Getting Started with Microsoft Sway

Contributed by Jenni Willis-Opalenik, Director - Technology Learning Services

One software application gaining much "buzz" during Faculty Development Week 2022 is Microsoft Sway. Based on faculty feedback, our Support Center staff is planning to offer Sway training in the near future, In addition, instructional designer Jane Nguyen is creating video tutorials that include how faculty might use Sway to create the interactive syllabi discussed in her recent presentation.

While we await both of those support options, I wanted to provide any "do it yourselfers" out there with some information about how you can learn more about, and get started with, Microsoft Sway:

• Microsoft Support Page: Getting Started with Sway
• Microsoft Sway Quick Start Tutorials

As you may already know, the IDT team moved to Sway for our weekly newsletters in late 2021. We look forward to sharing more information with you about our lessons learned in the near future!

Food for Thought - Blogs and Other Resources

Curated for our readers this week are several blog posts that may be of interest:

• 6 Tips For Asynchronous Teaching From An Award-Winning Educator - University of Vermont professor Susan Whitman shares her advice for designing and developing asynchronous classes.
• Authentic and Effective: Rescuing Video from Its Role as the Villain of Online Learning - EDUCAUSE contributor Erin Crisp discusses that, "Video for learning has gotten a bad rap lately, but thoughtful changes and a better understanding of the subtleties of online learning can help instructional video rehab its image."
• "Never Going Back" Blog Series - Vanderbilt University "graduate teaching fellow Mohammad Meerzaei interviewed faculty members from across the campus asking one provocative question: How did this period of adaptive teaching make them better instructors? In this blog series titled “Never Going Back,” instructors reflect on their experiences teaching during this challenging year and share new teaching practices and beliefs about teaching that they will carry into their post-pandemic teaching."

Pop Culture in the Classroom: Using Audio & Video Clips

I'm excited this week to write about a great teaching strategy: integrating pop culture in your lessons. This is especially effective in the form of short audio & video clips presented intermittently throughout a lecture or presentation. The practice works wonders for raising the interest of students, especially freshmen and sophomores. It turns out, though, that students across the board use these clips as tools for study and review of materials as well.

As it stands, many professors already use PowerPoint or Google Slides as the basis of lectures. A step up is to embed video & audio clips within the slides to introduce a new topic or make a connection between contemporary issues and past ones, or between familiar ideas and esoteric ones. I want to point out, though, that the connection does not have to be direct. For instance, if you are lecturing about civil rights in the 60s, your clip doesn't have to be footage of protests in the 60s or about a civil rights controversy in the 2020s. It certainly can be, but…when it comes to using pop culture to gain students' attention & interest, a humorous clip from a modern t.v. show or a new song that references civil rights or something related can function as a tie-in. One professor has stated that when discussing limitations of water power for nineteenth-century factories, she plays Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby" as a lead-in. These are fun, attention-getting inclusions.

What are some important parameters around video & audio clips in lessons?

• Keep them short. For song clips, it is necessary anyway to only play the music for 10 to 30 seconds to avoid a copyright violation. For video, your clip can be up to 2 or 3 minutes. Having a video or audio clip that's notably long can be too much of a lecture interruption wherein students' minds wander from the topic. You as the instructor may also feel awkward standing still and just listening/watching for too long with your students. Not to mention that some students will not like certain clips for various reasons. Choosing clips that are relatively brief ensures that no one student is uncomfortable or unsettled for too long. It also makes sense to leave students wanting more of a good clip than allowing them to be bored or confused by one that goes on for too long. The point is to break the monotony and make a smart, relevant connection. 
• Don't go overboard. As with everything, moderation & balance are key. Too many images in a PowerPoint lecture can be distracting; certainly, an overabundance of video & audio clips can be as well. 
• Try to avoid showing a video clip or playing an audio clip without commenting on it either before or after (in some cases, comment before and after) and having students do the same. [Don't assume the clips speak for themselves in terms of relevance to your content in your students' view.] When you talk about the relevance or meaning of a clip, students often bring up other things they've seen or heard that are likewise relevant or even more applicable. 
• There are three general categories of audio clips: 1) primary source material. For example, a recording of a Martin Luther King Jr. speech, 2) using the name of an artist or the title of a song as a mnemonic device to relate to the material. For instance, Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" as a lead-in to talking about the cotton gin (Eli Whitney) 3) a pop-cultural artifact that relates to a concept (for instance, the Vanilla Ice "Ice, Ice Baby" example given above). 
• There are three general categories of video clips: 1) primary source material, such as protest footage from the civil rights, 2) dramatic video that depicts concepts. For instance, the 1989 movie Glory about the Civil War, and 3) relating a situation in a recent movie or t.v. show to a course concept or a theory/idea. 

