Most people will agree that a brand new Blackboard course looks a little dull. Did you know that with 10 minutes effort, you can make it look much more appealing? In that time, you could change the course theme (the Background colour/image) and add a banner.
It is possible to pin an announcement at the top of the announcements page. However, you may want something that has a little more visual impact, which is where a banner comes in. Usually, people use these to share an attractive image with the course name, but you can also use them to draw students’ attention to key information. For example, You could include a reminder of how many weeks there are to go before an important deadline).
This feature has recently been used in Social Sciences to alert students to a poster competition that is being held:
It would also be timely to remind students about the NSS using a banner. Feel free to download the following banner and use it in your Blackboard courses.
There is a wide range of software that can be used to create a banner. Powerpoint is perhaps the most simple; Photoshop can be used for more complicated imagery. There are also many free online tools to help you create a banner such as Canva.
Blackboard guides
Our colleagues in the MLE team have created a fantastic series of guides that will walk you through virtually every aspect of Blackboard. Here are two of the most pertinent ones:
If you would like to speak with a member of the Digital Learning team about enhancing any of your Blackboard courses, please email digital-learning@southampton.ac.uk
For further examples of how to enhance your VLE, visit the Excellence in VLE Awards page.