WOOL Blog: Ram-ping Up Your Instructional Technology

Welcome back! August has finally come around again. That means it's time to dust off that syllabus, log in to Blackboard, and start prepping for the Fall semester. We want to share an exciting change from over the Summer with one of our favorite web tools, Flipgrid. In June, Microsoft purchased the Flipgrid platform as an inroads into the education market. Most importantly, they have made it free  for all educators. That means you . You can read about the acquisition , but we want to highlight the good stuff: what Flipgrid can do for your classroom. Flipgrid is an asychronouns video discussion tool meaning that, just like the Blackboard Discussion Board, you can pose questions to your class in distinct forums to answer by a set time or date. Instead of typing their answers, however, students respond with a short video recorded on their computer or mobile device. These responses can be set to allot anywhere between 15 seconds and five minutes for each response. Then, students c...

As part of The Winthrop Online Teaching Certification (WOTC), the Winthrop Office of Online Learning (WOOL) administers training through two levels which are taught in two online training courses: WOTC 101: Online Course Design and Development Basic, and WOTC 102: Online Course Facilitation and Management. WOTC 101: Online Course Design and Development Basics is the first of two courses offered in the Winthrop Online Teaching Certification. This course introduces participants to the theories behind online learning. Participants will learn the basics of how to design and develop an online course using the Blackboard learning management system. WOTC 102: Online Course Facilitation and Management is the second of two courses offered in the Winthrop Online Teaching Certification. This course teaches the technical and procedural skills integral to facilitating and managing an online course. Participants will master skills learned in the WOTC 101 course in order to design and delive...

The following is a guest post by Dr. Marshall Jones. Dr. Jones is Professor and Senior Director of Learning Technologies and Graduate Studies in the Richard W. Riley College of Education at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC USA. Dr. Jones teaches graduate courses in Learning Design and Technology and undergraduate courses in technology integration. His research interests and consulting experience include project evaluation, instructional design, mobile learning, elearning, the design and development of constructivist learning environments, emerging technologies, learning analytics and new media.  For me, one of the most difficult things about teaching online is all of the typing that has to be done. Discussion boards, emails, feedback on assignments, EVERYTHING has to be typed. And even if you're a very fast typist and accurate typist (I’m neither), it will take you a long time. Recently, I've been using voice typing in Google Docs as a way to cut down on typing time. Voi...

If you have been an Office Mix user at any point in the last few years, you should have received the email down below. Microsoft has begun to move the core features of Office Mix Preview into an upcoming version of Powerpont and, in the process, will be discontinuing support for the Office Mix website. Depending on the nature in which you have used Office Mix, you may or may not need to take some additional steps to migrate your Mix content to a new platform. If you only used Office Mix to record audio and video in Powerpoint, simply make sure you know where you have your presentations saved. Presentations saved as regular Powerpoint presentations (.pptx) will not be affected. If you uploaded your presentation to the Office Mix website or used embedded quiz questions , please contact us here in the Office of Online Learning at  instructionaldesign@mailbox.winthrop.edu . We can assist in migrating your content to an appropriate platform to preserve this functionality.

You have probably spent plenty of time in the Blackboard Grade Center. Sometimes, the Grade Center can feel a bit overwhelming and difficult to navigate. One way to make navigating the Grade Center easier is to color code your cells. Setting up color coordinated cells can help you easily identify high grades, low grades, and patterns in student work. In this entry, we will show you how to set up color codes in your Grade Center. In the Grade Center, navigate to the manage tab and select "Grading Color Codes." Color coding is disabled by default, so make sure to check the box at the top of the page to enable the display of colors. You will find two sets of options for customizing Grading Color Codes Grading Status allows you to alter the background color for empty cells. This applies to cells in Needs Grading, In Progress, or Exempt status. In the example below, the chosen background colors emphasize the colors used in each status icon. Here is wh...

