Portal for my course

I think since the course I'm going to teach this fall is for our cohort students, I need to keep the portal in a simple to access format. They are in very small village communities with little IT support. Also my own technology skills are so limited I need to make things simple for me. So, I'm thinking that the Blackboard site makes the most sense. With the tutorial we are receiving from Heidi and having access to the Instructor Manual, I should be able to make Blackboard a useful portal.