eTips

More Faculty Bb v9 things to know

2009-06-05T09:31:00.001-04:00

1. COURSE COPY

When copying your course to a new shell, you may not have the “Browse” button to search for the new shell to copy to. If this happens you can try to change the dropdown list at the top to Exact Copy then change it back to Existing Shell. You should now have your browse button. If not, you can copy the course code for the shell you need to copy into (example: HEC_4086_IT_130_35Z3_1773) and paste it in the Copy Course text box.

Also when you are selecting components to copy DO NOT select enrollments. If you do this, the enrollments in this shell you are copying from will get added to the new semester’s course shell. This can take a while for us to correct, so please do not copy enrollments when copying content.

All enrollments in Peoplesoft will be added to the proper course shells in Blackboard.
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2. START and END Dates

We need to make you aware of the situations we are seeing in Blackboard with setting course dates and availability of test.

Course Duration:
1. If you set the course duration dates on Blackboard, this removes the course from the Student’s Blackboard portal until the start date has been reached. This is causing many emails to come to support as students perceive something is wrong. We suggest you use Available/Unavailable option as this leaves the course on the Student’s portal when it is set to Unavailable but they can’t get into the course.

2. If you still decide to use Course Duration dates, email your students to let them know the course won’t appear on Blackboard until the start date.

3. Also, if you use Course Duration dates and you only set the Start Date, there is the potential you will lock yourself out of your course. You must set both the start and end date to prevent this.

Tests:

When using tests availability dates, set both a Start and End date/time. If you don’t, you will not be able to go back in and edit this test.

We are also advising that anytime you set a date, set both the start and end date as a precaution to prevent this from happening.

Here are all the conditions we seen this with:
- Start date has not yet been reached and the is no end date set.
- End date has passed and there is no start date.
- End date precedes the start date.
We have reported this to Blackboard
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3. COURSE PROPERTIES PAGE

Faculty – When accessing the Properties area of your course to set your course to Available, you don’t need to do anything with the Classification or the Categorize area. Both of these deal with the Blackboard course catalog which we don’t use.
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4. ANNOUNCEMENTS

Faculty – this is a reminder that currently Announcements in your course will only show IF the course is set to Available. We are working with Blackboard on this.

We’ve also seen where some are having trouble deleting Announcements (especially those created while the course was unavailable). If you are having trouble, you can try this: Move the first announcement down to the bottom of the page. Repeat this until the first one is back at the top of the page. You should now be able to delete your Announcements. Please contact the helpdesk if you are still having trouble deleting them.
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5. ASSIGNMENT TOOL

We’ve been receiving reports that student’s attachments are not getting submitted when students are submitting assignments. In this version on Blackboard, students MUST click the attach button after they’ve browsed for their file. If they don’t click the attach button, the assignment will be submitted without the attachment. Please make your students aware of this new process in Blackboard. An email is also being sent to all students to let them know about this new process.
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6. BACKPACK

FYI, The Blackboard Backpack tool does not work with version 9. We contacted the company and they said due to technology incompatibilities between the 2 programs there currently aren’t any plans to take this product forward. We will also send this out to students so they are aware of this.
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7. BLACKBOARD NOTIFICATIONS

As you have probably seen, the new version of Blackboard sends notifications about several items to you and to students. The links on these notifications aren’t currently working. We’re working with Blackboard on this, but it may help eliminate some emails if you let students know about these invalid links.

Also, we’re aware that when you send Announcements as emails, they are coming in as notifications instead of showing the actual message. We’ve submitted an enhancement request to Bb to allow the text of the Announcement to be sent.
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Student Bbv9 things to know

2009-06-05T09:28:00.001-04:00

KCTCS Blackboard Students:

Please read the following as it will assist you in handling issues in Blackboard.

1. HELP DESK

A reminder to contact the 24/7 help desk at 866-590-9238 if you encounter any technical issues with Blackboard. If you have questions about assignments, tests or course content, please contact your instructor directly with these types of questions.
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2. ASSIGNMENTS TOOL

Students – Please be aware that there is a NEW process when submitting assignments through Blackboard. To correctly submit assignments, browse and select your file THEN click the attach button. If the attach button isn’t clicked, your attachment isn’t getting submitted to your instructor.

