Manuals from Blackboard.com, as of Spring 2001 - here in case
you cannot connect to Blackboard:
Materials prepared by U. HoffmannInstructor's Manual for v. 5 -- pdf -- this is a big file, nearly 300 pages, for printing or reading online,
and you need Acrobat Reader, a free plug-in for your browser (download it if you do not have it)
Handout for students: bb4students.htm -- download or print. (Fits on one page. On the back, I paste the student roster copied from my course, Communications, Roster, and formatted.)Mini-manual Table of Contents:
What this software does Be sure you and your students have a valid Lehman alpha account username Go online and login -- DO NOT FORGET TO LOG OUT WHEN DONE! Selecting the desired course Options: changing your e-mail address, password, correcting the course name, roster, etc. Teaching two sections of the same course The Discussion Board The Virtual Classroom (a chat room) Assessment: quiz, survey, grades Posting course materials and an announcement for students Options: Hide material temporarily or Show material in a new window
A few simple HTML commands Graphics and Scanning Creating a Picture Show File management: file names, types and extensions; travel disks (this is important -- please read) Formatted text Listserve for sharing questions and answers -- contact the owners, Hoffmann or Dono Help contacts: Login or unlisted course: Helpdesk || Preparing or posting course materials: Hoffmann
What this software
does -- it is easy to use
Brief summary: Every course offered has an automatic web
space on the Blackboard server.
1) You can put your entire course there, once or never
meeting the class in person. Tip from Dean Rachlin: max. 20 students, meet
once at the start of the term, take digital photographs of everyone, show
the students how to access and use Blackboard, change their e-mail address
and passwords to the ones they like to use and create a personal homepage,
including the photograph -- this way students can get to know each other
when they cross non-virtual paths on campus.
or
2) You can put supplemental materials there, still meeting
the class at the scheduled hours. Tip from Ursula: shortly after the start
of the term, take the students to a computer lab, show them how to access
Blackboard and use it, change their e-mail address and passwords to the
ones they like to use; post an announcement telling them to read their
e-mail and/or access Blackboard, say, once a week on a specified day, to
see newly posted announcements, materials, assignments, whatever --
post announcements, assignments, whatever, and send e-mail to all alerting
them to what you want them to do.
Options: messages, assignments, quizzes and surveys,
grades, posted materials (such as syllabus, books, texts, graphs, charts,
images, lists of links to other sites -- note that some of these materials,
though copyrighted, may be used on a password-protected site under the
fair use guidelines).
Also: e-mail (this can be to all, to groups, or private
between student and instructor -- for submitting papers and returning papers
with grades and comments), a virtual classroom=chat room and discussion
board where students can communicate with the rest of the class, using
the chat room at a designated time, the discussion board whenever.
You send e-mail from within Blackboard; you receive and read e-mail in
your designated e-mail software.
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Load your browser, e.g., Netscape; then go to http://acc10.lehman.cuny.edu
Click the Login button, type your username, press Tab
(not Enter), type your password, click OK. Repeat.
Tip for your own computer at home or in the office: Once
you log in the first time, make a bookmark, then edit your bookmarks file
and drag the bookmark to your Personal bookmarks at the start of your bookmark
file. From now on, you log in just once.
If there is a problem with your login or if your course
is listed as TBA, contact the Help Desk: ext. 1111 or e-mail helpdesk@lehman.cuny.edu
Note: Blackboard looks and works for students as it does for you except
that students do not see the Control Panel and see only their own dropbox
and grade.
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Click Control Panel and set all your options. The Control Panel has six areas:
A1. You can type text online, or you can cut and paste.
In either case, there is no formatting.
2. If you want this text to be formatted, to center or
bold or underline it, you need to use html code, see below.
OR (recommended for good looks and long files and reusability -- invest in a zip drive (100M) and disks):
Create HTML files, it's easy. See http://www.lehman.cuny.edu/acctemp/techteach/webpages/usenetscape/webpage4netsc.html
B1. You can prepare a file in Word or WordPerfect, check
grammar and spelling, but do not format, then "save as" an html file. Close
it. Open it with Netscape Composer, format it to look perfect, save. Upload
it to your Blackboard course site.
2. You can prepare an Excel worksheet, "save as" an html
file. Close it. Open it with Netscape Composer, format it to look perfect,
save. Upload it to your Blackboard course site.
3. Images must be linked to an html file and should be
in jpg or gif format.
4. You can upload or e-mail Word or WordPerfect or Excel
files directly: but they will not be viewable on the screen, and the student
will need the same application on his/her machine to open and view them.
Here, please keep in mind that these applications are frequently updated
and are only backward compatible; in other words, the newest version can
usually read a file produced by an older version of the software, but never
the other way around. Therefore, if you must use this option, discuss availability
and version in advance with your recipient. To find the version number,
open the software, click on Help, then on About. Then save your file with
File Save As, and in the resulting dialog window, choose the version number
of the lowest common denominator.
C. If you plan to repeat a course several times, my recommendation
is that you create html pages for all your materials including syllabus,
bibliography, reading lists, lectures, as well as files pointing to images,
tables, spreadsheets on a zip disk where you can revise them any time you
wish. Then, get yourself a site on a server: check out your ISP (Internet
Service Provider: it may provide you with a few megabytes of space for
a "homepage", or see if you can get space for your course on a college
server, with direct access to it. You need both a special username and
password.
Then, using ftp (see http://www.lehman.cuny.edu/acctemp/techteach/helpdocs\ftp.htm),
you can upload and or replace files at any time as needed.
