Blackboard

Save the Date! – ‘TEL’ Me More Seminar

Leave a Comment / Blackboard, Camtasia, Collaborate, Conferences, Panopto, Training, Turnitin, Vevox /

On Wednesday 16th December, the Technology Enhanced Learning Unit will be hosting their annual ‘TEL’ Me More Seminar.

The event, which was originally planned for March, will be fully online and colleagues from across the University will be showcasing their use of technology as part of their learning and teaching.

With the current environment, online teaching has grown significantly over the past several months and this event will provide a fantastic opportunity to network with colleagues from different areas of academia, generate ideas and learn new skills, which you can take forward in to your own learning and teaching.

To secure your place, sign up via the ‘Staff Development Workshops’ page.

Full programme details will be released shortly.

Are you interested in presenting at the seminar? We currently have one slot available. If you would like to present (no more than 10 minutes), please email tel@worc.ac.uk with a short summary of your presentation.

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TEL November Workshops

Leave a Comment / Accessibility, Blackboard, Camtasia, Collaborate, Panopto, Training, Turnitin, Vevox /

Following the fantastic response to our September workshops, we will be running another series of online training sessions throughout November.

All sessions run from 10:15 to 11:15 and will take place online via Collaborate. Guest links will be emailed to the attendees before the session.

  • Thursday 5th November – Using tests and surveys in Blackboard
  • Monday 9th November – Recording from your desktop using Panopto
  • Tuesday 10th November – Blackboard accessibility and Ally
  • Wednesday 11th November – Camtasia
  • Tuesday 17th November – Collaborate Virtual Classroom
  • Thursday 19th November – Vevox polling software
  • Tuesday 24th November – Using Blackboard for blended and mobile learning
  • Thursday 26th November – Assessing Student Presentations online using Collaborate and Panopto

If you are interested in attending, please sign up via the Staff Development Workshops pages on the Staff Portal. Places are set at 20 but, if overbooked (within reason), will likely be extended to include the waiting list.

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Organise Blackboard Modules by Term

Leave a Comment / Blackboard /

Having all of your modules in one long list can be overwhelming and difficult to navigate. Thankfully, it is now possible to organise your modules on Blackboard by term!

This is very simple to do:

  1. Click the cog icon above My Courses
  2. Under \’Terms\’ click \’Group by Term\’
  3. Click Submit

This will then organise all of your modules into a collapsible list for each period.

Here\’s an animation we have prepared to demonstrate this (click to view):

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Many thanks to Mark Jones for facilitating this.

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Woman working at laptop

Upcoming Workshops

1 Comment / Blackboard, Camtasia, Collaborate, Training, Turnitin /

Need to sharpen your skills on Blackboard? Maybe you would like to explore the advantages of marking in Turnitin or using Collaborate to facilitate remote learning? Or perhaps you would like to explore the functions of the Retention Centre to monitor student engagement and identify those who may be struggling.

The Technology Enhanced Learning Unit is running a series of workshops to help get you up and running. There will also be a session covering Vevox, the University\’s new polling software. The courses on offer are:

  • Vevox – find out how to use the university\’s new in-lecture polling system – 04/02/2020, EE1022
  • Camtasia – learn how to create your own video resources – 17/02/2020, EEG023, 10:15-11:45
  • Running an Online Session in Collaborate – explore remote learning using the Collaborate Virtual Classroom – 18/02/2020, online class, 10:00-11:15
  • Setting up and Using Turnitin – find out how to use Turnitin for online assessment and marking – 03/03/2020, EEG031, 10:30-12:00
  • Using Quizzes, Tests and Surveys in Blackboard – learn how to utilise Blackboard\’s extensive range of testing tools – 04/03/2020, EEG023, 09:45-11:15
  • Turnitin Peer Assessment – discover the pedagogical advantages of having students review the work of their peers – 18/03/2020, EEG031, 10:00-12:15
  • Designing Accessible Courses – find out how to ensure that your online content is accessible to all students – 25/03/2020, EEG031, 14:00-16:15
  • Tracking Student Engagement in Blackboard – use the retention centre to track how well your students are engaging and to identify problems before they arise – 23/03/2020, EEG023, 14:15-15:45
  • Advanced Turnitin – learn how to use rubrics and quick marks within Turnitin (you will need to be familiar with the basics of Turnitin beforehand) – 06/04/2020, EE1022 09:45-11:15

Please book places via the Staff Development Workshops page.

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Bespoke Training

1 Comment / Blackboard, Camtasia, Collaborate, Training, Turnitin /

At the Technology Enhanced Learning unit we run a range of training workshops for academic staff. However, we understand that sometimes you might like to attend but can\’t make the particular time on offer. Sometimes you might need some training on an area not covered in our workshops.

If either of these apply to you, you are welcome to request one-to-one or small group training from one of our Academic Learning Technologists. This can cover topics from our workshops, or be tailored to your individual requirements. We also can arrange team-based workshops by request.

Systems that we support:

  • Blackboard
  • Turnitin
  • Pebblepad
  • Camtasia
  • Collaborate Virtual Classroom
  • Medial for video assessment

Topics that we can cover:

  • Learning design
  • Mobile and blended learning
  • Online assessment
  • Online accessibility

If you are interested, please email TEL@worc.ac.uk with details of your training needs and we will get back to you.

