Ingredients

1 – Computer with access to the Internet

1 – Instructor access to a Blackboard course (the screencast features BB Enterprise 8 )

1 – The website at http://feed2js.org

1 – A website with an active RSS feed to be used in Blackboard

Directions

1. Navigate to the website that has an RSS feed.
2. Look for an icon on the page that looks like this:
3. If you don’t see that icon, look for some text that mentions “subscribe to feed” or “RSS“. Linked text that reads “Entries (RSS)” is a common way the feed for a WordPress blog is encountered, usually near the bottom of the screen.
4. You can right-click on the icon or text link and choose either Copy Link Location (Firefox), or Copy Shortcut (Internet Explorer).
5. Alternatively, you can click on the icon or the text and it should lead you to a page with a few options to subscribe to the RSS feed. What’s important is that the feed URL is now in the web browser’s address bar. Copy the URL so that you can paste it into the appropriate field in the Feed2JS website.
6. Navigate to the Feed2JS website.
7. Click on the tab labeled “Build” and paste the RSS feed URL into the box labeled URL.
8. Optionally, you can change the options for how the feed is displayed.
9. Click on the button labeled “Generate Javascript”
10. This will display code in the field labeled “Get Your Code Here”
11. Copy the entire contents of this field. This is the code we’ll place in Blackboard.
12. Navigate to the area in your Blackboard course where you would like to place the RSS information.
13. Click on the Add (+) Item button to create a new content item.
14. Provide a name for the content item (required)
15. In the Text editor click on the “Toggle HTML Source Mode” button
16. Paste the code generated from the Feed2JS website into the text field (overwrite any existing text that’s in that field to start)
17. Click on the Submit button

Watch a screencast of this recipe.

Ingredients

1 – Computer (PC or Mac)

1 – Apple’s iTunes program (current version as of this post 8.0.2)  – download here

1 – An Internet website that has a podcast feed

Directions

1. Navigate to the website that has a podcast feed. This type of site would not be the norm, so this is likely a site that makes it very obvious that there is a podcast associated with it, or a site that was recommended by someone you know.
2. Look for an icon somewhere on the webpage (not the one in the web address field) that looks like this:
3. If you don’t see that icon, look for some text that mentions “subscribe to feed” or “RSS“. Linked text that reads “Entries (RSS)” is a common way the feed for a WordPress blog is encountered, usually near the bottom of the screen.
4. You can right-click on the icon or text link and choose either Copy Link Location (Firefox), or Copy Shortcut (Internet Explorer).
5. Alternatively, you can click on the icon or the text and it should lead you to a page with a few options to subscribe to the RSS feed. What’s important is that the feed URL is now in the web browser’s address bar. Copy the URL so that you can paste it into iTunes.
6. Start the iTunes program.
7. Click on the Advanced menu and choose Subscribe to Podcast…
8. Paste the link shortcut into the box labeled URL:
9. Click the OK button. This will add the podcast to the iTunes Podcast library and will start to download the latest podcast from the site. If you wish to download other, earlier podcasts, you can click the Get button next to the podcast that you want.
10. Clicking the Refresh button while viewing the Podcast library will check the site for the most recent podcast.

Watch a screencast of this recipe.

Ingredients

1 – Computer (PC or Mac)

1 – Apple’s iTunes program (current version as of this post 8.0.2) – download here

1 – Any Audio CD that is playable in a standard CD player

Directions

1. Start the iTunes program.
2. Before you insert the audio CD, you want to make sure that files will be converted into MP3 audio files. Choose the Edit menu and select Preferences.
3. On the General tab, the area in the middle of the page that states “When you insert a CD”, make sure ”Ask to Import CD” is showing.
4. Click the Import Settings button.
5. For the ”Import Using” setting, select MP3 Encoder. You can also choose between Good, High, Higher, or Custom for the quality setting. Click OK, and then OK again to close the Preferences window.
6. Insert the audio CD into your CD-ROM drive.
7. After scanning the CD, iTunes will display the track or tracks found on the CD.
8. You will be asked if you would like to import the CD into your iTunes library. Click Yes to do so.
9. iTunes will now import each song on the audio CD. Importing the CD means converting each song to an MP3 audio file.
10. When the tracks have all been imported, a small green checkmark appears next to each file.
11. When you click on your Music Library, you should see that the tracks have been added.
12. If you wish to locate the MP3 file on your hard drive, right-click the file in the library and choose Show in Windows Explorer, or Show in Finder on the Mac.
13. Enjoy your music!