Integrating short audio & video clips in your teaching is almost universally liked by students. The clips function, if nothing else, as attitude-enhancers. It goes beyond that, however, as many students report understanding and remembering information better when pop cultural connections are made, and when they are shown through audio & video clips. This may be in part because students are increasingly becoming visual learners.

For more insight on the value of video & audio in teaching, as well as the inclusion of pop-cultural connections, be sure to check out these excellent resources:

• 5 (Easy to Implement) Ways Video Can Have Powerful Impact on Teaching & Learning 
• Benefits of Integrating Pop Culture in the Classroom
• Using Video Content to Amplify Learning
• Popular Culture in the Classroom
• 10 Reasons to Use Video for Education

Blackboard Activity Stream

Blackboard’s Activity Stream is a valuable, if often underutilized, feature.  The Activity Stream is a link located in the left-hand menu when logging into Blackboard.  Students and instructors can check the statuses of items in all of their courses from one place immediately after logging into Blackboard!

Student Activity Stream: Students can view upcoming assignments, tests, and other events, receive reminders for approaching deadlines, and check their grades.  Clicking any item on the Activity Stream brings you directly to where that item is located within your course.  As a current student, I love the Activity Stream feature; it is my favorite addition from Ultra Base Navigation.  I can see assignments that will be due soon.  Also, I can check my grade on any recently graded items right away!  

 

Instructor Activity Stream: Instructors can see their students’ posts in graded discussions, their newly submitted assignments, and can view upcoming events and meetings.  Clicking any link on the Activity Stream brings them directly to where that item is located within their course.  This built-in tool is handy and can be used in place of old modules such as “To Do” or “Alerts” that previously resided within courses.  

 

Important note from Blackboard: If you dismiss an item in the “Important” section of the Activity Stream, you will NOT be able to view it again even if you sign out and sign in again.

 

Notifications: 

 

Students and instructors can customize the notifications they see on the activity stream, the email notifications they receive, and how often they receive email notifications by clicking on the “gear” icon in the upper right-hand corner of the browser window.  

 

 

Below are links to more information about the Activity Stream information for Students and Instructors from Blackboard’s help site:

 

Activity Stream (Students)

Activity Stream (Instructors)

As always, if you have any questions about the above information, please feel free to contact the Support Center at either 281-283-2828 or supportcenter@uhcl.edu, and a member of our team will be in touch to assist.

Notice: Echo360 Notifications Currently Turned Off

Over the last week we’ve heard from several faculty members that their recordings aren’t being transferred from Zoom to Echo360. Rest assured that this integration is still intact and working as intended. The reason you are not receiving the typical email from Echo360 letting you know when your recording is available is that we currently have those emails turned off in our Echo360 system. This is a necessary step for a migration project we are working on with Echo. If we left them on, certain users would be inundated with emails as the migration project progresses. The only way to avoid this is to have notifications turned off for everyone while this project is still active. Once we have completed this migration, we should be able to turn these notifications back on. In the meantime, for recordings that are being added to Echo360 as a result of the Zoom integration, you will simply need to check your Echo360 library at minimum one (1) hour after you receive your email from Zoom about your recording. Keep in mind that the longer/larger a recording is, the longer it will take to upload from Zoom over to Echo360 so do not worry if your recording isn’t available after an hour.

If you find that you’ve waited a substantial amount of time (say, overnight) and your recording is still not appearing in your Echo360 library, please let us know and we’ll investigate.

To check your Echo360 Library, simply log in to Echo360 via the link below (using your UHCL email address/log in credentials) and then click “Library” in the top left corner of the screen.

https://login.echo360.org/login

As always, if you have any questions about this or any other Zoom/Echo360 related issues, please contact the Support Center (281.283.2828, SupportCenter@uhcl.edu) and a member of our team will be in touch to assist.