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Join the TEL Ideas Exchange

1 Comment / Blackboard, Camtasia, Conferences, Training, Turnitin /

The TEL Ideas Exchange group brings together colleagues from all schools with an interest in technology enhanced learning to promote and disseminate best practice. After a very successful initial launch by invitation in May, we are are now extending the opportunity to all academic colleagues to participate in the group.

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Newsletters

There is another meeting coming up in November. If you are interested in taking part, please email TEL@worc.ac.uk and we will provide full details.

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Footprint

Finding your Feet with Files

1 Comment / Blackboard /

Filing. I know. Snoozefest right? But getting to know the Files area on your Blackboard modules can be incredibly useful. Bear with me.

Locating the Files Area

The files area can be found in the side menu under Course Management. Click on Files and then on the module code (TEST2_BRIA1 in the image below).

\"Files

This will take you into the files area, which shows all uploaded documents and folders in a list. By clicking on any of the headings you can sort files by this criteria. Clicking once will sort in ascending order. Clicking twice will sort by descending order. This function is particularly useful for viewing all files of a certain type (e.g. identifying all of the PowerPoint files), or for locating the most recently edited or largest documents.

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Removing Unwanted Files

Each Blackboard course area is set up with a standard 500MB of storage space. It is a good idea to regularly audit the files stored on your course areas.

If you copy content over from year to year, you may end up storing files that you no longer need. You may be storing several older versions of the same document. You may even want to remove a particularly large file that is using up a lot of space and replace it with a compressed version.

This is a two step process however. First you need to remove the file from the relevant course area. If you do this, it will still remain stored on the module, taking up valuable space.

To remove files completely, you need to go to the Files area, select the unwanted files using the tick boxes and click Delete. Once you have confirmed the deletion, the file will be totally removed from the module.

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Be sure to perform both steps, as removing documents only from the files area will result in a broken link remaining in the content area.

Downloading Files

Often staff need to download some or all of the files from a Blackboard module. Luckily this is a simple thing to do.

  1. Go to the course files area
  2. Select the files that you require. Alternatively you can select all files by clicking the tickbox next to \’File Type\’.
  3. Select \’Download Package\’. This will download the files as a zipped folder.

From this area it is also possible to copy or move files, however, this is best to do from the content area. We will show you how to do this in our next post.

If you have any questions, please contact us at TEL@worc.ac.uk

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Sign - closed for construction

Blackboard Scheduled Downtime

Leave a Comment / Blackboard /

We are pleased to announce that Blackboard, the University’s Virtual Learning Environment is moving to a managed hosting Software as a Service (SaaS) deployment method this August. 

There are many benefits to making this change including:

  • A reliable, scalable and robust infrastructure
  • Improved performance, giving a better user experience.
  • Zero or minimal downtime including scheduled maintenance and annual upgrades
  • Ability to deliver continuous updates including new features or enhancements
  • Quicker resolution of any technical issues, bug fixes, etc.
  • Access to facilitate new integrations

These changes will not affect the end user experience and you don’t need to do anything with your modules and organisations – these will all be transferred centrally, however there will be a period of downtime from 8pm on Friday 9th August until midday on Monday 12th August while the transition is carried out.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause. If you have any issues or questions with regard to this please contact tel@worc.ac.uk.

Website: www.uwtel.co.uk | Twitter: @UW_TEL

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Summer Workshops

Leave a Comment / Blackboard, Collaborate, Training, Turnitin /

The Technology Enhanced Learning Unit will be running a series of workshops over the summer period.

Courses covered will be a mixture of our most popular regular courses, as well as some exciting new offerings, including making Blackboard more accessible, incorporating blended learning into your delivery, and an introduction to Medial, the University\’s new tool for video assessment.

Courses on offer are:

  • 04/07/2019 – Using Quizzes, Tests and Surveys in Blackboard – 14:15-16:00 EE1101
  • 11/07/2019 – Running an Online Session in Collaborate – 10:30-12:00 Virtual Classroom (link will be emailed)
  • 16/07/2019 – Using Blackboard for Blended and Mobile Learning – 09:45-11:30 EE2011
  • 16/07/2019 – Medial Video Assessment – 13:00-14:00 EEG031
  • 19/07/2019 – Blackboard Made Simple – 09:30-11:15 EEG023 (PC)
  • 19/07/2019 – Designing Accessible Courses – 10:00-12:00 EEG031
  • 23/07/2019 – Setting Up and Using Turnitin Online Assignments – 10:30-12:00 EEG031 (PC)
  • 24/07/2019 – Camtasia – 09:30-11:15 EEG031 (PC)

We will also be running sessions for ASU staff as an introduction to Blackboard and Turnitin. These sessions will give staff an overview of how the systems work and how to resolve simple issues. Workshops will be arranged directly with ASU teams.

For more information and to sign up, visit the Staff Development page.

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Maze

VLE Review Launch: What do You think of Blackboard?

Leave a Comment / Blackboard, VLE Review /

The official review of the Blackboard Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) has now begun!

The first step is to assess our current system. We need to find out what staff like and don\’t like about it, what could be improved and whether users would like to see the inclusion of any additional functionality. This can then be used as a benchmark to help us decide the direction of the VLE review project.

We would be extremely grateful if you could complete this short survey which should take no more than 5 minutes.

For further information about the VLE review, please see the VLE Review page of our website.

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