When editing forum postings feel free to experiment with the editing tools. If you wish, you may delete any of your wild experiments by opening the message in the Forum and clicking the button marked Remove. Once you begin course work each instructor will determine whether to give you editing or deleting privileges, and many will NOT, but in the first forum of the orientation you will have the ability to edit or remove any message you post.
For practice with formatting text (if you chose to experiment), try some of the suggested tasks below. Note that you can also copy and paste text, and use the arrows on the toolbar to undo and redo your actions.
Idea
One of most useful keyboard tricks is to press the control (apple or command on a Mac) and Z keys to undo your last action. This will save your bacon when you don't have access to the undo icon or menu item.
Editing Tasks for Practice:
Type some text in the editor
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Block the text by dragging your mouse across the words to highlight it
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Click the icons, while text is blocked, to apply format options
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Try various options, such as:
- bold or italic type (the B and I icons)
- bullets and numbers
- changes in font size and type (e.g. Times New Roman, Arial, etc.)
- text color (using the icon of the letter A with a red line under it)
- lines (the equivalent of the <hr> tag in html)
- tables
- hyperlinks for URL's (e.g. http://google.com)
- highlighting text (use the icon of the marker with the yellow line)
- spell checking!!!
Below is an image of the editing tools menu. Experiment with these to see what they can do (or what trouble you can get yourself into!).
Figure 18: Visual Editing Tools
If you are familiar with HTML or have access to a web editor, such as Dreamweaver or Front Page, you can optionally click the <> icon on the editor and type or paste code into the window. This will allow you to precisely format your message exactly the way you want it to look. But this is not necessary for most text messages (i.e. you won't get extra points).
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Blackboard Tutorial Page 9 of 12 |
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