Compare and Contrast : Blackboard

1
Compare and Contrast Blackboard a Personal
Web Page
Youll find this presentation (and another) here
www3.ltu.edu/s_schneider/howto/faculty.htm
2
Compare and Contrast Blackboard a Personal
Web Page
What are are the pros and cons of each, in terms
of ease of use, flexibility, ability to load
images/scripts/java/etc.
3
Accessing the Site

• Personal Web page (WEB) 24/7
• Open access constant address
• BlackBoard (BB) some down time
• Guest account if not in the class
• Look at the new Preview button on the login
  screen!

4
Posting Info on the Web

• BlackBoard (BB) Very Easy!!
• Just point and click to upload
• Personal Web page (WEB) Harder!
• Need web editor .. And server!
• (We have one for faculty .. www3.ltu.edu)

5
Organization of Material

• BB built in
• common interface
• WEB you have to create it
• But more flexible? Also more work!

6
Fancy Text Formatting

• Both can do this!
• WEB you are probably already doing it
• BB you can add some simple tags
• See Adding HTML to Blackboard here
• www3.ltu.edu/s_schneider/howto/bbtags.htm

7
Location of Files

• WEB static
• Always same place - constant
• BB changes each term
• Can be archived
• But, what about image links we explore later?

8
Links to other web pages

• BOTH
• BB easy to add
• Also get a world icon
• WEB you are already doing this
• Could couple WEB with BB?
• Store things on WEB and call from BB
• Best of static vs changing conflict

9
Uploading files?

• BB electronic drop box!!
• WEB much harder to do ..
• Also, we now have Outlook Express

10
Email??

• BB this will probably be the model!!
• We will have access to our classe lists here
• Not sure how Banner comes into play?
• Limitation to one email address?
• WEB (no access to student addresses)
• Outlook Express maintain all students as
  contacts Unlikely!

11
Displaying images within BB?

• Can link to external images
• Can display external images
• Must add a bit of HTML code
• Can link to LOCAL images!
• Use a hidden folder
• Can display LOCAL images
• Lets try adding images .

12
Open your BB page

• Then go to the CONTROL PANEL down on the lower
  left thats where we make the changes to the BB
  site.

13
Making folder for images

• Click on the COURSE Documents to add a new folder
  for our images

14
Add folder and name it

• Click on the Add Folder button
• Name it something (like Images)

15
Hidden folder!

• Heres a neat trick .. Make it a hidden folder
  (seen by you, not by students)
• (Note You might want to make the image folder
  available to the students also the following
  techniques will work either way.)

16
Add a document to Images

• Double-click on the folder name (to enter it)
• Click on Add Item to add in an image as a
  document

17
Adding an image

• Browse your local machine to upload the image
• Create a link to the image
• Note You could also display it directly! .. But
  we will be happy just with the link

18
Find link to the image

• Right click on image link
• We want to copy it to the clipboard
• in IE in NETSCAPE

19
Link copied to memory

• Could paste it into Notepad temporarily
• Note, we are seeing the course info in the
  string, but this is on the Blackboard server we
  dont need our own server!!

20
New folder/document

• Make a new folder and document (this we will show
  the students)
• Well put a link to the image, as well as the
  image itself!

21
Add some HTML code !
22
Link vs embedded Image

• Link uses anchor tag you click to see it
• ltA HREF"http//mypage.com/pink.JPG"gtLinklt/Agt
• inline image uses IMG tag
• ltIMG SRC"http//mypage.com/pink.JPG"gt

23
Mixture of text and html

• Link uses anchor tag
• inline image uses IMG tag
• Both of these are external images!

24
What about Local images?

• Add that link we just copied from within
  Blackboard!

25
Seeing the rough output

• Gives link (opens image into window) or shows
  the image there
• Doesnt matter if it is external or internal
  both work!
• But, this format is not as pretty compare
  sideways?

26
Use Tables to format
27
Tables look better?
28
Other things?

• PERL/JAVA/PHP
• BB not right now future?
• Could call up other pages with it though!
• WEB if you can host it, you can run it
• Maybe BB gives us confidence to use Personal Web
  pages more and more .. Can couple the two for a
  powerful combination

29
Conclusions?

• BB very easy to use a little limited
• WEB harder to use more flexible
• At the very least, BB WEB would be more
  powerful than either alone