Blackboard Tip: Creating Groups in Your Course

Are you interested in creating student groups in your course, but you’re unsure where to start? Group work can be a great way to encourage student interaction and enhance learning. Creating and managing groups in Blackboard can seem daunting, so in this article, I will go over the basics and prepare you to try implementing groups in your courses.

The first thing you will want to do is create a link to the Groups tool in your Course Menu. This tool will allow students to access their group’s workspace. To create the tool, follow these steps:

1. Hover the mouse pointer over the Add Menu Item button (Å) at the top of the Course Menu (the dark gray area) and select Tool Link from the pop-up menu.
2. In the Name text box, type Groups.
3. Click on the drop-down menu and select Groups.
4. Click the Available to Users checkbox to make the Groups tool available to students.
5. Click Submit.

You should now have a menu item called Groups at the bottom of the main course menu. Next, you will create your groups and enroll students in the groups. The method for creating groups and enrolling students varies depending on the type of groups you would like to create. There are two ways to create groups and three ways to enroll students. You create groups by opening the Groups tool and selecting the Create menu in the upper left corner.

The first way to create a group is to create a Single Group. You can create as many groups as you would like, but you will set them up one at a time. When you create a Single Group, you have two options for enrolling students in the groups: Self-Enroll and Manual Enroll. Self-enroll allows students to select the group they would like to join. Manual Enroll allows the instructor to assign students to groups. The second way to create groups is to create a Group Set. Creating a set will enable you to set up all your groups at once and give you a third enrollment option, Random Enrollment. Random Enrollment allows you to select the number of groups you would like to have, and Blackboard will randomly distribute the students throughout the groups.

The basic setup is the same for all types of groups:

1. Open the Groups tool.
2. Hover the mouse pointer over the Create drop-down menu in the upper left corner and select the type of Group or Group Set you would like to create.
3. In the Name text box, type the name of the group/set.
4. Enter a description of the group/set in the Description text box (optional).
5. Set group/set visibility (I recommend leaving it at the default of yes).
6. Select the course tools you would like the group to have access to (the types of work you would like them to do).
7. Decide if you would like the group/set to be able to personalize their group module.
8. For Self-Enroll groups:
1. Enter a name for the sign-up sheet.
2. Enter instructions for the sign-up sheet.
3. Enter the maximum number of group members.
4. Decide if you would like the names of students who have already enrolled to be displayed in the sign-up sheet.
5. Decide if you would like the sign-up sheet to be displayed on the group listing page.
6. If you are creating a group set, enter the number of groups you would like to create.
7. Decide if you would like to create a Smart View for each group in Grade Center.
8. Click Submit.
9. For Manual Enroll groups:
1. If creating a single group:
1. Decide if you would like to create a Smart View for the group in Grade Center.
2. Click the Add Users button.
3. Select the students you would like to add to the group.
4. Click Submit (on the student selection page).
5. Click Submit (on the main page).
2. If creating a group set:
1. Enter the number of groups you would like to create.
2. Decide if you would like to create a Smart View for each group in Grade Center.
3. Click Submit.
4. For each group:
1. Rename the group (optional).
2. Click the Add Users button.
3. Select the students you would like to assign to the group.
4. Click Submit (on the student selection page).
5. When all students have been assigned, click Submit (on the enrollment page).
10. For Random Enrollment groups:
1. Decide if you would like to create a Smart View for each group in Grade Center.
2. Decide if you would like to determine the number of groups by:
1. The number of students per group (enter the number of students).
2. The number of groups (enter the number of groups).
3. Decide how you would like any remaining students to be distributed through the groups:
1. Randomly distribute the remaining students.
2. Create a new group for the remaining students.
3. Manually add them to existing groups.
4. Click Submit.

Once you have created your groups, you can edit the groups and add new groups as needed to accommodate changes in enrollment or similar issues. For more information about creating or managing groups, please visit Blackboard's help pages, beginning with the Groups introduction page.

If you are interested in using Groups in your course but have questions on how to use them or what types of group activities you can incorporate into your course, please consult your designated Instructional Designer.