I. Test Exceptions Overview You may need to add test exceptions for students who need to take an online test at a different time, need extended time, or have other extenuating circumstances. The following can be created as test exceptions: Number of attempts Timer Availability Force completion Depending on your testing policy, students who have experienced technical issues during the testing session may be provided with another attempt to re-take the test. However, as long as Force Completion  was not checked for a test and the student did not run out of time, then he/she would be able to return to the test and complete it with the remaining time. For this reason, consider using a timer with or without auto-submit instead of the Force Completion setting. II. How to Add Test Exceptions To add test exceptions, you will need to access your deployed test in your Blackboard course and select Edit Test Options . Scroll to the Test Availability Exceptions sectio...

The Winthrop Office of Online Learning (WOOL) is hosting WOOL Week 2018 on March 19-23. In order to join us in this celebration, be sure to read your WOOL Week email in the Winthrop Daily Digest. You'll find a fact about our office and services or Blackboard and a trivia question. Submit an answer to the question by 5pm each day by emailing instructionaldesign@winthrop.edu . One of the correct respondents will be selected for a daily giveaway that will help facilitate your use of technology. On Friday March 23 at 1:30 p.m, we'll celebrate WOOL Week with the Office of Online Learning in 308 Tillman. We will select for one last giveaway to enhance your teaching or daily work experience from all of the week's trivia respondents.

In this post, you will find an overview of the one of the most useful pieces of software available in the Blackboard toolkit: Respondus Lockdown Browser. Respondus Lockdown Browser is a web browser just like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, or Microsoft Edge, but with a few extra features designed for assessments in the modern classroom. Respondus Lockdown Browser works with Blackboard to make exams more secure. When using the Respondus Browser to take an exam, students are unable to open other computer programs, windows or tabs in the browser, and copy, paste, or print. This makes Respondus Lockdown Browser ideal for proctored environments, such as a computer lab or classroom, where students take the exam together and at a common time. For fully online courses where you may never meet your students, Respondus offers an additional layer of security to help ensure academic integrity: Respondus Monitor. In addition to the features of Respondus Browser, Monitor enables a student...

When your course is created in Blackboard, it is created with a default course menu. While this menu can be useful as is, customizing the menu can help you create more intuitive navigation for your learners. [1] To begin, hover over one of the items on your course menu and click the drop-down arrow. Here you are able to rename, hide, or delete the link. Delete any items you don't need. Do note if you delete a content folder containing content, you will also delete that content. [2] To reorder the course menu, hover over an item and click on the up-down arrow beside the item you want to move until. Drag and drop the item in its new location on the course menu. (Note: If you're having issues moving items on the course menu, first try to clear your browser's cache, close the browser, and reopen Blackboard:  How to clear your cache in Chrome , How to clear your cache in Firefox ) [3] You may also add a variety of items to your course menu. You may link to a conten...

In Blackboard, the course entry point is the first page students see when they access your course. By default, the course entry point is set to the Home Page tool, show below. However, it can be more helpful for both you and your students to alter the course entry point to a location or tool more useful for your course - or even for a certain time during the semester. To change the course entry point, navigate to Teaching Style under the Customization menu. Simply choose a new entry point from the drop down menu located halfway down the Teaching Style page. That's it! You might choose to change this to another tool you make use of more often, such as Announcements or the Discussion Board. Also, know this course entry point can be updated at anytime, so consider updating to to any location that may better suite the course. For example, set the entry point to a Getting Started section for the first week of class. Once students get acclimated to the course, swit...

If you've used Blackboard to grade student assignments, then you're likely familiar with the integrated inline grading features provided through Crocodoc. Crocodoc allowed students and instructors to view PDF and Word files directly within Blackboard and add annotations such as comments, highlights, strike outs, and drawings to the submitted assignment. However, Crocodoc displayed only a very limited number of file types. Winthrop University has upgraded to Box as the inline grading tool. PDF and Word files are still displayed directly within Blackboard, but Box offers many more supported file types for inline viewing including picture files such as .jpeg and .png, video files such as .mp4, and sound files such as .mp3. For a full list of supported file types, please visit the following site: File Types and Fonts Supported in Box Content Preview Here's a side-by-side comparison of the two views. The one on the left is the old Crocodoc view, and the one on the right is t...