Then, for your course on Blackboard, all you need is
an html course document, with links to the files on your "homepage" --
this may never need updating (Links: Syllabus, Lecture 1, Lecture 2, etc.),
it may only need uploading for any semester where you offer your course.
Note: Blackboard has a terrible layout for the
screen: there is very little space for our course materials, in the lower
right screen. So you might post the following in your first announcement,
e.g,
Click Course Documents, a link. If your browser is Netscape:
click File, Edit Frame to view the document. When done, click X in the
upper right corner. If your browser is MS Internet Explorer: click View
full screen. When done, click the second to right icon (Restore) in the
upper right corner. Alternatively: rightclick the lower right section of
your screen and select the top option: view full screen.
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Upload an existing file (one file at a time):
The Blackboard manual uses the term "Attach" for attaching a file to
the course site. This really means "Upload".
Again, on your course site, click Control Panel, then (in Content Area)
Course Information or Course Documents, click Add Item. Scroll down to
(2) Item Attachments, click Browse, select the file you wish to upload;
its extension should be .htm or .html. In the Name of Link to File box,
type the link text that the students will see and can click on, e.g.,
Course Description or Syllabus or Recommended Reading, or whatever.
Special Action: 'Create a link to this file' is fine.
Now scroll down to (3) Options:
Select Other Options. I set 'Track number of views' and 'Make visible'
to Yes, leaving the others at No. Finally, click Submit, and return to
Course or to Control Panel.
Note: If your file contains pointers to images, you will be prompted
to browse for their names, so they can be uploaded as well.
Upload a group of files--all should be in a single folder/subdirectory:
The Blackboard manual uses the term "Attach" for attaching a file to
the course site. This really means "Upload".
A group of files may be compressed to a single file, in .zip format
(.tar format on a UNIX system). (If you do not have a PC utility for zipping,
you can currently find the free package PowerArchiver on the Web; search
for its name, one word.)
A slide show created with PowerPoint is automatically zipped when you
save it as a web page=as html.
Again, on your course site, click Control Panel, then (in Content Area)
Course Information or Course Documents, click Add Item. Scroll down to
(2) Item Attachments, click Browse, select the file you wish to upload;
its extension should be .zip or .tar. In the Name of Link to File box,
type the link text that the students will see and can click on, e.g., Picture
Show or Slide Show, or whatever.
Special Action: Unpackage this file. See Picture
Show.
Then click Submit. At the prompt, designate the "launch" file for the
compressed group. Example: The group of files is a PowerPoint slide
show; designate index.htm as your launch file.
Notes:
a) External links work, i.e., links in your file to files posted on
any remote host. Internal links, i.e., a link from one document in
your Course Documents folder to a second document in your Course Document
folder, do not work very easily and they are too much trouble to create.
(Bb creates special URLs for uploaded files. So, you would have to upload
your file, copy its URL from File Properties, paste it into the link of
the file you want to link, then remove the file originally uploaded, and
upload the edited file.)
b) When you upload a file a second time, it does not overwrite the
file originally uploaded. Although both have the same filename, they are
assigned different URLs by Bb. So remove a file before you upload a revised
version of the same file.
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Midterm Survey
How to do this:
Click Control Panel, Assessment Manager, Create New Assessment.
Select Survey from Type: Quiz/Test or Survey and click Submit.
Instructions: Type: Answer all questions, please. Click Submit.
Question Type:
Available: Multiple Choice, True/False, Fill in the blank, Multiple
answer, Matching, Ordering, Short Answer/Essay.
Here, for this example and for the first question, select Multiple
Choice. Note that the minimum number of choices suggested is 4(four).
You may select more, or leave as is. In this example for question
1, we want 3(three): type in yes, somewhat, no -- then remove the fourth
choice, and 4 will change to 3.
To submit, click Add New Question -- or Preview when done adding all
your questions.
When done, click Save and make available.
Select the options on the next screen:
1) Make assessment available? yes or no. Yes if you want students to
do this quiz or survey now.
2) Allow multiple attempts? yes or no. Yes is recommended.
Click Submit.
Select the options on the next screen:
Place a link in Assignments? yes or no. Yes is recommended.
Generate an announcement? yes or no. Yes is recommended.
You can modify the announcement, adding a deadline: Control Panel:
Page Editors, Announcements, modify.
After the due date for the survey, click Control Panel, Online Gradebook
to see results.
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.txt is a text file: just characters and/or numbers, no formattingSame arranged by usual file size:
.doc is a formatted file produced by Word
.wpd is a formatted file produced by WordPerfect
.rtf (=rich text format=text with all formatting) is a file produced by both Word and WP and readable on PC/Mac
.xls is a chart/table/worksheet produced by Excel
.htm or .html is a file in HTML format, for optimal viewing on the Web
.zip is a compressed file that may contain a number of files -- for optimal transfer and load speed.
Travel disks:small:.txt, doc, wpd, htm/html medium: pdf, rtf, xls, jpg/jpeg, gif potentially large to huge
avi, au, mid/midi, mov, ra/ram, vdo, wav -- audio and video files
ppt -- Microsoft Powerpoint files for text and/or multimedia presentation
pqf/shw -- Corel multimedia presentationvarious sized compressed file, for optimal transfer and load speed: this may contain a number of files:
zip (WinZip) compressed file for Windows and Mac
sit (StuffIt) compressed file for Mac.
Mac Users: e-mail files back and forth between Mac and
PC in txt or rtf format.
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Text: Font (such as Times New Roman), pitch=size (such as 11), attribute (such as Bold, Italic, Underline). Stay with common TrueType fonts which you can expect the user to have on his/her machine.
Paragraph: Indent, Center, Left or Right justify.top