Blackboard As Your School Website

Blackboard as your School Website
South East Saskatchewan
Teachers’ Convention
November 9-10, 2009
Peggy Lawson
Instructional Technology Consultant
South East Cornerstone

Why Use Blackboard?
No school web presence yet?
Parents
Community
Prospective teachers
Why Blackboard?
Easy to learn
Easy to update and have multiple people responsible for content

Some Special Features
Can have all or only some portions open to the public with other areas only accessible to enrolled users
Groups can be created to further limit access to some areas according to criteria you set
SECSD School web sites are given custom URLs
http://www.cornerstonesd.ca/manorfor example

A Few Key Questions
Home Entry page – what shall it be?
School Information page?
Announcements?
Content Areas
The main part of your site. Subdivide into folders
How will you structure?
Web Links
Link to Teacher Logic? Weather?

Getting Started
In order to edit your site you must
Log into Blackboard
Be enrolled as an Organization Leader or Assistant
Turn Editing mode On

Adding Sections to Your Site
Most commonly you’ll create:
Content Areas
External Links
To external websites
Dividers
For appearance only

Adding Navigation Menu Items
Create Content Area
Give your button a name
Make available to users

Adding Navigation Menu Items
Drag and drop to reorder menu items
Use
Contextual
Menu to
Make
changes
Empty content areas will not
be visible to visitors

Creating Content
From the navigation menu, go to the area where you want to add content
Be sure editing mode is turned ON
Common Options:

Create Item
Build > Create Folder
Build > External Link

Creating Items
Follow prompts to create items
The default option is often your best choice
The Help system is actually very helpful!

Creating Items

Uploading Files
There is always a Submit button!

External Links
Links to external web sites
Must type in the entire URL, including http://
Open in a new Window, or not?

Announcements
Go to your Announcements page
Be sure editing mode is turned on
Click Create Announcement and complete the wizard
Announcements appear in the order that they are posted, with the most recent appearing first.
Note: Pictures are not easily added to announcements at the moment
Will be easy once we enable our content system
Can be accomplished by coding html
Attachments cannot be added until content system is enabled – coming soon!

Customization Options
Enrollment Options
Guest & Parent Access
Allow Guests (default = yes)
Properties
Change Organization name
Style
Tool Availablility

Customization Options - Style
Where you’ll make most of the changes to your site’s look & Feel
Navigation menu – text or buttons?
Organization Entry Point
Upload a banner (appears on Entry page)

Creating a Banner
Dimensions
depends on screen resolution of computer visiting your school site
600 x 100 pixels as a suggested size – trial & error
Create in Macromedia Fireworks, Adobe Photoshop Elements, or other graphics program
Create in PowerPoint

Creating a Banner using PowerPoint
Start a new PowerPoint
Go to Design Ribbon and select Page Setup
Select Banner.
Leave Width set at defaults

Change background colour from Design ribbon
Add text boxes and graphics from the Insert ribbon

Use SAVE AS . . . Other Format.
Save as a jpg
Prompted to Save Every Slide or Current Slide Only – select Current Slide Only

Enrolling Users
Organizations are typically “open” – visitors do not need a Blackboard account to visit your site
You may make sections “closed” to visitors & visible only to enrolled users
Enroll users from the Control Panel > Users and Groups > Users
Click the green Enroll User button to add users who already must have Bb accounts

Some Random Notes
IMPORTANT! Consider the document type!

Not everyone has the newest version of Office!
“Print” documents as PDFs

select PrimoPDF as the printer
Content items can be easily moved within your site

Brainstorming Session
What will you want to include on your school website?
How will you organize your site?
Who will be responsible for, or allowed to, post content?

Brainstorming Notes

Examples