
• Bullet Two
• Bullet Three
• Bullet Four

To create an ordered list

 <ol>
 <li> Number One
 <li> Number Two
 <li> Number Three
 <li> Number Four
 </ol> 
 

1. Number One
2. Number Two
3. Number Three
4. Number Four

[edit] Adding Images

Adding an Image with the IMG SRC code

Find and save graphics you want to use. To do that, Right click on a graphic and SAVE PICTUE AS… to your hard drive, server folder, or floppy. I got this flag from: http://classroomclipart.com/

<img src="http://www.tadgeobrien.com/photo/photo.php?file=/My%20Pics/fog-holimont.JPG">

[edit] Adding Marques

You can add the moving marques like those outside of the movie theaters by adding HTML code also. You can do this by hand, or use the following web site to create the marque code for you.

http://www.ezcybersites.com/html-goodies/marque-html-code-creator.html

 <div style="width:100%;padding:0;margin:0;border-style:solid;border-width:1;border-color:darkred;">
 <MARQUEE bgcolor="beige" border="0" align="middle" scrollamount="2"  scrolldelay="90"
 behavior="scroll" align="middle"  width="100%" height="20" style="color: darkorchid; font-size: 14">
 ng text goes here
 </MARQUEE>
 </div>