Thanks for your attention to this new process.
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3. BLACKBOARD NOTIFICATIONS

As you have probably seen, the new version of Blackboard sends notifications about several items in courses. The links on these notifications aren’t currently working. Also, when you reply to these messages, it comes to elearning support not the instructor. We’re working with Blackboard on this. In the meantime, please login to Blackboard at http://elearning.kctcs.edu to access your course or contact your instructor directly.
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4. BLACKBOARD BACKPACK

FYI, The Blackboard Backpack tool does not work with version 9. We contacted the company and they said due to technology incompatibilities between the 2 programs there currently aren’t any plans to take this product forward.
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Bb v9: current issues and work arounds @ KCTCS

2009-05-27T18:02:00.002-04:00

Please read through the comprehensive list below of the issues we are currently monitoring with Blackboard version 9 to be familiar with them and any known workarounds. The issues we are seeing are not show stoppers but may be an annoyance until corrected. They have been reported to Blackboard.

If you experience trouble, please contact the help desk @ 866-590-9238 first. They can resolve many of the issues you may see.

1. Discussion forums are out of order and won’t “stick” when they are changed – this is a known bug; Bb is ordering them alphabetically. Current workaround is to add numbers to the Names to put them in order.

2. Can’t remove courses from their course list (gear icon) – known issue, can’t remove more than 25 courses from a list, Bb is aware of issue. But you can use the new My Places tool and set the settings to only show courses visited in X days. This can be done from the Personal Information area.

3. Error when posting discussion – this happens when the discussion board is linked to a content area. Although you get the error, the post is successful.

4. Announcements only appear (for instructor/student) once the course has been made available. Bb is aware of the issue.

5. Instructor not able to edit test settings. This is due to there being no start date and an end date that has already past. We are working on fixing the tests that are currently affected; but until the bug is resolved, when setting up tests make sure to put either both a start and end date or no date restrictions at all.

6. Links to eCommunities/Organizations aren’t working from the My Organizations Plus Module. The edit users feature of the My Organizations Plus Module still work. To access your organizations/ecommunities, use the My Organizations module or the My Places link at the top of Blackboard.

7. When grading discussion forums, you cannot mark messages as read from the Mark as Read action list. In Firefox, you can click the Mark as Read button; this doesn’t work in IE.

8. With this upgrade, we have turned off the Blackboard Collaboaration tools. Wimba tools should be used in their place.

9. When sending announcements as emails, the email doesn’t contain the text of the announcement. It contains a link back to Blackboard which is causing an error if the student isn’t logged in to Blackboard.

10. In Bb v8, the Tools and Communication area links were automatically on the navigation bar for students. These links were removed in the new version since Blackboard combined these two groups of tools. I know many of you just added the tools for your course to the navigation bar, and those are fine. But those of you who depended on those links for students to access the tools (my grades, discussion boards, messages, email, etc.), you will need to add the "Tools Area" link to your navigation bar in Bb 9. Once it is added you should check the page and Hide the links to tools you aren’t using.

11. We’ve seen odd text formatting and splitting of words when in areas, such as Discussion Boards, are viewed with IE – text formatting is fine with Firefox.

Thanks for your patience while we investigate these issues and remember to contact the help desk @ 866-590-9238 or review the information in the Help tab if you need any assistance.

Extra Credit in Grade Center

2008-09-23T14:21:00.001-04:00

There is a known issue in Bb 8 where this isn’t calculating correctly. The workaround is to modify the total column to include each of the individual columns instead of leaving the default of all columns option selected.

To do this:

1. Go into the Grade Center

2. Click the column name for your total grade

3. Select modify column

4. In step 3, choose the "Select Grade Columns, Calculated Columns and Categories" option

5. Select all columns (including the extra credit column) and click the arrow for these to be included in the final grade.

6. Click submit

The total column should now be including the extra credit column.

Be Authentic

2008-03-04T11:50:00.008-05:00

Moving Beyond Traditional Assessment

How do you know when a student has truly learned something? Testing an isolated skill or a memorized fact does not effectively measure a student's capabilities. In order to accurately evaluate what a person has learned, an assessment method needs to examine his or her collective abilities. This is authentic assessment.

Authentic assessment presents students with “real-world” challenges that require them to apply their relevant skills and knowledge. It measures their ability to perform a task in the way professionals in the field would perform it. Evaluation is based upon how well the learner demonstrates the behavior the learning is intended to produce.

