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Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Using Blackboard Tutorial

It was pretty simple. Build a course inside Blackboard(R). I think that part went (is going) well.

Somewhere in past education classes I vaguely remember that it is recommended that we (course developers) learn a thing or two about the learners.

This bit of information became very important when I asked a group of potential learners to be a part of the formative evaluation process. The subject matter wasn't a big problem, maneuvering through the course material wasn't much of a challenge.

The problem most of the evaluators encountered was that they were unfamiliar with Blackboard(R).

I have learned that the entire corporate world does not use Blackboard(R). None of the evaluators were familiar with the program and I was reminded of that vague memory regarding learning a little about your students.

Ah but not to fear, I quickly recovered and put together a tutorial introducing the learner to Blackboard(R) and the features that are needed to be successful in the course I am developing.

If anyone is interested in seeing the tutorial follow this link, http://www.jlazyl.com/files/using_blackboard_demo.swf.

The tutorial was created with Adobe Captivate(R). I used the text to voice feature to create the narration.

Text to voice is a nice feature. Pretty much it involves typing the script into a text box that you want narrated. It is especially valuable when crafting a well narrated piece.

The program gives the option for a female or a male voice. The voices lack inflection and sound a little computerized.

In a future post I will present Adobe Captivate(R) and post a simulator for anyone to play with.

Have a wonderful day!

2 comments:

  1. I like your use of Adobe Captivate (R) to introduce Blackboard to students. The Blackboard tutorial you created provided the necessary information to get started. I am teaching an online elementary class and this would be a great way to introduce and explain Moodle to students and parents instead of using Elluminate.

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  2. Great tutorial, I like how you switched narrators. Were the narrators prerecorded or did you have people help you with the narration? I did several tutorials with Camtasia and found that it seemed to work best when one person narrated and another used the mouse to demonstrate the narration. Thanks for sharing this!

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