Content areas - Control panel

There are eight ways to add content to a content area. Common content areas used include:

Add Item
These may be Microsoft® Word document files (doc), a Microsoft® Excel spreadsheet (xls), a Microsoft® PowerPoint® presentation (ppt), an Acrobat® Reader® file (pdf) or a single webpage (htm) which could include images.

Blackboard note

You do not need to know HTML to create a course within Blackboard. Microsoft Internet Explorer users can enable the WYSIWYG Textbox editor and type as if using word. Alternatively, course developers can disable the Textbox editor and choose between three options presented in Blackboard:

Smart text – understands basic HTML and line breaks.
Plain text – displays text as it is typed into the dialog box. It does not recognise line breaks or text formatting.
HTML – you can use HTML tags to enhance the display of your content.

This Blackboard viewlet is an overview on using the WYSIWYG Textbox editor for course authoring.

Blackboard viewlet: Course Authoring

Add Folder
Folders enable you to organise the documents so they relate to units of work, topic areas, semesters or any other structure desired.

Add Learning Unit
A learning unit provides a method to link many different files together. Blackboard^® will add navigation buttons. You may select to require students to follow a particular learning pathway.

Add Blog
You could have your students use a Blog as their personal reflection journal which can be kept private or shared for social commentary.

Add Wiki
Use the Wiki for colaborative group work. You specify the groups where the students can work together freely to create their project. And you can monitor their work right down to who wrote which bit.

Syllabus Builder
The Syllabus Builder guides the Instructor through a very simple process for building a syllabus without knowledge of HTML.

Once you have added content you will also have the option to modify and remove contents too.