This fall, a small number of students will be attending their online course in Moodle instead of Blackboard. Clark College eLearning will be piloting this new version of Moodle with extras, called Joule, which will be hosted by Moodlerooms. For those who are not using Moodle Joule, you will still see it mentioned in our Twitter feed and, of course, here on Smart Penguin. Joule will not seem unfamiliar for many students from the local school district who are used to using Moodle. It may seem completely different for some, however, so we are busy preparing for our first Moodlers, or Joulers as it may be. Stay tuned for updates as things develop and we contemplate the question, is this Joule a gem?!
There is a new issue to report for all Mac users taking online math and science classes in Blackboard. A recent update has caused the loss of the WebEQ equation editor which used to appear as a function button in the Discussion Board text editor, as seen below.
So far, this appears to affect all browsers for Mac, including Firefox. Blackboard is aware of the issue, but there is no ETA on a fix or an indication that it will be repaired. Therefore, if you’ve signed up for an online math or science class for next quarter and intend to use your Mac for coursework, you should be prepared to do the following:
- Contact the instructor of the course to find out if they will be requiring you to use the equation editor in Blackboard.
- Prepare to use another computer for at least the Discussion Board content of the course, or if you have an Intel based Mac, consider using Bootcamp or other virtual machine software to install an additional operating system like Ubuntu or Windows, which are still loading WebEQ at this time.
It would seem logical that soon after registering for classes you
would be able to check out your new online classroom, and it’s understandable that you might think something is wrong when you can’t even login on Blackboard. The Blackboard accounts, however, are only enabled during the quarter for which you’re registered. It might help to think of these Blackboard courses as the virtual version of a face-to-face classroom. That means you’ll have access from the first day of classes to sometime after finals, when they must be turned off while the new batch of virtual classrooms is prepared. View Full Article »
There are a lot of clever ways to keep from losing those little USB drives, but they invariably end up missing or damaged or you just have too many to keep track of them all. Now you can forget about those flash or thumb drives and try a “cloud drive” instead, which you can access with most internet enabled devices with a browser. Clark eLearning support techs have tested such free services and although there are many with great usefulness, we prefer one called Dropbox for its ease of use, student-centric features, and compatibility with Blackboard. There is some risk of confusion between the Digital Dropbox within Blackboard and the Dropbox in the cloud, but once you experience both, the differences should be clear. We only have this warning… View Full Article »
Sometimes a busy Blackboard user will need to stop and save in the middle of a response in Discussion Board so they can come back and finish it later. However, when some return there may be no obvious way to find the saved post. To retrieve a hidden draft, do the following…
At the bottom of the main Discussion Board page which shows all of the threads, there is a Display settings box. Click on the arrows in this box to drop down a menu and choose Show All. Then click Go and that should pull all of the posts up again, including those saved. If the Discussion Board is a very active one, you may want to narrow it down by selecting Drafts instead of Show All and then click Go.
Occasionally, a Blackboard user will experience an issue within the Discussion Board where the main view will appear normally, but clicking on any of the discussions causes the following error message:
“There are no accessible items or items that match the search criteria to display”
View Full Article »
Although Smart Penguin provides the solutions to, or the prevention of, most technical issues that Clark College Blackboard users may experience, things may still go awry. To help you get back to your online coursework more quickly, the tech support team in the eLearning Department now provides a new system, called Tech Ticket, which can be used to submit the details of a technical issue. In a series of short questions about your computing environment, you can quickly convey some of the important keys needed for an accurate diagnosis, which helps speed resolution. You can find the link to file a Tech Ticket in the sidebar here on Smart Penguin’s main post page, among our links at the bottom of the page, or just click the underlined link above or the name image below.
Clark College will no longer be communicating with students via paper mail, but will be using free Google Gmail for correspondence instead. So that you don’t miss out on important registration notices and other information, be sure to activate your pre-assigned Clark student email account using the link below. If you prefer to get your email at another address, just go ahead and activate your Clark Gmail account (which will look like: yourusername@students.clark.edu) and set it to forward to your preferred address. eLearning at Clark doesn’t set up email accounts, so if you need help you should contact the people in IT Services who do by either visiting the library computer lab technicians (in the upstairs lab) or emailing Gmail Support. The website linked to below also has a support phone number you may use, plus tutorials and instructions.
