Thank you Admin Cert Course! I discovered something I should have known, but had not tested. It is possible to build a hyper-link on a course page to any other course page. Just right-click on the menu link of the destination and have it open in a new tab or window.
The address (URL) of that tab is the address to that specific page. It is the same affect as adding a "Course Link" to the course menu.
Try it!
BbWorld was a good week. Lots of good input on 9.1. I attended a full-day workshop on GUI Administration, and am now taking a GUI Admin Certification course. I want to know all I can about the Admin GUI before we launch in production.
We were also given an idea of the next 12-18 months of the Blackboard roadmap. (As always, "Subject to change without notice.") Good news there. Several of the 9.1 features that are still non-starters will be built out over the next months. I’m liking this.
After a series of meetings at BbWorld, we have our proposal from Blackboard for how to deliver Vista courses in a Courses module, after retiring the Learning Environment Connector (LEC), and it looks good. I hate to have such a positive post, but that’s just how I feel.
Today, I invited our 9.1 pilot Faculty to blog over the next months, sharing their experiences — good and bad — with course development and delivery in Bb. I hope I’ll get some takers.
Today was a good day. It was determined that the ugly we’ve been experiencing with Bb9.1 was a CSS (style sheet) issue. As soon as I switched to a 9.1 optimized style sheet, everything was shiny. Our Bb9.1 looked and functioned like it should. The moral: a stylesheet that works well in Bb9.0 will not necessarily work in 9.1. Remember that.
The Geniuses in Bb Support also found and corrected the “permissions” issue that kept us from being able to restore a back-up file from Vista. I was able then to restore Vista courses into 9.1 and have them look good. I’m liking this.
We’ve also had five faculty volunteer to participate in the 9.1 Pilot project for Fall. Five is a good number. Some will develop one class, while others will teach all their classes in the new system.
With the uglification gone, I was able to create a sandbox course, and add some sample content to it, and then copy it for our 9.1 pilot faculty and CTE staff. Almost immediately, Gautam (our Instructional Designer) found some new Assessment question types that may prove to be really good additions to our tool kit.
Now I am waiting for the (positive, happy, elated?) reaction to their sandbox courses from the courageous Pilot Faculty. Yep, a good day.
12:45 PM — Frustrated. I’ve been unable to restore a course back-up file. It just runs and runs. In addition, the interface doesn’t look or function as it did in tie 9.1 preview course or as it should. It’s been uglified. Four hours pretty much wasted. I’ve posted support tickets on both issues. More later …
8:30 AM — The upgrade was successfully completed on Friday morning, but this is my first chance to really work in the system. I just uploaded a course backup file, and assuming it will restore, I will be working in it today. More later …
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