What is RSS?

This is part of a regular series of articles exploring some of the terms used in e-learning (view other articles in the series).  We’ll do our best to break down the jargon and explain what things are from a basic perspective. Today’s topic is RSS, which stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication’.  However, just knowing what it means is not terribly…

Case Study: Blending Modes of Learning

In this case study, the leader of a level 5 Sports Physiology module preceded lectures with a weekly task or activity in order to make more effective use of contact time. Details of each task or activity were automatically released to students one week in advance of the lecture itself via the module’s Blackboard site.…

Did you know? Ensuring your text is formatted correctly

Did you know that there’s a way to reduce problems with inappropriate text formatting? Sometimes when you copy text from another application (such as Microsoft Word, an e-mail, or a web page) and paste it into a Blackboard text box (such as an item description, a test question or an announcement) you may find that…

Using media from the web in your Blackboard site

The internet is full of lots of great media such as images, audio files and videos, especially now with the growth of sites that allows sharing of user-generated content (e.g. Flickr, YouTube, Wikipedia).  However, just because it is on the internet doesn’t mean you can legally copy and use it in your Blackboard site: in fact…

What does ‘availability’ mean in Blackboard?

Put simply ‘availability’ determines if the students on your site can see something on the site. This could apply to the entire site, a content area, a tool on your site menu, a folder or an individual content item. What determines if an item is available? There are a number of reasons that a piece of content…

Did you know? Better way to upload multiple files

Did you know that there are two ways you can use to attach multiple files to an item in Blackboard? Many staff are probably familiar with the typical way of uploading a file to Blackboard.  You create an Item, and click ‘Browse for local file’ to attach a specific file.  If you want to attach…