The Jewish Theological Seminary
Your Blackboard Course Site
When you first enter your course site, it will look similar to the following image:
Note the following areas:
1: At the very top left corner of the page is the JTS logo. Clicking on this will take you to the JTS home page.
2: Directly underneath the logo is a white tab called My Jewish Theological Seminary Courses. Clicking on this tab will take you back to your main Blackboard page.
3: Underneath the tab, on the left side of the screen, is an image with a disk, a menu consisting of buttons, and a box titled Tools. No matter where you go within your course, you will usually see this area on your screen.
a: Clicking on the image will open JTS's Instructional Technology home page.
b: The navigation items on the left-hand side of the screen are buttons and text links which you use to view various areas of the course. Note that each course varies depending on the instructor's preferences, so your course may look different, or have different functionality in the navigation items.
c: The Tools box links you to Communications features, Course Tools, and a Course Map.
4: These are Internal Navigation links, also known as "breadcrumbs," and will appear at the top of each page within a course. Clicking on a title will take you to that area of the course: e.g., the course name will take you to the entry page of the course. Selecting the name of a content area (e.g., Chapter Material) will take you to the top level of that content area. Note: due to the dynamic nature of many of the pages within the course, it is strongly recommended that you use the internal navigation links instead of the browser's back and forward buttons.
5: Finally, notice that you are viewing the course Announcements. This is the default area shown whenever you go to your course's main page. (Notice how clicking the Announcements button in the left-hand menu doesn't change what you see.)
You can access various parts of your Blackboard course by single-clicking on the navigation buttons, folder titles, links, Tools, and Communication buttons.
***There are two types of navigation:
i. Navigating between content areas (e.g. from the Syllabus to the Readings).
ii. Navigating within a content area to navigate between course areas (e.g., from Week 1 Readings to Week 2 Readings). Click on the link in the navigation menu OR use the Course Map to navigate.
When you navigate within a content area, you can use internal navigation to move between documents and folders.
Now that you have learned what your course looks like when you first enter it, click "Next" to learn more about what you can do within your course.