How to Guides > How To Use A Slide Presentation In Blackboard

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1. The standard dilemma: HTML, PDF, or proprietary format?
2. How do I convert my slides in Powerpoint 97?
3. How do I convert my slides in Powerpoint 2000?
4. How do I convert my slides in Powerpoint for the Mac?
5. So I converted - what now?
6. Screen size considerations
7. Powerpoint 2000 - a problem case
8. Tips to give the students
9. Narrating slide presentations

1. The standard dilemma: HTML, PDF, or proprietary format?

HTML recommended, PDF as well, .ppt, .pps or .shw not really.

All presentation programs include the ability to save to web-format (HTML-pages with GIF or JPEG images of the slides). To make stand-alone PDF-based presentations that play just like a Powerpoint presentation, use the Acrobat PDFmaker macro from within MS Powerpoint (Acrobat 3, 4 or 5 full program needed).

Both HTML and PDF formats are accessible to users of screen readers, whereas proprietary formats are not. (The HTML format needs to include a text-only version of the slides to be accessible, which Powerpoint automatically creates.)

The majority of users may have the same presentation program you use, but you can normally not assume that everyone has it. Thus some students may not be able to see proprietary presentations at all. If you make a stand-alone presentation with embedded player, there is an additional download-time penalty, plus the viewer software will only work on Windows-based PCs.

Besides, the entire presentation has to be downloaded before the user can even see the first slide. With HTML or PDF format, each page is downloaded upon request, so the user sees something more quickly. And launching the presentation software requires additional memory and system resources.

Finally, the .ppt format is, like all MS Office formats, prone to infection from Visual Basic macro-viruses. Not a good format for sharing files!

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2. How do I convert my slides in Powerpoint 97?

You will need Powerpoint software and Winzip software (available for free at http://www.winzip.com).

1. Use the File>Save As HTML feature
2. This will open a wizard that will assist you in converting your presentation.
3. Powerpoint will create a folder full of files, for example "week1slides". Please remember where you save this folder on your hard drive.
4. Use Windows Explorer (Start>Programs>Accessories>Windows Explorer) to find the folder you just created. Right Click on the folder after selecting them both and choose "Add to Zip" from the resulting menu.
5. Give the Zip file an appropriate name, in our example above it would be called "week1slides.zip", and type it in to the "Add to Archive" window. Under the options section be sure to check off the box labeled "Save full path info". Click "Add" when you have adjusted the settings.
6. After logging in to Blackboard CourseInfo, navigate to the appropriate link (Course Documents, Information, etc.) and prepare to use the "Add Item" button. Find the file called "week1slides.zip" by using the "file to attach" button. Now choose the "Special Action" from the drop down menu that is listed as "Unpackage this file". Click submit.
7. Select the file name "index.html" as your entry point.
8. Your presentation has now been added as a true HTML slideshow.

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3. How do I convert my slides in Powerpoint 2000?

You will need Powerpoint software and Winzip software (available for free at http://www.winzip.com).

1. Use the File>Save As Webpage feature
2. Click the button labeled "Publish" and change settings to "All browsers listed above". Be sure to remember where you save the files.
3. Powerpoint will create two files. If you save your presentation with the filename "week1slides.ppt" Powerpoint will create a file called "week1slides.htm" and a folder called "week1slides".
4. Use Windows Explorer (Start>Programs>Accessories>Windows Explorer) to find the file and folder you just created. Right Click on the the file or folder after selecting them both and choose "Add to Zip" from the resulting menu.
5. Give the Zip file an appropriate name, in our example above it would be called "week1slides.zip", and type it in to the "Add to Archive" window. Under the options section be sure to check off the box labeled "Save full path info". Click "Add" when you have adjusted the settings.
6. After logging in to Blackboard CourseInfo prepare to "Add Item". Find the file called "week1slides.zip" by using the "file to attach" button. Now choose the "Special Action" from the drop down menu that is listed as "Unpackage this file". Click submit.
7. Select the file name "week1slides.htm" as your entry point. (Again, this is a simple name substitution, whatever arbitrary filename you give your presentation will be the "filename.htm" that you select.)
8. Your presentation has now been added as a true HTML slideshow.

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4. How do I convert my slides in Powerpoint for the Mac?

You will need Powerpoint software and StuffIt Deluxe™ software (available for at http://www.stuffit.com). Unfortunately Blackboard does not support the .SIT format currently so you need software capable of creating .ZIP files.

1. Use the File>Save As HTML feature
2. This will open a wizard that will assist you in converting your presentation.
3. Powerpoint will create a folder full of files, for example "week1slides". Please remember where you save this folder on your hard drive.
4. Use StuffIt Deluxe to create a .ZIP arhive of the file and folder that you just created.
5. Give the Zip file an appropriate name, in our example above it would be called "week1slides.zip" After you have created the .ZIP file log in to your site.
6. After logging in to Blackboard CourseInfo, navigate to the appropriate link (Course Documents, Information, etc.) and prepare to use the "Add Item" button. Find the file called "week1slides.zip" by using the "file to attach" button. Now choose the "Special Action" from the drop down menu that is listed as "Unpackage this file". Click submit.
7. Select the file name "index.html" as your entry point.
8. Your presentation has now been added as a true HTML slideshow.

