Do you need some Blackboard inspiration?
It’s the beginning of the Semester (OK, so it’s not right now, but let’s pretend that it is). You’ve got a brand new Blackboard site set up for your brand-new paper, and you’ve logged in to start working on it. It’s staring straight back at you in that default shade of blue, with those default menu items, and despite attending the three-hour preparation training course, you’re stuck. How do you make your site unique?
Apart from knocking on one or two of your colleagues’ doors and asking to have a look at their Blackboard sites, it can be difficult to get some ideas about how to set out your own. To address this, we’ve asked some lecturers to share screen-shots of their Blackboard pages, which you can view on the Blackboard Help Site.
To start off with, we’ve concentrated on the look and feel, so the examples illustrate how you can use banners and change the course menu and colour scheme to suit your paper. The descriptions underneath the screenshots include links to instructions for that particular task (for example: how to upload a course banner, or remove items from your menu).
From the examples we have so far, here are the top five tips for customising the look and feel of your Blackboard site:
- Change your course menu to suit your paper – not vice versa!
- Try both buttons and text for your course menu before deciding which one works best with your content
- Have a look at your Departmental website to see if you can tie your colour scheme and/or banner in with your Department’s look & feel
- Try the University’s image database to source images for course banners
- Use Announcements to highlight (and link to) new content in your paper.
If you’d like to share your Blackboard site, we’d love to hear from you!
A Beginners Guide to: Podcasting vs Streaming
One of the most common questions we get asked about online media is: what’s the difference between podcasting and streaming? They both deliver audio and video files via the internet, so it’s pretty common to get them mixed up. Here’s a short guide on how to tell them apart.
Similarities…
Streaming and podcasting have two important things in common. Both refer to audio and video files, which could mean music, a recorded lecture, an advert, a TV programme, a movie – practically anything you can think of. In addition, they both require an internet connection, in order for the video or audio file to be delivered to the viewer’s computer. However, it’s the mode of delivery which sets them apart.
… and Differences.
So how can you tell the difference? In a nutshell, it’s useful to think of streaming in terms of being “online”, and podcasting as being “portable”.
Streaming requires you to be sitting in front of your computer, with a live internet connection, for the entire time that you watch the movie, or listen to the sound recording. This is because the file is being delivered to you in tiny little pieces: your computer grabs a little piece of the video, and plays it to you, and then it discards that piece of video, while it downloads another one. If your connection is fast enough, this happens smoothly enough for the video not to have to stop and start. So you have to be online for the duration of the video or audio presentation.
Podcasting, on the other hand, isn’t so sophisticated. With podcasting, you are downloading the entire file in one lump. With some web browsers, the movie might start to play as it’s being downloaded. But don’t be fooled: rest assured that the file is actually being downloaded completely to your computer. Once you have that lump on your computer, you can pretty much do what you like with it – you can watch it even if you don’t have an internet connection, burn it to CD or DVD, put it on your MP3 player or portable video device. That’s why we refer to podcasting as portable.
Click here to visit a podcasting site
Podcasting also has other features – most importantly, syndication or subscription features – which mean that it’s ideally suited for delivering events or resources that are released periodically, like lectures or seminars. These features are centred around RSS (Real Simple Syndication), which is a core component of podcasting, and will be covered in a later Beginners Guide.
So is YouTube Podcasting or Streaming?
Youtube is probably the most famous example of video on the world wide web, but confusingly, it has features common to both streaming and podcasting. It primarily delivers videos by displaying them embedded in a web browser: you go to a website, click play, and watch the presentation. This makes is most similar to streaming. However, there are many tools on the internet which make it very easy to download the file so that you can watch it offline. Also, you may have noticed the RSS symbol on Youtube playlist and channel pages, which is a feature it shares with podcasting. Despite this, though, if I had to choose, I would characterise it as streaming (or pseudo-streaming), because it most closely resembles an online delivery method.
iTunes U on your iPhone or iPod Touch
When it was launched in 2008, Otago University’s iTunes U content was available in two ways:
This dual method of delivery means that content can be viewed by almost anyone: as long as you have an internet connection, a web browser, and software that can play MP3 and MP4 files (if you don’t have any software capable of playing MP4 video files, we recommend VLC, which is an open-source media player).
Last week, Apple released the version 3 software update for the iPhone and iPod touch. As well as other enhancements, the update now allows you to browse and view our iTunes U material directly from your device. This means that you no longer have to download content onto your computer, and sync with your iPhone or iPod Touch.
Here’s how to find iTunes U on your device:
- Tap the iTunes button
- Tap “More” (at the bottom), then “iTunes U”
- Scroll down and tap “Universities and Colleges”, then scroll down and tap “University of Otago”
From there, you can browse through the Podcast pages, and download material by tapping on the “Free” icon beside the movie or track you want to listen to (you’ll then need to tap “Download” to download the file to your device).
iTunes U on the iPhone
If you are a staff member with an iPhone or iPod touch and you haven’t registered it for staff wireless yet, you can do so by filling in the online registration form. Once your registration is complete, you’ll be able to connect to the Staff Wireless network, which is available at many locations on campus.
New in iTunes U
The most recent addition to our iTunes U material is Science Matters – presentations and interviews from both the Science Festival, and Hands on Science events. Check it out in iTunes.
Science Matters