Watch a screencast of this recipe.

Ingredients

1 – Computer

1 – PowerPoint program ( for this example, PowerPoint 2007)

Directions

1. Open PowerPoint 2007.
2. From the Insert ribbon, click the Photo Album button.
3. In the resulting Photo Album window choose the File/Disk button under “Insert picture from…“
4. Navigate to the folder where your photos are and select all of the photos you wish to include.
5. When your photos have been selected click the Insert button.
6. Change the order of the photos or the Album Layout if desired.
7. Click the Create button to create the photo slideshow.
8. You can edit the photo album by clicking on the down arrow under the Photo Album button and choosing Edit Photo Album.

Watch a screencast of this recipe.

Ingredients

1 – Computer

1 – Original PowerPoint presentation file

1 – PowerPoint program ( for this example, PowerPoint 2007)

Directions

1. Open the original PowerPoint presentation in PowerPoint 2007.
2. Click on the “Office button” and choose Save As…
3. Choose from either the standard PowerPoint presentation, PowerPoint Show, or an PowerPoint 97-2003.
4. The Save As window is where you will either keep the same name for the file, or give your presentation a new name if you want to keep the original (we recommend this).
5. Next to the Save button is a Tools button with a drop-down menu. Choose Compress Pictures… from this menu.
6. Click the Options button. Under Compression Options , make sure “Automatically perform basic compression on save”, and “Delete cropped areas of pictures” are checked.
7. Under Target Options , choose E-mail (96ppi) to create the smallest file possible ( if the quality of the pictures becomes an issue, you can choose a higher quality).
8. Click OK to close Options, then click OK to close the Compress Pictures window.
9. Finally, click the Save button to complete the process. The resulting file should considerably smaller, depending on how many pictures you have in the presentation.

Watch a screencast for this recipe.

Ingredients

1 – Powerpoint program (any recent versions) – note: this is for Windows users.

1 – Internet Connection

1 – Firefox web browser (preferred)

1 – Video Download Helper Firefox Add-on (plug-in)

1 – WinFF program

Directions

1. Open the Firefox web browser. Make sure you have established a connection to the Internet.
2. If you haven’t already, navigate to the Mozilla Addons page for the Video Download Helper.
3. Click the button labeled “Add to Firefox”
4. A software installation window will appear. Click the “Install Now” button.
5. You’ll need to restart Firefox in order for the Add-on to work.
6. Find an appropriate video at the YouTube site (this add-on will work with several other video sites as well.
7. The red, yellow, and blue “molecule” in the Firefox toolbar will begin to rotate, indicating that a video is detected and is available to download.
8. Click the down arrow next to the molecule icon. You’ll likely see a list of choices.
9. Select one of the choices presented with a YouTube logo. Videos with [HQ] next to them indicate the higher quality versions.
10. Save the file (it will be an .flv or .mp4 extension) to your hard drive and remember where you saved the file.
11. Start the WinFF program and click the Add button to open the Flash or Mpeg4 video file you saved in the previous step.
12. In the Convert To… box select WMV. In the adjacent box select WMV2.
13. Select an appropriate output folder for the converted file to be saved to.
14. Click the Convert button. You should see a “Converting” output window (with a black screen) displaying the conversion process. Press a key when the process had finished. The window will close.
15. Now open PowerPoint and insert a video in the appropriate slide. Choose either to play the video automatically or play when clicked on. That’s it.