Using Blogs on Blackboard

From Academic Computing

This is the end-user help documentation for Journal LX™ (AKA Blog Tool). Journal is an application that allows users to create and share blogs and reflective journals within a learning management system.

This documentation is based off the official help documents

Contents 1 What is a Blog 2 Finding a Blog or Journal Site 2.1 Accessing the Central Course Blog 2.2 Accessing Individual or Group Blogs 3 Calendar View 4 Viewing Recent Posts 5 Monthly Archives 6 Commenting on an Entry 7 Creating a New Entry 8 Editing an Entry 8.1 The Graphical Editor 8.2 Link Functions 8.3 Add Image Function 8.4 Uploading and Attaching a File to an Entry 8.5 Editing in HTML Source Mode 8.6 Save Controls 8.7 More Functions 9 Deleting an Entry 10 Entry History 11 Recovering Entries 12 Exporting a Blog

[edit] What is a Blog

A blog, is a website that is designed to be updated frequently with new entries. The entries in a blog are usually displayed in reverse-chronological order (most-recent first).

This blog application has an easy-to-use editor that lets you quickly add content and style your work.

[edit] Finding a Blog or Journal Site

There are a two main places where you can access a blog from within your online course or organization:

• The Central Course Blog site is found within the Tools area of your course or organization.
• Individual or group blog sites can be found in any content area where the instructor has created them.

Each course or organization has one Central Course Blog but can have many individual or group blog sites.

[edit] Accessing the Central Course Blog

1. Go to your course home page.
2. Click on the Tools link within the course menu.
3. Click on the Blog Tool.

[edit] Accessing Individual or Group Blogs

1. Go to your course home page.
2. Click on the content area (Course Documents, Assignments, etc.) in the course menu.
3. Browse the sub-folders, if any.
4. Click on the "View" link for a blog.

[edit] Calendar View

Blogs can be navigated using the calendar view which appears in the sidebar on the right. Any dates on which entries have been written will appear as hyperlinks. Selecting a link will display all entries created on that day. Navigate between months by selecting the month links at the bottom of the calendar.

See also: Monthly Archives

[edit] Viewing Recent Posts

You can see a list of the most recent entries in this blog in the "recent posts" module in the gray side bar. Click on an item to jump to that entry.

[edit] Monthly Archives

You can browse all entries from a given month by using the archives module in gray sidebar.

See also: Calendar View.

[edit] Commenting on an Entry

The comments area displays at the bottom right of each blog or journal entry. Comments are hidden until you click on the comments link. After opening and viewing the comments, you can add new ones via the Add Comment form.

Note: Depending on your permissions in this blog, you may or may not see the Add Comment form.

[edit] Creating a New Entry

To add an entry, click the new entry link in the actions section of the gray sidebar.

Once you click new entry, you will be brought to the editing pane where you can create the content for your blog entry and specify a title for it. The new entry will be created when you click "Save."

See also: Editing an Entry.

[edit] Editing an Entry

To edit an exiting entry in a blog, click the edit link that appears next to the entry's title.

The edit screen is identical to the screen for creating a new entry. It contains a graphical editor that allows users to write text, format it, add images, and add links to files or other pages.

[edit] The Graphical Editor

You can type into the editor pane or cut and paste from a web page or a Word document.

To learn your way around the editor, begin editing a page and then hold your mouse pointer over any of the buttons to see a brief explanation of the function.

[edit] Link Functions

This feature allows you to insert a link to another blog entry or to an external website.

To create a link within your blog:

1. Highlight the text you wish to turn into a link.
2. Click the Insert Link button, which looks like a chain link ().
3. From the resulting dialog box, select the type of link you wish to add:
   • Link to an existing entry in the same blog
   • Link to an external web page
4. Select the entry name or provide the link details and click Insert.

[edit] Add Image Function

This allows you to insert an image directly into your entry. Within the editor, you either upload an image or provide a hyperlink to an image on another web server.

To insert a local image:

1. Click on the Insert Image button ()
2. Select the "Upload an image" option.
3. Browse to locate the image you wish to upload.
4. Enter an image description.
5. Click Upload to add the image.

To insert an external image:

1. Click on the Add Image button ().
2. Select the "Include an image from an external web site" option.
3. Enter the URL of the image you wish to embed in your entry.
4. Enter an image description.
5. Click Upload to add the image.

[edit] Uploading and Attaching a File to an Entry

To attach a file to your journal entry, edit the page and then click the Upload File button ().

[edit] Editing in HTML Source Mode

Documents created in the editor are converted into HTML when saved. You can view the HTML code produced by the editor by using the Toggle Mode control located on the upper right side of the editor ().

Note: This feature can be used to provide finer control of the page formatting than is possible by using the editor controls alone. This feature requires prior knowledge of HTML.

[edit] Save Controls

Save edits made to your page by clicking the Save button located at the bottom right of the screen. To stop editing without saving changes, click on the Cancel button.

[edit] More Functions

The Graphical Page Editor has support for many more functions such as Undo, Redo, Find, Replace, Insert Table, Full screen editing, and more. To learn your way around the editor, try experimenting! You can also hold your mouse pointer over any of the buttons to see a brief explanation of the function.

See also: Creating a New Entry.

[edit] Deleting an Entry

Blog and journal entries can be deleted at any point.

To delete an entry:

1. Click on the Delete link next to the title of the entry.
2. You will be taken to a confirmation page.
3. Choose "YES" to delete the entry and keep the version history, "PURGE" to permanently delete the entry and all of the associated history, or "NO" to cancel.

When you delete an entry, the existing text is replaced with a message about who deleted it and when. That message will be invisible to users who do not have the ability to edit the journal.

To delete an entry permanently, choose the purge option.

Deleted entries are still visible to the blog owner(s) and can be recovered at any time by viewing the entry history and choosing the "revert" option for a previous version of the post.

[edit] Entry History

When an entry is saved, a record of those changes is preserved. This stored history makes three important features possible. You can:

• revert the page to a previous version
• track changes to pages as the content is being built
• recover deleted posts.

To access the history of a post, click on the history link next to the post title. From the next screen, you can click on the View Diff button to see earlier versions and revert back to them.

When viewing a diff, you’ll see that changes are highlighted. New text is in green, changed text in yellow, and deleted text in stricken-through red.

[edit] Recovering Entries

Since the blog tracks each version of a page as you edit it, you can roll back to a previous version at any time by "reverting" to that version. This function is available the entry history and diff pages.

To recover a previous, or deleted, version of an entry:

1. Click on the history link next to the entry title
2. Locate the version you wish to recover and click on the View Diff button.
3. Review changes and click the Revert button.

The entry you have selected will be updated and become the latest version. The history of the blog will be updated appropriately to indicate the changes made. Note that you can also recover an entry that has been deleted but not purged by following this same method.

If you return to the history, you will notice that an additional revision has been made to track your change:

[edit] Exporting a Blog

Blogs can be exported and stored your computer. This allows you to browse the site offline, back up your material, or post the material to another website.

To export a blog:

1. Click on the export site link in the toolbox module in the gray sidebar.
2. Choose "Save to Disk" and select a location.

Exported sites are saved as a .zip file. To view the content, extract the zip and browse it in your web browser. Start browsing by first opening the "index.html" page.