STUDENTS > Blackboard Tutorial
Navigate a Course Section
Course sites are highly customizable, and courses from different instructors will likely have different options available on the main course menu (the menu on the left side of the course site), though there are certain features which are common to all sites. When you enter a course site, by default you will see the Announcements page. If there are new course materials or quizzes available, you will likely see an announcement pointing you to the location of those resources in the course site.
At any time, you can see the path you followed to get to your current location in the course site by checking the “breadcrumb trail”—you are never more than one click away from the main course page.
The buttons or text that appear in the main course menu correspond to Content Areas (think of these as folders) of the course as designated by your instructor. Content Areas you will see in most course sites include (but aren't limited to): Course Syllabus, Faculty Information, Course Materials, and Assignments. Following are some examples of these common course Content Areas and the information that is typically contained within each area:
Faculty contains information about your instructor and any GTAs in your course, including office hours and location.- Course Syllabus typically contains the text of the syllabus and a link to a downloadable version.
- Course Materials is the area in which most course documents will likely be stored, including documents, PowerPoint slide shows, web links, etc. or other sub-folders.
- Assignments usually contains activities requiring submission of a file or files to the instructor.
- The For Faculty and For Students areas provide links to many useful technology and campus resources.
- The Tools Panel just below the Content Areas contains important links to some of Blackboard's key features, including:
- Communications provides access to the Discussion Board, as well as the virtual classroom and chat tool (under Collaboration) and the course Messages tool (similar to email, but course-specific). If you use Groups in your course, you can access group-specific pages here also.
- Course Tools include My Grades, which allows one-click access to your course grade (for instructors who use the online gradebook), as well as the online User Manual, a valuable resource for getting to know Blackboard.
- The Course Map link opens a new window with text links for all of the Content Areas in the course site, which you can expand/collapse as needed.