Navigating the Site
A quickstart tutorial for the beginner

The web site for this online course Indigenous Perspectives on Knowledge and Culture is divided into two major regions: 1) a course content region, and 2) an interactive tools region. The first region is a web site with general information about the course, readings for you to do which have been written by the instructor or by others, photographs, virtual exhibits, journal exercises, and so forth. The top of the web pages in this region are all branded by a colorful logo which identifies them as an IAIA course. The second region of the course is the area of interactive tools. All the pages in this region carry the logo of Blackboard, which is the software IAIA uses to make the course interactively dynamic. This is the region where you would go to send emails to your instructor, to place messages for other students to read, to check your grades and so forth.

The purpose of the information on this page is to help you make the best use of all these features by giving you sort of a map of the website, and some sense of what the Blackboard tools are for. Let's first look at the organization of the course, and then we will look at the Blackboard tools.

COURSE CONTENT AND COURSE ORGANIZATION The Indigenous Perspectives 1 course "home page" has links to the following four areas:

Introduction - Information about online education and about your instructor.

Learning Resources - Information about research tools, how to communicate with fellow students and your instructor and so forth, along with links to the Blackboard tools discussed on that page.

Getting Started - How to navigate the site, get technical support or administrative help.

View Courses/Course guides- Here is the heart of the course site, which is the course lectures, virtual exhibits, photos, readings and so forth.

The course guides are broken up into sections, such as Concepts of Humor, Concepts of Knowledge and Concepts of Nature, and then each section is further broken up into chapters with specific readings, journal exercises and so forth. Use the printed Assignments page you have been given to determine when you should be reading a certain chapter or submitting something to your instructor. A copy of this Assignments page can be found on the Blackboard site when you click the "assignments" button.

The entire course site is actually a group of interconnected web pages, which are designed to allow you to move from area to area with relative ease. But of course it is also possible to get lost. That is why every page in the site offers you the opportunity to go "home." If you do get lost, just go home and follow the links from home to the area you were reading.

Many links open up new browser windows when you click them. When this happens, you have two windows on your computer which contain pages you could be reading. When a new window opens, you can just read that material and then click the "close window" link to view the page you were reading before you opened up the new window.

And remember, when you are in doubt about what to do, either email your instructor (nine_bear@yahoo.com) for help on academic concerns, or for technical support and computer problems email david@komito.com.

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INTERACTIVE BLACKBOARD TOOLS
The Blackboard course shell has links on the left column to the following tools:

Announcements: The first page which you see in Blackboard contains announcements from the instructor or technical support personnel. After visiting other pages in Blackboard you can see the announcements again by clicking the "announcements" button on the left side of the page.

Course Information: This button on the Blackboard site will send you to pages (including this one) with information about course site organization, instructor's learning objectives, grading and so forth.

Staff Information: This button on the Blackboard site will give you personal information about about the instructor, technical support personnel and so forth.

Course Material: This button on the Blackboard site will take you to the Indigenous Perspectives 1 home page, and from there to the course guides, which are the instructional heart of the course.

Assignments: This button on Blackboard will show you a week-by-week calendar of reading assignments, essays to submit to the instructor and so forth.

Books: This button on Blackboard will take you to the IAIA Library and its password-protected databases.

Communication: This button in Blackboard will take you to links for a variety of interactive communication tools which are described below:

  • send email to all users: This link allows you to create and send an email to everyone registered for your course, including the instructor and technical support.
  • select users: This link allows you to create and send an email to a single person who is registered in this course, including the instructor and technical support.
  • discussion board: This is an asynchronous bulletin board. Any message you post here can be seen by anyone else who logs onto the board. It is posted as soon as you click "submit" and will remain on the board for the duration of the course. Most course communication will take place here -- it is sort of like holding a discussion in a classroom!
  • virtual classroom: This is a chat room, which means that several people can get onto this part of the site at the same time and communicate in real time with each other. Communications posted here are not saved for later review.
  • roster: This is simply a list of names of your fellow students and information about them.

Student tools: This button in Blackboard is the location for you to submit papers (the digital drop box) or check your grade for assignments submitted.

  • digital drop box: When you write a paper for this class using MSWord, you can upload it to the drop box and leave it there for the instructor to read. No one but you or the instructor will have access to papers you place in the drop box. The instructor can leave your graded papers there for you to download. Even if you download a paper a copy remains in the dropbox, so this is very helpful if you are not using your own private computer -- you can read and print off a downloaded paper, without leaving a copy on a public computer.
  • check grade: This is a grade book, and if the instructor is using this feature, you can see your grades for each assignment you submit. Only you can see your grades, they are not public.