The table below compares the attributes of traditional and authentic assessment on a continuum. While assessments do vary considerably in the forms they take, traditional assessment usually fits into the attributes on the left side of the continuum and authentic on the right.

This does not mean that traditional forms of assessment (multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, true/false, and matching tests or quizzes) should not be used. Traditional and Authentic assessments can be used together in different combinations to gauge learning. The key is determining which method is most appropriate for the material being taught. Look at this example from Authentic Assessment Toolbox by Jon Mueller:

“…if I had to choose a chauffeur from between someone who passed the driving portion of the driver's license test but failed the written portion or someone who failed the driving portion and passed the written portion, I would choose the driver who most directly demonstrated the ability to drive, that is, the one who passed the driving portion of the test. However, I would prefer a driver who passed both portions. I would feel more comfortable knowing that my chauffeur had a good knowledge base about driving (which might best be assessed in a traditional manner) and was able to apply that knowledge in a real context (which could be demonstrated through an authentic assessment).”

Whether you choose to use traditional assessment, authentic assessment, or a combination, remember that assessments should be designed so that student learning is clear (measureable) and directly related to the learning competencies. Also, remember to provide your students continuous feedback throughout the course, using both formative and summative assessments.

Helpful resources:

Authentic Assessment Toolbox: http://jonathan.mueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/toolbox/whatisit.htm
Rubrics for Web Lessons: http://webquest.sdsu.edu/rubrics/weblessons.htm
Authentic Assessment Overview:
http://www.teachervision.fen.com/teaching-methods-and-management/educational-testing/4911.html

View new postings

2008-03-04T11:31:00.005-05:00

Ever wanted just to view new Discussion Board postings?

This can be done in Blackboard's discussion board.

When you go in to the Discussion board, there is a column for number of unread postings. If you click the number link you'll be taken to a page with only the unread postings for that board. Once you read them, you can then select all and mark them as read.

Give it a try!

No odd symbols

2008-02-12T15:22:00.000-05:00

Submitted assignments should not have odd characters in the file name

Some of you tried the tip from last week and then ran into a snag. Here's what is going on and how to avoid it.

If an assignment submission has an odd character like the slash (/), pound sign (#), etc. and you attempt to download multiple submissions in a zip file, Blackboard will give an error message.

Tell your students not to use these characters in the file name when they upload and submit assignments. Blackboard advises to only use alpha, numeric and underscores in any file name uploaded to the course. This will ensure success when you download them all at once.

If students have already submitted, the workaround is to rename the assignment submission (not the grade book item), removing that character, then try again. Or you can download that student's submission individually.

Happy Downloading!

Do it all at once!

2008-01-31T10:51:00.000-05:00

Did you know you can download submitted assignments all at once?

For each assignment you have in Blackboard, you can download all student submissions simultaneously.

How To:

From your course go into the Control Panel and into your Grade Book
Click on the Title of the Assignment
Click on Item Download

Student names have been hidden on this screenshot.

Click on Select Ungraded
Click Submit
When the page refreshes, there will be a link to Download assignments now

Click the link
Click Save
Navigate to where you want to save the file
Click Save
This is a zip file. You'll now need to unzip the file to access each student's assignment.

To unzip folders:

Double click the zip folder to open it
On the left side, click extract files

Click Next 2 or 3 times from the wizard
Click finish
Your folder will open up with the unzipped files.
The unzipped folder is in the same location as the zip folder so you can find it later.

You can now open and grade the assignments individually and submit the grades to the grade book in Blackboard.

Have it delivered!

2008-01-15T14:22:00.000-05:00

Discussions delivered to your inbox

Do you use the discussion board in your Blackboard online courses? Wouldn't it be nice to know when someone makes a post to it? Well, now you can! Think subscription.

We are now on version 7.3 of Blackboard. In this version you have the option of allowing users subscribe to an entire forum. When they subscribe to the forum, a notification is sent to their KCTCS Outlook inbox. You can't reply to the discussion from the inbox, but it does let you know that things are going on.

Setting it up

When creating your forum you'll see these options:

Allow members to subscribe to threads - If you choose this option, users must subscribe to every thread in a forum to get email notification.

Allow members to subscribe to forum - This option will send an email notification for every thread in the forum. If you choose this option, you then have the option of what is sent in the email; the body of the post or a link to the post.

