Monday, October 29, 2007

My Organization Plus


Add/remove enrollments to community

Have you ever needed to put someone in your community or remove someone from a community? We have a building block tool for Blackboard that will allow this. It is called 'My Organizations Plus'. This tool will allow you to control user access to your community.

From the eCommunity area you should now have a “My Organization Plus” module on the page.

If you don’t have this module, go into the Modify Content button (top right corner) and add this module.

This module will allow you to add/remove users from Organizations/Communities. Removing users will remove them from the gradebook.
NOTE: Removing users will also remove any work they’ve completed in the course. If you add the user back in, all their previous work will be lost.

To utilize this, simply click on the Edit Users link next to the Organization.

To add users
  1. click the add users button
  2. add the user id for those you want to add
  3. set the role for that user
  4. click modify.
To remove users
  1. put a check in the box to the left of their name
  2. click modify at the bottom right of the screen
You now have control over users in your community/organization.

Monday, October 22, 2007

bFree

Converting your course to a standalone web site

Have you ever wanted to convert your Blackboard course into a stand alone website? The University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill has created a free software tool that will do just that.

You simply download and install the software onto your computer. Then archive or export your course from Blackboard and download it to your computer. Run your archive/export through bFree and it'll give you a standalone website of your course.

It will extract course content, text, announcements, forums and group/course uploaded documents that are directly in your course. (It does not currently pull files linked from the content collection.)

For more information or to download the software, visit their website at http://its.unc.edu/tl/tli/bFree/index.php.

Monday, October 15, 2007

Compress Powerpoint with voice files

Reduce that file size

Do you post PowerPoint lectures with voice narration to Blackboard? Adding voice narrations in Powerpoint can create very large files. In an effort to decrease file size, the amount of space taken up in your course and also download time for students, consider using authorPOINT Lite. This free tool compresses the files and makes them flash files. This allows for an expedited download process for the students.

Go here
http://www.authorgen.com/ and download the free authorPOINT Lite.

Using the Program

  1. Once it is installed on your computer, open the program (authourPOINT Lite).

  2. Click import
  3. Browse to find your PPT file

  4. Once your ppt file is listed in the import box click Import Now at the bottom.

You can change the save location if you want.

Once it has been imported (converted) you’ll take the files it produced and put them in Blackboard.



Uploading to Blackboard

Directly in the course
If you put files directly in the course here’s what you’ll need to do.

  1. Go to where you saved the import. Inside the folder for the import, you’ll see 2 folders. One is called powerpoint and the other is called ap Lite flash. The ap Lite flash folder is the one you want.

  2. You can rename the folder if you want.
  3. You need to zip this folder. (right click on the folder, slide to send to and choose Compressed (zipped) Folder)

  4. Now go to Blackboard and click add item in the content area where you want the file.

  5. In step 2 browse your local hard drive to find the zip folder and select it.

  6. Then (still in step 2 in Bb) there is a dropdown list for what you want to do with the file. You want to select Unpackage Document.
  1. Set the other settings as you’d like and click submit.

  2. Then you are going to be presented with a list of files. These are the files in the zip folder. Bb wants to know what is the first page it should display. You need to find and select index.html.

  3. Then submit.

Your file is there and ready to go.

In the eContent Collection
If you put your files in the eContent Collection you don’t need to zip the file.

  1. Go to eContent Collection and click on the web folder button from the menu to open the folder.

  2. Then drag the AP Lite Flash folder (or whatever you renamed it to) into your eContent collection folder.

  3. Now you need to set the permissions for this folder so your class has access to all the content. (if you don't know how to set permissions, watch this video http://elearning.kctcs.edu/bbcswebdav/institution/eLearning%20Technology%20Tutorials/ePortfolio/uploadfiles/uploadfiles.html)

  4. Once it is there, go to your course and click on add item in the content area where you want the file. .

  5. Select to link to content collection.

  1. In the content collection you’ll also be looking for the index.html file that is in the folder you just uploaded. Select the index.html files.

  2. Submit

Your file is there and ready to go.

Monday, October 1, 2007

Blackboard and email

Where are my Blackboard emails?

Do you ever check your junk mail folder? Have you found your emails from Blackboard there? This is where many Blackboard emails end up. If this is happening to you, you just need to tell Outlook that this isn't junk mail.

There are a couple ways this can be accomplished, but I'm going to show you how to make sure any email from Blackboard comes to your inbox and not your junk folder.

  1. Open Outlook
  2. Click the Tools menu
  3. Slide down and click Options


  1. From the Preferences tab, click the Junk E-mail button


  1. Now click the Safe Sender tab

  1. Click the Add button
  2. Type in @kctcs.edu
  3. Click the OK button (this is on the screen where you entered the @kctcs.edu)
  4. Click the OK button on the Safe Senders tab
  5. Click the OK button on the Options screen
Your email is now set for all email from Blackboard to come to your Outlook inbox.