Teaching with Blackboardme

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Adding Content

• Adding Course Materials: Basic Structure
• Adding or Editing Course Materials
  • Adding or Editing an Item
  • Adding or Editing a Folder
  • Adding or Editing External Links
• Modifying Existing Entries

Adding Course Materials: Basic Structure

Before adding course materials, it is a good idea to "storyboard" or layout your course on paper. By determining ahead how you want to organize and structure the course, you will save hours of moving documents around inside Blackboard. Course structure will vary according to discipline and professor preference.

Control Panel:

Click the Control Panel button on the left side of the screen in your Course homepage to make changes, add document, folders and external links to the course.

Content Areas:

Though you might not use all of the Content Areas, they will appear in your Control Panel. Click the link to add or modify content. Faculty members frequently use the Content Areas as follows:

• Course Information is used for syllabus, forms and other documentation that students will refer to repeatedly throughout the semester.
• Course Documents is used for course structure, units, objectives, lectures, etc.
• Assignments is used for quizzes, exams and work to be completed, generally divided by unit or week. This could also be included in the course structure.
• External Links is used for web resources.
  
  Note: To modify Content Areas, click Customizing Blackboard.

• Decide which category fits the content you are adding:
  
  
• Items are individual, stand-alone files.
• Folders are useful when there are several documents to be added dealing with one topic.
• External Links are URLs link to specific web resources directly from a Content Area.

Other options include:

• Surveys in Blackboard are by definition anonymous. The Gradebook,whether a user has taken the survey or not, will not provide data on how an individual answered a particular question. Blackboard does however provide an item analysis for the survey. See Assessments > Surveys for more information about surveys.
• Assignment allows to create a link to a document that students download, complete and submit back to the faculty member. Once the faculty member has graded the assignment, the grade is automatically entered into the Gradebook and students can access their grade and comments. See Assignment Manager for how to use this feature.
• Discussion Board, Chat, Virtual Classroom, Group, and Tool allow to place a direct link from a Content Area to a Discussion Board.
• Syllabus is a feature that allows to create a simple syllabus from a customizable template. The syllabus opens directly into the Content Area.
• Offline Content allows to point to files on a CD that students load into their individual PCs. If you have many large, static files (PowerPoints or multimedia), they can be burned to a CD and distributed to students, who can then view them locally, without worrying about long download times.
• SCORM, IMS and NLN are standards for packaged content imported into Blackboard. NIU does not provide support for importing these formats.
• Podcast Episodes allows faculty to post a podcast of their lectures online.
• Wimba Classroom is an online collaboration suite that integrates with Blackboard and allows educators and students to engage in meaningful and memorable interactions by combining interactive technologies with instructional best practices.
• Self and Peer Assessment
• SafeAssign is a free plagiarism prevention tool that allows to protect the originality of work and ensure a fair playing ground for all your students. SafeAssign is integrated with Blackboard and prevents plagiarism by detecting unoriginal content in students papers within your existing teaching and learning environment.
• Scholar Stream
• Scholar Bookmark allows to add website that a faculty member has bookmarked using scholar software.

Adding or Editing Item:

1. Enter the course after logging into Blackboard.
2. Click Course Information or Course Documents.
   
   
3. Click Edit View.
   
   
4. Click the Item button.
   
   
5. Name the Item and Choose Color of Name.
   
   
6. Enter Text to describe the Item.
   
   Note: Text can also be copied and pasted from a Word File. Files could also be attached using these buttons:
   
   
7. Attach a file by clicking the Browse button.
   
   
8. Select Date and Time when the Item should be available to students.
   
9. Click the Submit button.
   

Adding or Editing Folder:

1. Enter the course after loging into Blackboard.
2. Click Course Information or Course Documents.
   
   
3. Click Edit View.
   
   
4. Click the Folder button.
   


5. Name the Folder and Choose Color of Name.
   
   
6. Enter Text to describe the Folder.
   
   Note: Text can also be copied and pasted from a Word File. Files could also be attached using these buttons:
   
   
7. Attach a file by clicking the Browse button.
   
   
8. Select Date and Time when the Folder should be available to students.
   
9. Click the Submit button.
   

Adding or Editing External Links:

1. Enter the course after logging into Blackboard.
2. Click Course Information or Course Documents.
   
   
3. Click Edit View.
   
   
4. Click the External Link button.
   
   
5. Name the Link and enter the URL for the website .
   
   
6. Enter Text to describe the Link.
   
   Note: Text can also be copied and pasted from a Word File. Files could also be attached using these buttons:
   
   
7. Attach a file by clicking the Browse button.
   
   
8. Select Date and Time when the Link should be available to students.
   
9. Click the Submit button.
   

Modifying Existing Entries

1. Enter the course after logging into Blackboard.
2. Click the Control Panel button.
   
   
3. Select the appropriate Content Area.
   
   
4. Click Modify, Manage, Copy or Remove in the existing entry.
   
5. Make necessary changes.
6. Click the Submit button.
   

A wide variety of content types can be uploaded to Blackboard. Virtually any file type that a user can open on his or her computer can be uploaded. Some examples include:

• Microsoft Office files (.DOC, .DOCX, .XLS, .XLSX, .PPT, .PPTX, .MDB, .PUB, etc.)
• Read-only files (.SWF, .PDF)
• Image files (.GIF, .JPG, .PNG, .BMP, etc.)
• Plain and rich text files (.TXT, .RTF, .CSV, etc.)
• Multimedia presentations (.SWF)
• Audio amd video (.WMV, .SWF, .FLA, etc.)

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Blackboard Frequently Asked Questions

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Find more answers...
Are you looking for more information related to posting course content in Blackboard? Review the answers to frequently asked questions asked by NIU faculty and staff regarding course content in Blackboard. Also, consider attending an upcoming Blackboard workshop.

Last Updated: 06/11/2008

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