Subscribe

Now that you have added the option for subscription, here's how it will work from a users perspective:

When the user enters the discussion they will have a Subscribe button on the action bar. (NOTE: It will be on the main forum page if you let them subscribe to the forum. If you set it to subscribe to the thread, then it is on the action bar for the thread.)

Just click on the Subscribe button. Discussion postings will now be delivered to your inbox.

Unsubscribe: if you want to unsubscribe, just go back to where you subscribed and click the unsubscribe button.

Please release me

2008-01-08T15:10:00.000-05:00

Release content to students based on performance

Did you know that you can release additional content to students based on their performance in the course? Well, you can. This option is called Adaptive Release.

Adaptive Release can be used in a variety of ways. Let's look at a few examples of when you might choose to use it.

Examples

1.) You want students to pass a syllabus quiz before access any course content.
2.) You don't want to overwhelm students by presenting them all the course content at once at the beginning of the semester.
3.) Students must achieve a passing grade on a test before moving on to the next unit of content.
4.) You give a test on, let's say, fractions. You have a couple students who didn't do so well on the exam but they need to grasp fractions before they move on to the next unit.

These are all examples of when you may want to use the Adaptive Release feature. Now we'll take a look at how Adaptive Release would work for each of these examples.

Results

1.) You can set up a quiz on the syllabus and once they achieve a certain grade (set by the instructor) then the course content opens up.
2.) When students login to the course, they only see the first unit/module/chapter. Then after they complete a quiz on the unit, the next unit opens.
3.) You allow students to take a quiz multiple times until they've mastered the content and achieve a passing grade. Once they get the passing grade, the next unit of content opens.
4.) When a student doesn't pass the test on fractions, then supplemental content is opened up for them to brush up on fractions.

These are only a few examples of when you may want or need to use adaptive release. There are plenty more reasons you may decide to use it.

So, what do you think? Would you like to know how to adaptively release items in Blackboard?

It is pretty easy. You do need to have your content uploaded into Blackboard before you add the Adaptive Release.

Click the Manage button to the right of the item that you want to hide until criteria is met to release it.
Click Adaptive Release
You have 4 options for releasing content. You can release by date, membership, gradebook item, or review status. The examples mentioned above were all examples of the gradebook item.
If you are using a gradebook item, click the dropdown list to select the gradebook item that they need to complete. The number in the bracket at the end of the title is the number of points that item has.
When setting the score make sure to use points and not percents.
Click submit

Now when students meet the criteria you set, the new item will be opened for students.

Where's my delete button?

2008-01-03T11:36:00.000-05:00

How do I get rid of this content?

You may have noticed that you no longer have a delete or remove button in your eContent area. So, how do you remove old content if you don't have a delete button? Well, Blackboard has a new feature in the content area called "recycle bin". When you want to delete things, put the checkmark in front of the item then click "recycle".

This will move your content to the recycle bin. Like the recycle bin on your computer, this will let you restore something if you get rid of it by accident.

You have to be looking at your navigation bar with the folder view before you'll be able to see the recycle bin. If you need to retreive something from the recycle bin, click on it and you'll see the files you recycled. You then have a button to restore if you need to put it back.

Where did it go?

2007-12-10T15:30:00.000-05:00

Vanishing (and re-appearing) Tools

We've been seeing where tools are getting turned on and off in course shells. Although we haven't figured out what is causing it, we do know how to correct it. You can actually correct it yourself.

All tools are controlled through the control panel under Manage Tools in the Course Options area.

Click on Manage Tools.

You now have three areas of tools; Tool Availability, Building Block Tool Availability and Content Tool Availability.

You should check each of these areas to make sure you have the tools you want to use turned on and the tools you aren't using for class turned off.

Is that what it means?

2007-12-03T14:19:00.000-05:00

Check that wording

In Blackboard, you'll occasionally see text around an option or item that isn't necessarily clear. One of the best examples of this is the text surrounding an option for giving a test. In step 3, Self-Assessments, of modifying options for the test you have an option to Hide from the grade book. Upon first glance of this option, it seems like the option to select if you want to hide the grade from the students' grade book.

Stop right there! Notice this is under the sub-heading of Self-Assessments. So really what this option does is hide the grade from the instructor's grade book. Then when the instructor realizes their mistake and goes to remove this option they are faced with the dilemma of removing all submitted tests. If you do this, you've deleted all the submitted tests for that assessment and they can't be retrieved for you.

