Using Hotspots
Hotspots let you add something to your blackboard content on the fly, while you’re actually teaching — a student’s answer, a follow-up example, a correction — without leaving your lesson or breaking your flow.
What a Hotspot Looks Like
Anywhere your lesson file has a ?? marker (see
The Lesson File Format), you’ll see a
small, subtle ”+” button on your iPad while teaching. This button:
- Appears on your iPad in Notes, Blackboard, and Both view — wherever the blackboard content is visible to you.
- Never appears on the projector or external screen. Your students only ever see what you choose to add, never the empty ”+” placeholder itself.
How to Add Content with a Hotspot
- While teaching, find the ”+” button where you want to add something.
- Tap it.
- A text box opens right there.
- Type what you want to add — a student’s answer, an extra example, a note, whatever fits the moment.
- Confirm your entry.
The new text appears immediately, live, in both places at once: on your iPad and on the projected screen your students are watching. There’s no delay and no extra step to “publish” it — it shows up the instant you confirm it.
Does This Change My Lesson File?
Not right away. Anything you add through a hotspot during class is kept only in that session — it isn’t written to your original file yet. This means you can freely experiment during a lesson without worrying about permanently changing your file by accident.
Saving Your Additions
When you finish teaching — either by exiting the session or closing the lesson — if you added anything through a hotspot, BlackboardView will ask:
“Save additions to file?”
- Tap Yes to permanently save everything you added back into your original lesson file, in the exact spots where you added it.
- Tap No to discard your additions. Your original file stays exactly as it was before class, and nothing you typed during the session is kept.
This gives you full control: you can try things out live during class, and only keep the ones worth saving for next time.
The Hotspot Stays Reusable
Here’s a detail worth knowing: even after you save your additions, the ”+” marker itself stays in your file at that same spot. So the next time you teach that lesson — say, to a different class period — that same hotspot is ready and empty again, waiting for whatever that class contributes. Your new text gets added right before the marker, so the marker is always the “next” thing after whatever’s been added so far.
A Note on File Access
The first time BlackboardView needs to save your additions back to a file you imported, your iPad may ask you to confirm that the app has permission to write to that file’s location. This is a normal, one-time iOS security step — approve it so BlackboardView can save your work. See Saving and Reopening Files for more on how this works.
What’s Next
- Ad-Hoc Blank Blackboards — inserting a whole new blank blackboard mid-lesson, not just a line of content
- The Lesson File Format — how
??markers work in your file - Saving and Reopening Files — how BlackboardView writes back to your original file