Create an activity box using wildcards

The Content Styler can format Activity boxes that indicate learning activities that students must complete. When the Content Styler is activated, it reads the asterisk * wildcard to create an activity box. This wildcard must be placed within square brackets [ ] and added to the Blackboard Item name. The default activity icon is a pencil.

The default activity icon can be changed using a number (1-7). The numbered options are illustrated below.

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Content Styler Cheatsheet

You can view and print this handy cheatsheet that lists the most commonly used wildcards and how they can be combined to style items.

Let's walk through a simple example, an activity box for a video activity about watching a video.

Steps to create a video activity 

  1. Navigate to the Unit Content folder and open a module folder that has the content-styler item present (see getting started above).  
  2. Start by creating a new Blackboard Item. 


  3. Name the item appropriately in this example, name the activity "Watch: Structure of Viruses Video"
  4. In this example, this instructional text is copied (Ctrl + C) from a Word document along with a YouTube link.

    "Watch the following video summarising the key differences between enveloped and non-enveloped viruses."
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miOPtXTeHYE

  5. Now add content to the text section in Blackboard by pasting it (Ctrl + V). Click "Remove Formatting" when pasting the content so that it doesn't override the Content Styler.



    The Item now has a name, some text, and a link to the YouTube video. 


  6. Place the cursor next to the YouTube video address and hit Enter on the keyboard. This will automatically embed the video on the page.



  7. Add the activity and video icon wildcards. The wildcard for an activity is an asterix * and the number for the video icon is the number 2.
    After the name of the activity, insert square brackets with the wildcards inside: [*2]


  8. Click Submit to save the Blackboard Item. turn Edit Mode OFF, the Content Styler activates the wildcards.

Further information about the Content Styler

Please see the following articles to learn more about how the Content Styler functions, what wildcards can do and steps to troubleshoot issues with the content styler. 

(Please note - it's better to refer to the Online version rather than export, as it's always up to date)