Blackboard Courses tools and layout
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The document discusses best practices for designing online courses, emphasizing effective content layout, ease of navigation, and accessibility for all students, including those with disabilities. Key recommendations include using clean designs with consistent color schemes, chunking information for better readability, and employing a conversational tone in writing. It also highlights the importance of using appropriate formats and minimizing file sizes to enhance user experience.
Blackboard Courses tools and layout
- 1. Online Courses: Tools and Layout Dr. Abdel-Fattah Adel Wednesday, 8 April 2020 8.30 PM
- 4. Intro: Layout matters. • Effective Content Design. • Effective layouts. • Writing for online. • Using Images and graphics. Practice Course Customization • Properties. • Teaching Style. Effective Course tools: • Date Management. • Rubrics. • Dashboard and Retention Center. • Content Collection. • Packages and Utilities. • Users and Groups.
- 6. Create a more compelling and engaging showcase for your course material. Clean and simple can be aesthetically pleasing and still have impact. You must consider not only visual design, but also writing style, tone, the arrangement of information, and accessibility.
- 7. Ease of learning How quickly can a new student navigate through your course while learning the material? Efficiency of use After students are familiar with your course setup, how quickly can they accomplish tasks? Subjective satisfaction How much do students enjoy working through your course material? Usability Can users with different levels of ability, experience, knowledge, language skills, hardware, or concentration level use your course easily? Accessibility You want people with disabilities to receive the same level of information, services, and use that people without disabilities receive. Is your course a level playing field?
- 8. Use clean and simple pages. Use plenty of white space to separate paragraphs, images, and other page elements to avoid overwhelming readers. Use block-style paragraphs. Leave a space between each paragraph and don't indent the first line. Be consistent. Create predictability with layouts that repeat design elements from page to page. Use the same fonts, colors, and heading styles on each page to help students feel comfortable and find information faster. Use headings. Chunk information and make your pages easier to scan. Use a consistent color scheme. Use no more than five colors. Different shades of the same hue, with one or two accent colors, is an effective scheme. Choose colors that maximize readability. When in doubt, use black on white.
- 9. Assist page scanning Present information in chunks. In your sub-headings and paragraphs, add information-carrying words. Use bulleted lists to further break up content. Use brief sentences. Create well-structured paragraphs Present one idea per paragraph. Limit paragraphs to two to four sentences. Put the most important information in the first sentence, followed by details. Reduce word count Use 50% fewer words than you use in print. If a page is longer than two or three screens, break it up into several shorter pages.
- 10. Highlight keywords Use color, bold text, italic, or typeface variations, but in moderation. Avoid ALL CAPS, which is difficult to read. Avoid underlining. Students may assume underlined text is a link. Use a conversational tone Write as if you're having a conversation— informal tone, but informational. Use personal pronouns and action verbs. Use active voice so sentences are concise, flow smoothly, and are easy to understand. Avoid jargon and unnecessarily complex or technical language.
- 11. Navigate and locate Navigate and locate different types of information through visual clues. Interpret Interpret difficult to understand information. Form Form visual mental models of the materials explained in the text. Understand Better understand the relationship between ideas or concepts.
- 12. Use the right format Select the best format for better image quality and smaller file size. Use the PNG format for simple graphics, the JPG format also allows for better compression of a file. Use graphics purposefully and not just because they look good. You don't want design overtaking content, nor do you want to increase download time unnecessarily. Be careful with animations Animations can be extremely effective when you want to demonstrate concepts and principles but are often overused. Be sure the animations don't distract from the material, and you use them with permission.
- 13. Avoid background images. Use a white or pale solid background with dark text instead of background images. High contrast between text and background is easier to read. Watch the file size. Large and numerous images may look great on your page, but they'll frustrate users who must wait for images to load. Crop your images. Smaller image sizes maximize impact and decrease download time.
- 14. Course Customization Properties. Teaching Style. Effective Course tools: Date Management. Rubrics. Dashboard and Retention Center. Content Collection. Packages and Utilities. Users and Groups.