Discover Best Practices

Course Websites (Bb Strategies)
A course website in Blackboard is more than a collection of web pages. It’s also a tool to help communicate with students and manage the class.

• Why Have a Course Website?
  • Post syllabi, assignments, written lectures, articles, hyperlinks, etc. online and eliminate the expense and labor of making copies.
  • Use it as an online meeting space where students take quizzes, participate in discussions, and collaborate on projects.
  • Create a course site with common materials and “clone” it for multi-section courses.
  • Manage grades, collect papers – even use it to help discourage plagiarism!
  
  
• Strategies for instructional use
  • Template and Model Toolkit
    Use models to help you organize and present course materials. Create templates and share them across programs and departments for a consistent look and feel. Mix and match components from different templates and models to create a custom look for your online course materials. In some cases (like PowerPoint), you can "apply a template" and change the look of an entire group of materials with a few mouse clicks. Or you may download a syllabus template and use it as a starting point for your course. In other cases (like Blackboard), use models as guides and examples.
    • Course Website Design Guidelines (100 Kb)
      Whether or not you use a model as a starting point, be sure to review these guidelines for structure, appearance, usability, and other concerns of the online environment.
    • Organization Models for Online Course Sites (96 Kb)
      For courses delivered via campus.fsu.edu. Provides structure and outline of typical online course materials.
    • Syllabi and Study Guides
      Learn how these items can work with online components.
      • Effective Syllabi
  • Simple Things to Do with a Course Site (64 Kb)
  • Using Course Websites as Instructional Tools (5 Mb)
    Using the web to teach, planning for web-based learning, introducing students to online learning and more from Chapter 10 of the handbook Instruction at FSU: A Guide to Teaching & Learning Practices.
    
    
• How can my students and I get help with Blackboard?
  • Browse our Support Center articles and/or submit a support ticket.
  • Resource page “Using Blackboard to Teach” is just a click away from most locations inside Blackboard.

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