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Best Practices |
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Documents
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PowerPoint
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Web Authoring
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How Do I...
Promoting A Class
We recommend creation of a simple
faculty web site, describing yourself and the courses
you teach in concert with turning on Guest access to
certain portions of your Blackboard courses so that
prospective students can see what the class is like.
In addition to these steps, if a particular class is
suffering low enrollment, we recommend that you contact
Elaine Armstrong
(earmstrong@palomar.edu - phone ext. 2644) so that
she can create a main web page ad for your class.
Best Document Practices Within
Blackboard
We recommend a two-pronged approach
to document distribution within Blackboard. We
recommend, whenever possible, to make the document
available in html, and also to provide a downloadable
PDF version of the document, along with a link to
download the free
Adobe Acrobat Reader
software.
The reason we recommend an html
version of the document (either linked within a
Blackboard content window or pasted inline) is that the
document will load very quickly and will be universally
viewable regardless of browser platform.
The reason we recommend a pdf version
of the document is that no matter how simple the
original document, converting it to html will cause some
loss of formatting. In order to preserve the
original formatting, and especially pagination, which
can be very important when giving instructions to
students, it is necessary to convert the document to a
faithful rendering of the original in pdf format.
If you do not own or have access to Adobe Acrobat, with
which to make pdf documents, we have a new web service
where you can submit your native format documents via
email and receive back a PDF version via email. We
call the service PCPDF.
"Should I upload native Word,
PowerPoint or Excel files?"
You certainly can, and may wish to
for those students who own Office or are able to install
the
free office viewer
programs, but many students do not own
Office, and cannot easily install the viewer programs.
You will be doing these students a huge favor by using
html/PDF documents.
Upload PowerPoint Presentations as
Packaged Web Presentations to Blackboard, not as PPT
Files.
Click here
to open a PDF version of instructions for saving a
PowerPoint presentation for the web, and then
packaging/uploading/unpackaging that file for
Blackboard.
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Using
the Web as an Enhancement to Face-to-Face
Classes
Many
instructors use the web to enhance their
in-person classes. If you wish to develop
a web site, or want Academic Technology to
develop one for you, contact Chris Norcross
(cnorcross@palomar.edu)
ext. 3225. As a way to promote your
upcoming classes, you should develop a web
site that would provide information to
prospective students and also include the
url for the site in the printed and
online class schedules.
The
following are exemplary web sites used by
Palomar faculty to enhance their
face-to-face classes:
 Blackboard and your personal
web site at Palomar College should work
hand-in-hand to promote your classes and
provide learning materials. Be sure to
turn on guest access within Blackboard for
the portions of your courses you wish to
share with the public, such as the syllabus
and course information areas. Be sure
that other areas, like assessments,
discussion boards, and course documents
areas do NOT allow guest access.
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How Do I...
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