Upcoming 2020 Zoom-to-Echo360 Video Migrations

As more faculty embrace the use of Zoom to record and deploy lecture recordings, video tutorials, and virtual class meetings, UHCL's available Zoom cloud storage is nearing capacity. To avoid incurring substantial costs associated with more storage, the IDT team is beginning an effort to reduce Zoom cloud storage by helping 186 faculty and staff members cull and/or migrate the nearly 4300 Zoom video recordings from the 2020 calendar year into Echo360 for long-term storage. We expect to send initial email inquiries to faculty/staff with 2020 videos stored in the Zoom cloud early next week, and we would greatly appreciate everyone's cooperation in this effort so that we can make temporary storage space available for SP22 recordings.

Beginning in 2021, we integrated our Zoom and Echo360 environments. As a result, if you have activated your Echo360 account and you elect to have your Zoom recordings "save to the cloud," they will be saved both temporarily in Zoom and in your Echo360 Library for long-term storage and deployment. Our team will then periodically identify Zoom cloud recordings that also exist in Echo360 and remove those from Zoom storage. Faculty and staff are advised to consider Zoom cloud storage as a temporary holding space for video recordings, with Echo360 as the tool for long-term storage, retrieval, and sharing.

For more information about the transfer process for 2020 Zoom cloud recordings, or to learn more about the Echo360 video storage environment, please contact the Support Center to have your inquiry sent to a member of our Instructional Design and Technology (IDT) team.

Reminder - GoUHCL Application Portal Launches Next Week!

As announced to the campus via email over the past two weeks, the Office of Information Technology (OIT) is proud to announce the impending arrival of GoUHCL (Powered by OIT & QuickLaunch).

GoUHCL is a cloud-based Identity & Access Management (IAM) solution that will provide the following key services to UHCL students, faculty & staff:

• GoUHCL will enable One Portal for UHCL Students, Faculty & Staff to access UHCL-Wide Applications such as Blackboard, Zoom, Taleo, Microsoft365 (M365) & Echo360.
• GoUHCL will enable One Portal for UHCL Faculty & Staff to securely reset lost or forgotten passwords with multi-factor authentication (MFA)

GoUHCL will officially launch on Tuesday, February 1, 2022. Upon launch, UHCL Students, Faculty & Staff will automatically be routed to GoUHCL when attempting to access the following systems:

• Blackboard
• Zoom
• Taleo (for Faculty/Staff)
• Microsoft 365 (M365)
• Echo360

For a quick preview of GoUHCL, please use the hyperlink provided below:

"Crash Course" - GoUHCL Preview [3:56]

This week's email to the campus (OIT Alert) will repeat this information and will include the date(s) and time(s) for upcoming drop-in presentations/Q&A sessions with the Support Center staff about GoUHCL. In the meantime, for more information regarding GoUHCL, please contact the OIT Support Center at 281-283-2828 or supportcenter@uhcl.edu.

Disabling Student Downloads of Echo360 Videos

Adapted from Wayne State University’s web page, How do I disable class content downloads in Echo360?

 

By default, students and instructors can download content published to a class. Follow the steps below if you do not want students or other instructors to download your classroom content.

 

1.     Login to Blackboard.

2.     Navigate to the course where you want to disable the ability for students to download content.

3.     Click the Echo360 content link to access course recordings.

4.     Click Settings in the upper right corner.

5.     Click Features in the left margin.

6.     Toggle the Content downloads switch off to disable it (it is enabled by default).

7.     Click OK to confirm.

8.     The Download option will now be grayed out for all class content, for both students and instructors for this section.

If you have any questions about this procedure, or anything else related to Echo360, please contact OIT's Support Center at 281-283-2828 or SupportCenter@uhcl.edu.