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Name your document properly! You must use relatively short filenames (best under 20 characters total) without spaces or other special characters for all files you want to upload to any webserver. Make it a habit to use only letters, digits, dashes and underscores.

The Add Item dialogue in Blackboard CourseInfo not only allows you to upload a single document, creating a link to it. It also has a selector for a special action to use on it. One of those is Unpackage this file , which is intended to import an entire website at once, with relative links between pages intact. This option needs to be used to import a slide presentation that was converted to HTML format.

First, however, you need to make a package out of the folder created by the conversion. This folder contains various HTML pages and images, and the start page is usually called index.htm (depending on the presentations program). Use a tool such as WinZip, PKZip, or ZipMagic to make a package file (with the .zip extension) out of the folder. Mac users should use MACzip, ZipIt, Dropzip, or Stuffit 5.5 Deluxe in ZIP mode (and make sure to give the file a .zip extension). Unix users may create .tar or .gz files instead.

When you upload the file with the special action Unpackage this file, the archive will be unzipped, and you will be prompted to specify the starting page from the list of files within the archive. This is normally index.htm (but see below for PPT 2000).

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Today, the average user has 800x600 pixels resolution on a 15-inch screen. You should never assume that students can see your pages at 1024x768 pixels on a 17-inch monitor, although that is becoming a more common luxury. As Blackboard CourseInfo chips off another ~130 pixels in width and ~80 pixels in height, you really have only about 640x350 pixels for your presentation (due to the browser's toolbars).

That means that your target size for export should be no larger than 1/2 of an 800x600 screen with the navigation controls below the slide, or at most 3/4 of a 640x480 screen with navigation beside the slide. Examples of these two settings can be seen in our Blackboard CourseInfo training course (use the Preview button), under Course Documents, Developing Online Assessments, Intro Presentation (select PNG images for the smaller size, beginning for the larger).

Blackboard 5.5 now sports a nice solution for displaying large (especially wide) content: the Learning Unit. These self-contained collections of content can be made to display in a separate window, without navigation buttons. When scaling these to full-screen display, a good sized presentation can be achieved. So our recommendation for displaying slide presentations is to always make them part of a Learning Unit that displays in its own window.

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In Powerpoint 2000, there is no wizard to walk you through the process of exporting to HTML. Instead, your simply select File > Save as Web Page . As a one-time step, make sure to click the Publish button and select to create pages that support all browsers, not just MS Internet Explorer 4.0 and above! All other settings are made in the program preferences, under Tools > Options > General > Web Options . Make sure not to use VML, so you don't limit your audience to the newest MSIE browsers.

Whatever your preference, a complicated layout using frames is generated when exporting to HTML. The image size cannot be controlled or overridden, other than by specifying the target screen size for the overall layout. The left frame will always hold the titles of each slide as a presentation outline and quick navigation. Navigation buttons are placed in a hardly visible frame below the slides and the speaker notes. This layout does not fit into Blackboard CourseInfo at all, but see the previous section for handling this. Or modify the frameset in a web-editor such as DreamWeaver to remove the left frame entirely.

To bring such a presentation into Blackboard CourseInfo, you need to zip up the entire folder name-of-presentation_files. Don't worry about the extra file outside of it, called name-of-presentation.htm, which is just a JavaScript-based re-director script that will not work in Blackboard CourseInfo anyway. Instead, when Blackboard CourseInfo prompts you for the entry point to your uploaded archive, select the file v3_document.htm as start page. Note: this page is only generated if you chose to support older browsers via the Publish button when saving as web page in Powerpoint.

You can also include the re-director file in your ZIP archive if you check the option to save full path info in WinZIP.

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For those with limited screen size, and in particular when viewing a presentation converted to HTML format by Powerpoint 2000, it is often necessary to break out of Blackboard CourseInfo's frames layout and display the presentation maximized. To achieve that, click the right mouse button (Mac users Ctrl-click, or click-and-hold) on the link to the actual presentation. From the context menu that pops up, choose Open (Link) in New Window.

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While presentation programs offer an option to record a narration for slide shows, the resulting files are way too large to share them via the web. Instead, a streaming technology should be used, as for most multimedia delivery via the web. There are mainly two options: RealPresenter (only works with Powerpoint), and RealSlideshow (works with any collection of images, as obtained by the conversion of a slideshow to HTML+images format).

The streaming media then needs to be uploaded to the ACCC streaming server, and will only be linked to from your Blackboard site.

Please see our RealMedia support pages for details about these programs and the delivery of the resulting files.

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