Tech Tip Tuesday - Creating and Troubleshooting Web Links in Blackboard

Often times we like to share outside websites or YouTube videos with our classes to further their understanding of the subject matter.

Whether you are an Internet Explorer, Firefox (you all should be using Firefox with Blackboard!), Chrome or Safari user the new browser security issues and browser updates have altered the way we now need to share links.  Some of our old habits will have to die hard in order to properly make sure our links are working.

This is true when sharing an item that is a web link or if you are adding a website to your instructions or announcements.  View this weeks video tutorial by Nadine Edwards to learn the best ways to go about adding web links.

*The video is a little grainy but you will still be able to follow along.

Tech Tip Tuesday - Discussion Board Tips and Tricks

One of the items that had significant and helpful changes with the summer update of Blackboard is the Discussion Boards.

Nadine Edwards has created a wonderfully detailed video tutorial for this week's Tech Tip Tuesday (I know it's really Wednesday, long day yesterday :) )

In this tutorial she goes through all the features, bells and whistles of the Discussion Board as well as some 'snags' people have run into that have to do with copy and paste.

Tech Tip Tuesday - Communicating with Students When Course is Unavailable

Many instructors wish to communicate a short message with students before the course is made available.  Many think by posting an announcement when a course is unavailable (even when they check the button to email the announcement) that is goes to their students.  This isn't always true.

The best way to communicate to students when the course has not been turned on yet is through the Blackboard email system.  The other great benefit to this is the fact that you can also add an attachment, like the syllabus.

View this weeks video tutorial to learn how to do this.

Note: In your email message do remember to communicate to your students that they will not be able to access the course until such a such date.