Skip to main content

Blackboard Learn System Administration

By
In comparing Blackboard 7 to 9 in respect to system administration, not much if anything has changed for the functions that we use most frequently. The most notable difference is the drop down menus, which make the user experience a little less clunky. Two such places where this can be found are in the areas we use the most: Users and Courses. Exploring the Courses and Users areas more thoroughly showed that the functions remained the same except for the addition of the “not blank” search drop down option that can be confusing at first. In Blackboard 7, if you left the search box blank then that would mean to list everything, but in Bb 9 you must specifically choose “not blank.” Also, I found that if you typed the “%” sign in the User’s search box then that is equal to “not blank” though the “%” sign did not work in the Course’s search box. Here is a link to the system administration guide that we can reference as needed: http://tinyurl.com/dao2z7

Another area in system administration that is relevant to all of us is standardization, such as:
  1. Do we want a customized login page?
    • Brands and Themes -> Customize Login Page
  2. What default theme do we want to use?
    • Brands and Themes -> Customize Default Brand (Current is Bb Learn)
  3. What are the default course menu items?
    • Course Settings -> Default Course Menu
  4. What homeroom content do we want as default?
    • Tabs and Modules -> Tabs -> Homeroom -> Default Content
We can discuss the standardization questions above and decide how we would like to proceed.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Geotagging

By
A "wouldn't it be nice" idea that's been around a while is the ability to tag a map with images that are linked to more information about the site. Kelly C suggested it as a way for students to share knowledge about a cultural/historic site or the geographic area they live in with classmates. (right, no addresses!) There are now cameras and even storage media that embed latitude and longitude into images as they are shot. But you don't need fancy new toys to do this. I tried Flickr's geotagging map and it's fun and supereasy. Want to try it? Log in to Flickr http://www.flickr.com Sign in as " techedine " password " wist101 " yea, corny. Click the " You " tab then the " Your Photostream > Map " or Organize > Your Map links. Click the Satellite link in the upper right. Cool view! (you may need Google Satellite downloaded). Images along the bottom of the screen with colored dots have already been droppe...
6 comments
Read more

Avatar Chat

By
Aloha all, Here's my o wau topic for this week. We all know the power of the Avatar and their popularity with our learners from our A`o Makua courses and I know we have discussed ways to incorporate them into our `Ike Hawai`i classes as well. Well, I can't take credit for finding this resource. Our resident Avatar expert a.k.a. Christy told me to check it out because Avatars can now chat. So please join me in finding out what other engaging and motivating feats these amazing characters can do to help us provide meaningful learning experiences for all our students. You can read about OddCast and their AvatarSpace or go to their Web site and test out some of these features. I'm hoping that this may provide us with a motivating way to get students, in both programs, to participate in some cooperative learning and sharing. Let me know what you think and if you feel this would be a valuable application to use. Mahalo - look forward to reading your responses! Kelly
5 comments
Read more

Zoho Creator

By
I thought I’d share this web application I came across in my quest to find a relatively simple app to help us manage our mentoring data in the DL Orientation. Our specific needs were that it be a free online database, password protected, had the capability of rapid form development without too much programming knowledge and was easy for the end user to use. The application that met these requirements was Zoho Creator ( http://www.zohocreator.com/ ) a part of a suite of online applications including word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, wikis, organizers and more. What’s great about Zoho Creator is that they have an online repository of applications already developed that you can download to your account and use for free. Initially, I tried some of these applications, but it was overkill for our needs. Zoho Creator can do a lot if you know programming and they have a pay model where it allows you more flexibility and features. I think Zoho Creator would be a useful tool for both...
6 comments
Read more