Our returning visitors will notice that Smart Penguin has undergone a molt! Take a look around and feel free to use our new feedback form to let us know if there are any changes you would like to see, as we continue to preen and tweak our new look… Happy New Year to all of our fellow Smart Penguins!
A low-tech penciled test can be stressful enough, but when you add technology to the mix, it’s even more important to be well prepared. Check out our Blackboard Test Taking Tips page to make sure technology is a neutral force when you show what you know!
There are many students new to Blackboard who are augmenting their education by developing important computer skills. Knowing how to open, create and submit appropriate file types for various documents can be a marketable asset worth learning. Instructors will usually specify what file types they can accept, which you must adhere to when submitting your work. Some common file examples for documents would be .doc or .docx, .pdf, and .rtf.
Using the right program is the first key to achieving the correct file type… The second key is clicking File and Save As (not Save) and selecting the specified file type before naming your file. View Full Article »
Blackboard uses pop-up windows as an essential part of its operation such as quiz or test windows, discussion board postings, download links, and more. Therefore, it is important that pop-up windows be allowed for Blackboard to function correctly.
You can manage this by turning off the pop-up blocker in your browser and all pop-up blockers on any additional Yahoo, Google, or other third party toolbars that you may have added. However, if you find pop-up ads too annoying to allow, you might choose instead to make an exception for Clark’s Blackboard site. Directions for the certified Blackboard browsers are below. Select your browser from the list and either turn off the pop-up blocker or allow an exception for Blackboard. View Full Article »
This issue won’t be a problem if you’re a student, but faculty might come across it when trying to download a zipped file of submitted assignments from the Gradebook using “Item Download.” The error is triggered by spaces in the assignment title, such as “Project 6″ or “Research Paper.” The workaround seems to be removing the space(s) in the assignment name in the content area where the links are. You can use an underscore, hyphen, or just remove the space and then try the item collect routine again. A report from an English professor advises Mac users to remove the spaces and not use an underscore or hyphen – theallonewordapproach worked best for her Mac.
Getting the right browser set-up and running is critical to your success with Blackboard. Mozilla Firefox is the browser of choice, as it is fully certified by Blackboard and presents few issues for users. Clark eLearning Tech Support recommends that all users download and install Firefox and use it to access Blackboard, unless your instructor requires you to use Internet Explorer for your class.
Internet Explorer 7 is also fully certified for use with Blackboard. Internet Explorer 8 is not fully certified, but users can click the “Compatibility View” button to improve the situation. By placing the IE 8 browser in compatibility mode you will force the browser to behave as an IE 7 version while working in Blackboard. This is important so you can view all content, such as assignments, discussion board text boxes, etc.
Users should also be aware that two other popular browsers, Safari and Chrome, are not fully certified with our current version of Blackboard. Once again, Firefox for Windows or Mac should be the browser of choice.
If you’re using AOL or NetZero as your ISP, you’ll find that Blackboard does not support their web browsers. When trying to view various pages or content, you may get error messages such as “Navigation Cancelled” or “Page Not Found,” due to this incompatibility. Quest also has a specialized version of Internet Explorer which can cause certain items or tables to not display. To remedy the situation, you’ll need to download and install Firefox (for PC or Mac). After you’ve installed the new browser, you’ll need to connect to your ISP using the AOL or NetZero browser as you normally would, then minimize that browser and open Firefox to access Blackboard and your courses.
Many Blackboard users have experienced problems when submitting and viewing text that has been pasted directly from Microsoft Word into Blackboard. The cause of this issue is the accompanying word processor formatting code that is included when using the copy/paste feature. These codes should be removed prior to pasting into a Blackboard text box.
One trick is to copy and paste your text from Word into NotePad first, which strips out the fancy formatting. Then copy and paste that more compatible NotePad text into the Blackboard text box editor and use the formatting tools available in Blackboard to style your text. Some will just attach a Word document to their post, however, there are many students that don’t have Word and they will not be able to view your attachment. A few users have reported success when saving the Word text as HTML (website) code, but that isn’t recommended for beginners.
