Compare and Contrast : Blackboard & a Personal Web Page www3.ltu.edu/~s_schneider/howto/faculty.htm You’ll find this presentation (and another) here :

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 Open access – constant address BlackBoard (BB) = some down time 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! (We have one for faculty.. www3.ltu.edu)

Organization of Material BB – built in common interface WEB – you have to create it But more flexible? Also more work!

Fancy Text Formatting Both can do this! 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 Always same place - constant BB – changes each term Can be archived But, what about “image links” we explore later?

Links to other web pages BOTH BB – easy to add Also get a “world” icon WEB – you are already doing this Could couple WEB with BB? Store things on WEB and call from BB Best of “static” vs “changing” conflict

Uploading files? BB – electronic drop box!! WEB – much harder to do.. Also, we now have Outlook Express …

?? BB – this will probably be the model!! We will have access to our classe lists here Not sure how Banner comes into play? Limitation to one address? WEB (no access to student addresses) Outlook Express – maintain all students as contacts … Unlikely!

Displaying images within BB? Can link to external images Can display external images Must add a bit of HTML code Can link to “LOCAL” images! 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 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) (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 Double-click on the folder name (to enter it) Click on “Add Item” to add in an image as a “document”

Adding an image Browse your local machine to upload the image Create a “link” to the image Note : You could also display it directly!.. But we will be happy just with the link

Find “link” to the image 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 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 Make a new folder and document (this we will show the students) 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 Link “inline” image uses IMG tag

Mixture of text and html Link uses “anchor” tag “inline” image uses IMG tag Both of these are “external” images!

What about “Local” images? Add that link we just copied from within Blackboard!

Seeing the rough output 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? PERL/JAVA/PHP BB – not right now – future? 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? BB = very easy to use – a little limited WEB = harder to use – more flexible At the very least, BB + WEB would be more powerful than either alone