Changing the Default Language for Your Course

By default, all the buttons, menu items, help files, etc. in Blackboard appear in English. If you are teaching a foreign language and would like to immerse your students in that target language, you can actually change the "locale" for your course, so that the Blackboard interacts with your students in the language you have chosen. In other words, if you change the default locale to be Spanish (for example), and you "enforce" that setting, all the menus, buttons, text, icons, etc. appear in Spanish, and your students will face the challenge of grappling with a predominantly Spanish environment when interacting with Blackboard. For foreign languages, though, that challenge is part of the process of gaining fluency in the language. In order to change the locale for your course:

1. Log in to Blackboard (opens in new window), and click on your course among the list of "Courses you are teaching" in the My Courses section of the opening page. Within that course, go to the Control Panel by clicking on the icon near the bottom of the left-hand navigation menu.

2. Within the Course Options section of the Control Panel (in the bottom-left corner), click on the Settings link:

   

3. Scroll to the bottom of the Settings page, and click on the link for Set Locale:   .

4. Click on the down arrow next to the Locale window, and select the language for your course:

   

5. Click in the selection box to "Enforce" this locale, meaning that the course must appear in the chosen language to students, whatever their overarching language setting. Then click on the Submit button to send these changes to the server:

   

6. Blackboard will confirm the change, with the confirmation page in the language you just chose. Click on the OK button (or its equivalent in the language you chose) on two separate screens to return to the Control Panel:

   

Last revised April 11, 2006.   Please send questions or comments to itec@bucknell.edu.