Transcript Compare and Contrast : Blackboard & a Personal Web Page

Compare and Contrast :
Blackboard
& a Personal Web Page
You’ll find this presentation (and another) here :
www3.ltu.edu/~s_schneider/howto/faculty.htm
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.
Accessing the Site

Personal Web page (WEB) = 24/7
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Open access – constant address
BlackBoard (BB) = some down time
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Guest account if not in the class
Look at the new Preview button on the
login screen!
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!
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(We have one for faculty .. www3.ltu.edu)
Organization of Material

BB – built in
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common interface
WEB – you have to create it
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But more flexible? Also more work!
Fancy Text Formatting

Both can do this!
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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
Location of Files

WEB – static
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Always same place - constant
BB – changes each term

Can be archived

But, what about “image links” we explore later?
Links to other web pages
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BOTH
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BB – easy to add
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Also get a “world” icon
WEB – you are already doing this
Could couple WEB with BB?
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Store things on WEB and call from BB
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Best of “static” vs “changing” conflict
Uploading files?
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BB – electronic drop box!!
WEB – much harder to do ..

Also, we now have Outlook Express …
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Email??
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BB – this will probably be the model!!
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We will have access to our classe lists here
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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!
Displaying images within BB?
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Can link to external images
Can display external images
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Can link to “LOCAL” images!
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Must add a bit of HTML code
Use a “hidden” folder
Can display “LOCAL” images
Let’s try adding images ….
Open your BB page

Then go to the
CONTROL PANEL
down on the lower
left – that’s where
we make the
changes to the BB
site.
Making folder for images

Click on the COURSE Documents to add a
new folder for our images
Add folder and name it

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Click on the Add
Folder button
Name it something
(like “Images”)
“Hidden” folder!

Here’s a neat trick .. Make it a hidden
folder (seen by you, not by students)
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(Note: You might want to make the image folder
available to the students also – the following
techniques will work either way.)
Add a “document” to Images

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Double-click on the
folder name (to enter
it)
Click on “Add Item” to
add in an image as a
“document”
Adding an image

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Browse your local machine to upload the
image
Create a “link” to the image
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Note : You could also display it directly! .. But we will
be happy just with the link
Find “link” to the image
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Right click on image link
We want to copy it to the “clipboard”
in IE
in NETSCAPE
Link copied to memory

Could paste it into Notepad temporarily
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Note, we are seeing the “course” info in the
string, but this is on the Blackboard server – we
don’t need “our own” server!!
New folder/document
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Make a new folder and document (this we
will show the students)
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We’ll put a link to the image, as well as the
image itself!
Add some HTML code !
Link vs embedded Image

Link uses “anchor” tag – you click to see it
<A HREF="http://mypage.com/pink.JPG">Link</A>
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“inline” image uses IMG tag
<IMG SRC="http://mypage.com/pink.JPG">
Mixture of text and html
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Link uses “anchor” tag
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“inline” image uses IMG tag
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Both of these are “external” images!
What about “Local” images?
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Add that link we just copied from within
Blackboard!
Seeing the rough output
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Gives link (opens image
into window) – or shows
the image there
Doesn’t matter if it is
external or internal – both
work!
But, this format is not as
“pretty” – compare
sideways?
Use “Tables” to format
Tables look better?
Other things?
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PERL/JAVA/PHP
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BB – not right now – future?
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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
Conclusions?
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BB = very easy to use – a little limited
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WEB = harder to use – more flexible
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At the very least, BB + WEB would be more
powerful than either alone