In this blog post, we will show you how to quickly resolve a common playback issue with embedded videos in your Blackboard course. After copying your course content into your new sections for the semester, you may have noticed certain embedded videos display the error message shown below. This issue can often be resolved in less than a minute by following these steps. First, access the edit menu for the location where the video is embedded. Click on the yellow video placeholder in the text box, and click the "edit embedded media" option. On the following screen, you will see a drop down pane labelled "Type". To correct the playback issue, toggle from HTML 5 Video to Iframe, and then back to HTML5 Video. Select "update" and submit your changes. Your video should now play correctly within the browser. If you still have issues with video playback or have any questions about this process, please do not hesitate to contact us at...

As we head toward the end of the semester, you have probably begun thinking about your Spring 2018 courses. We have blogged before about some of the helpful features in Blackboard that make preparing for a new semester easier: copying materials into your new courses , setting availability and due dates efficiently , and exporting or archiving your older courses for safe-keeping. Likewise, making tweaks to your syllabus, updating your assignment descriptions, or replacing older presentations with a new ones can also eat up valuable time. In this post, you will find a quick way to replace older files and documents with new ones using the "Overwrite File" option in the Content Collection. First, some helpful background information: each document you upload to Blackboard is automatically added to the Content Collection. For example, you will find a copy of your syllabus in the Content Collection if you have added it somewhere in your course. A. Syllabus as it appears in ...

It's that time of year again. With advising upon us, you will soon have students knocking on your door with a proposed schedule in hand. It is likely that some of your advisees will be considering online coursework for the first time, and they may be unsure if this type of coursework is right for them. While you may know your advisees well enough to make a more personalized recommendation, you can also point them to our Online Learning Readiness Self-Assessment. This assessment is a short questionnaire consisting of 12 questions focusing on your advisees' learning disposition, technical abilities, and expectations for online coursework. After answering each question, students will be presented with a short evaluation of how well-suited or prepared they are for taking an online course. While this may not be the sole factor in decided to take an online course, we hope it provides a helpful foundation for your advisees' decisions. You can access the online learning readine...

Do you ever feel lost in Blackboard, sorting through your long list of courses, or feel like navigating out from one course and into the another is cumbersome? Here is a quick tip to help you jump between your most relevant courses. Enter a Blackboard course. Under the "Winthrop University" tab, you'll see a home icon and a drop-down arrow.  Click the arrow, and then from the list, choose title of the course you'd like to switch to. At the top of the list, you'll find your most recently visited courses; you do not have to sort through all of your courses to find the ones most relevant to you this term. Voila! You're in the new course in the exact same location in Blackboard (eg. Grade Center, Announcements) with the quick click of the mouse. For more information about Blackboard, please visit our website at  https://www.winthrop.edu/onlinelearning .

When you enter your Blackboard course and are adding content or reorganizing materials, you are likely in Edit Mode. Edit Mode allows you to add, delete, move, and change settings of the materials in your course. You can check to see that you're in Edit Mode by looking at the top right corner of your course. When in Edit Mode, the indicator will have a green dot and states that "Edit Mode is ON" However, there are two other modes that you can enter: Edit Mode Off, and Student Preview Mode. The following chart highlights some of the basic differences between these two modes. Edit Mode Off Student Preview Mode View the course from the student's perspective Determine which items are hidden from the student's view due to availability settings, empty content, or adaptive release settings Disable ability to add, delete, move, or change any settings of the materials in your course Complete student activities such as taking tests, submitting assign...

Whether you have just copied over an older course section to current one, as we discussed in our last blog , or you have recently built a course from scratch, chances are you have some tweaking to do with due dates and availability before the Fall. In this post, we will show you the most efficient way of setting up all the date and time criteria in your course using the Data Management tool. Date Management allows you to adjust availability and due date permissions for any Blackboard items currently using them - not only assignments and tests. For example, you can also adjust settings for Announcements, Discussion Boards, Journals, and even folders or modules that have availability parameters. Date management is housed alongside the same course tools you use most often. You will find it about halfway down the list of course tools under the content management pane. Upon selected the tool, you will be presented with three options for adjusting your dates. Use Course Start Dat...