Can it be clarified? Yes, and we are asking for your help. We can edit any of the preset text in Blackboard. KCTCS has now edited the option mentioned above to make it more clear. Here is how it reads now:

If that image is too hard to read, here is the new text;
Hide the score of this test from the Instructor Gradebook.
If this item is checked, then the scores will not be included in the instructors Gradebook nor can they be retrieved by System Administrators. (This is used for self-assessment.) To hide this item from the student's gradebook, this must be done in the gradebook area. --Now doesn't that make more sense?

You can help! Here's where you can help and give us your suggestions. Let us know any area of Blackboard where the wording is confusing and/or unclear. We will then take a look at it and try to make it better. You can send suggested text too. Just email elearningsupport@kctcs.edu with the subject line of check that wording. Then let us know where in Blackboard the change needs to be made, what it says now and what you suggest. We'll let you know if the change will be made and when.

Thanks for helping out!

Keep it clean!

2007-11-21T09:31:00.000-05:00

Exceeds Course Quota

Have you been getting an email that you've exceeded your course quota? If so, you may want to clean up a few things to help save space in your course. We've noticed there are 2 big areas that count toward your course quota of 500 MB. This is a lot of space, so if you are using it all it is a good idea to keep your course as cleaned out as possible.

The 2 big areas are Messages and Assignments.

Messages

When you and your students use the messages area of Blackboard, attachments are added to your course size. We've seen several classes where large files (1mb or more) are sent back and forth sometimes multiple times and often by 30 plus students. Each of these files adds to your course quota. To clean these up you'll need to delete the messages from the course. You can copy and paste them into a word document and save them and the attachments on your hard drive if you need to keep them. Your students will also need to clean our their boxes, this also adds to the file size. This will free up a lot of space for your course.

Assignments

This is the 2nd big area where we are seeing large files. In Blackboard, once you grade an assignment you can delete the attachments without deleting the grades. This will also help save space in your course. A best practice is to download your students work and keep in on your hard drive. Once this is done and the assignment is graded, you can delete the submitted assignments.

How to:

To delete attachments to assignments, go into your gradebook in Blackboard.
Click on the title of the Assignment
Click on Item File Cleanup

Student names have been blurred out for privacy

This screen will show you the student name, grade, file name and file size. You can delete all the attachments or just the large ones (over 1000kb).
To delete all click on the Select All button or just click the check box in front of the ones you want to delete
Remember, this doesn't delete the column in the gradebook or their grade. It only deletes the attachments.
Click delete at the bottom to complete the process.

You are now on your way to having a clean course shell and you should stop receiving the exceeds quota emails.

Happy Cleaning.

Back-up that Grade Book

2007-11-12T11:32:00.000-05:00

Grade book back-ups

Things happen - especially when dealing with technology. Just as you should back-up your documents on your computer, you should back-up grades in your online course. Do not depend on the system for this. As an instructor, grades are your responsibility so take the actions needed to preserve them.

Don't ask "how often should I back it up?" This is going to depend on the instructor and the course. For example, if you have weekly assignments and grades then you should back-up weekly.

It only takes a few minutes to back them up them from Blackboard. Once they are backed-up, the file can be open and viewed by a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel.

How To:

Go into your course
Click on the control panel
Click on the grade book
Click on the Download Grades button
Select comma or tab delimited. If you aren't sure about them, it doesn't really matter if you chose comma or tab delimited as the back-up file. Either can be opened by a spreadsheet program.
Click Submit
When completed, click download to save to your computer
Navigate to where you want to save the file on your hard drive and save it

Your grades have now been backed-up

When you need to access this file, simply locate it on your hard drive and open it up. It will open with your spreadsheet program. If you don't have one, you can open it with google docs or open office.

Let the games begin!

2007-11-06T13:29:00.000-05:00

PowerPoint Games

Don't think you have the time to create interactive games for your class? Do you know how to use PowerPoint? If so, creating games can be easy. Especially when you have the templates provided by a few faculty from the University of Wisconsin Whitewater.

You'll find 15 or so templates for different activities you can create for your class everything from flash cards to bingo to scavenger hunts and jeopardy. Ready to see for yourself? Here's the link http://facstaff.uww.edu/jonesd/games/index.html.

