Make the Web come to you: Simple tools and techniques to keep you in the loop.

[Session Notes]

I ran a new session on Wednesday about using web feeds to keep track of online information. This has made a big difference to the number of topics I can keep track of, and so I'm keen to share about them more widely in the institution.

A section was added about online social networking sites such as Twitter, as some people find that they replace the need for feed readers in their own lives.

I thought I'd share a link to the session notes which contain a link to a screencast version of the session, and some extra resources to expand what we talked about. There's no real replacement for getting a group of people together to talk about experiences and help each other learn, but these resources might be of some use to you.

[image by gdesigneralex]

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License.

Using Blackboard 9.1: Uploading Content into Blackboard

This guide is designed for those who have lots of resources to upload into Blackboard 9.1 in Learning Edge, for example those manually migrating from Blackboard 8 or those who are running online courses.

We’ll present you with several ways that you can manage and upload those resources, allowing you to choose the best solution for yourself.


Basic file uploads.

• Uploading a small number of files
• The quickest way to share a few files using Blackboard 9.1 is to upload the file from a Content Area page. This uploads the file to Blackboard and creates a link that students can use to access it.
• Uploading folders structures and large numbers of files
• If you have whole folder structures to move into Blackboard 9.1, zip files will be the best solution for most people. They are easy to create in Windows XP, and then can be uploaded into Blackboard.
• Managing files in Blackboard
• If you want more control of your files, look in more detail at the Blackboard file management tools which give you a lot of control over your files and folders.

Using WebDAV

• WebDAV allows you to map a Blackboard 9.1 section to your network drives so you can use it as you would use your G: drive. You can drag files and folders into Blackboard.
• Note that this system will not work on every computer and we can only currently tell you how to set it up on Windows XP.
• Firstly you need to get the URL for the Blackboard section in question.
• Secondly you need to add the web address to your Network Places (or equivalent). Our video shows how this is done on Windows XP, but the process may change a little or stop working when we move to Windows 7.

eLearning Content Creation Tools

• eLearning content creation tools can be used to create content outside of a specific learning environment. They are most useful where you need to import your content into a number of different VLEs.
• In the past we have used Wimba Create to create content for some of our online courses, however eXe is free to use and we will be using that as an example here.
• For an introduction watch this introduction to eXe from one of the creators.
• Visit the download page to get hold of the software.
• To learn to use in details, watch this set of videos covering the use of eXe.
• 1. What is eXe (0.24) - Windows Media Version / YouTube Version
• 2. Downloading eXe (0.59) - Windows Media Version / YouTube Version
• 3. Adding iDevices (1.43) - Windows Media Version / YouTube Version
• 4. Adding More Pages (1.33) - Windows Media Version / YouTube Version
• 5. The RSS iDevice (1.46) - Windows Media Version / YouTube Version
• 6. Changing Content and Styles (1.47) - Windows Media Version / YouTube Version
• 7. Exporting and Saving (1.40) - Windows Media Version / YouTube Version
• 8. Importing an IMS Content Package to Blackboard 8 (2:38) - Windows Media Version / YouTube Version
• 9. Importing the Content into Blackboard 9.1
• Export content from eXe
• Upload content to Blackboard
• Create a link for the students to access the content
• After making changes to content in eXe, you need to re-upload to Blackboard

[image by infilmity]

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License.