Give it a try and pass the word.

My Organization Plus

2007-10-29T11:54:00.000-04:00

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

click the add users button
add the user id for those you want to add
set the role for that user
click modify.

To remove users

put a check in the box to the left of their name
click modify at the bottom right of the screen

You now have control over users in your community/organization.

bFree

2007-10-22T14:38:00.000-04:00

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.

Compress Powerpoint with voice files

2007-10-15T14:11:00.000-04:00

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

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

Click import
Browse to find your PPT file

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Set the other settings as you’d like and click submit.

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.

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.

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

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

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)

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

Select to link to content collection.

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.

Submit

Your file is there and ready to go.

Blackboard and email

2007-10-01T10:30:00.000-04:00

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.

Open Outlook
Click the Tools menu
Slide down and click Options

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

Now click the Safe Sender tab

Click the Add button
Type in @kctcs.edu
Click the OK button (this is on the screen where you entered the @kctcs.edu)
Click the OK button on the Safe Senders tab
Click the OK button on the Options screen

Your email is now set for all email from Blackboard to come to your Outlook inbox.

Banners with Powerpoint

2007-09-25T13:20:00.000-04:00

CREATE A BANNER WITH POWERPOINT

Ever wondered how you can create a banner for your course? PowerPoint could be your answer. Not everyone has image creation/manipulation program but most of us not only have access to PowerPoint, we know how to use it – at least as a presentation tool.

Check out these steps for using PowerPoint to create a banner.

CREATE

1. Open PowerPoint
2. Go into the page setup area
a. 1997-2003: file to page setup
b. 2007: Design tab to page setup
3. In the “slides sized for” dropdown list choose banner

4. Click Ok
5. Create the banner using PowerPoint tools. Add
the background, text, images, word art, smart art, whatever you want.

Your banner is now created. Now you need to save it and upload it to Blackboard.

SAVE

1. File to Save
2. Navigate to where you want to save the file on your hard drive
3. Give the file a name (NO SPACES – files that are to be placed in Blackboard should not have spaces)
4. In the “Save as type” dropdown list change this to GIF or JPEG file type
a. GIF is generally used if you use clip art images
b. JPEG is generally used if you use photos images
c. If you aren’t using images, save it as GIF

5. You now have the image file and you are ready to put it in Blackboard

UPLOAD

Now that you have your banner, you need to upload it into your course in Blackboard. The Banner appears on the Announcement page of your course.

1. Login to Blackboard and go into your course
2. Go to control panel to Course Design (in the Course Options area) to Course Banner
3. Click the Browse button to the right of the New Banner Image area

4. Navigate to where you saved your banner on your hard drive
5. Select the file (double click it or click it once then click open)
6. Now you are back in Blackboard and your file path is listed in the New banner image area
7. Click Submit
8. Your banner has now been added to your course

To see your new banner, click the first link in the breadcrumbs to get back to the announcement page of the course.

TIP: Customize your course list

2007-09-10T13:27:00.000-04:00

Did you know you can customize your course list on your eLearning Portal? This will allow you to turn courses and some course options on and off.

For example, sometimes you may have several courses listed on your course page that you no longer need. These can be old courses, training shells or development shells. You can set these courses to not show on the portal. This doesn't delete the course or make it unavailable to students - this is only for your view of your course module. Students can also use this to turn off old courses.

You can also use this to turn on what you see about the course like the course id (course code), announcements, tasks or the calendar for the course.

To change your course settings in the module, click on the pencil icon in the title bar of the course list module.

Once you've clicked on the pencil icon, use the check boxes to set what you see for a particular course. You can uncheck everything for a course to remove it from your course list or select the check boxes for what you want to see.

Click submit at the bottom of the page when done.

You will now notice the changes in your Course List module on the first page.

Questions about this tip? email me

Welcome to eTips

2007-09-08T11:34:00.000-04:00

Hello KCTCS faculty and staff!

Welcome to the eTips blog. This blog will be used to post tips for online learning. A new tip will be posted each week. These tips will cover a variety of topics about eLearning. Whether your class is web-enhanced, hybrid or completely online, these tips are for you.

You'll find tips about using Blackboard, content creation, tools for teaching online andanything in between.

I hope you find this a valuable resource. Email your tips in to be shared with everyone.