IDT 2022 Faculty Development Week Presentation Recordings

The Center for Faculty Development (CFD) hosted its annual Faculty Development Week from Tuesday, January 25 through Monday, January 28, 2022. OIT's Instructional Design and Technology (IDT) team were eager to support this event by offering the following three virtual presentations:

• Instructional Design & Technology: Maximizing Opportunities for ID and Faculty Collaboration (Presenter: Henry Newkirk, Instructional Designer II - HSH) Recording Link: https://echo360.org/media/e4caada1-7461-45af-85ca-cf5758cdfad0/public
• Understanding Interactive Syllabi (Presenter: Jane Nguyen, Instructional Designer I - CSE) Recording Link: https://echo360.org/media/ba7b5f2c-dc46-41de-bf00-124b1b0ac16d/public
• Preview Quality Matters (QM) - A New Option for Online Courses (Presenter: Jenni Willis-Opalenik, Director - Technology Learning Services) Recording Link: https://echo360.org/media/ce942077-550e-4cc9-8c85-0d64343b4fa6/public

21st Century Teaching with Technology

Since I am in a digital education program, I have special interest in the intersection between pedagogy & technology: specifically, “21st-century teaching (& learning)” as it relates to technology.  

What exactly does this look like? It’s not as simple as teaching with technology, which is defined as “the use of media tools integrated within Learning Management Systems (LMS) and/or those run more independently over the Internet. It also involves differing media types (i.e. social or dyadic) and functions (i.e. synchronous or asynchronous).” 

Rather, it is all that, but many of us don’t know the nuances and various iterations of how this can look. More to the point, we don’t necessarily know how it can help in terms of student learning outcomes. This is important to keep in mind, as a key mantra of education in recent years is to use technology with intention [that is, to benefit students & society], not just for the sake of using technology. 

This week I’d like to discuss a few ways in which educators can use technology in their online or in-person classes while also being mindful of a 21st-century mindset. This can keep us from using Zoom, videos, screencasts, & audio (what we often think of as “teaching with technology”) but with an unintentional 20th or even 19th-century approach that does not serve students. 

1. Global perspectives – a big part of 21st-century learning is a global perspective, as we function in a world much more culturally, socially, and economically connected than we did decades ago. Where possible, incorporate small assignments and tasks that ask students to view concepts, theories, ways of life, practices, attitudes, & beliefs from elsewhere in the world, not just the U.S. This could be as simple as sharing with students tweets or social media posts from public intellectuals, government leaders, & private citizens from other countries and asking the students to synthesize the thoughts & perspectives they discover with U.S. ideas and/or to your course concepts. In whatever way is appropriate for your content, you could even have students participate in “virtual visits” to other parts of the world: geographical landscapes, art museums, wildlife, etc. If you teach a foreign language, require students to chat with people in other parts of the world and document their efforts. 
2. Learner-Centered & Personalized Instruction -- Being “learner-centered” in one’s teaching approach means allowing students more autonomy & choice in their learning. Since knowledge is ubiquitous now on the Internet (websites, YouTube, podcasts), there is no need to spend the majority of instructional time in knowledge-transfer mode. Giving students more choice—a desired approach since each student has different goals, preferences, interests, & motivations—allows them to grapple with information that they find most interesting within subject matter you present, seek out websites, social media content, videos and podcasts of their own choosing, and make meaning from it. This reinforces to students that knowledge is ever-changing, always being considered, re-considered, produced, and reproduced rather than static.  
3. Learning New Technology – It is not just important that you teach with technology, but that you teach your students to use technology. You do not need to be an expert, and you do not even have to directly teach the technology (unless you are able to and it works for your course). You can simply decide on a media format (for example, podcasting) that you will dig into and encourage your students to do the same by assigning a project or task in which they must show evidence of their learning by using that medium. Many websites and platforms out there are quite user-friendly, and many students will be able to manage simple versions on their own. They might never have tried it, however, without a class requiring it. Once students have done a simple version of a technology-related task, they feel more comfortable with it, and they are set up—both confidence-wise and in terms of technical skills--to become intermediate and advanced content creators at some point.  

These are just a handful of ways to use technology in your teaching with a 21st century mindset. There are many more, as described in “15 Characteristics of a 21st Century Teacher” and "Podcasts and the 21st-Century College Classroom." Adopting one or a few of these approaches is not only beneficial to the students' future, but it provides them with a more dynamic learning experience while in your course.

New Zoom and Echo360 Resources

About Zoom’s New Focus Mode

As described in a recent Zoom support blog post, Many educators shared that they had trouble getting students to turn their cameras on during remote classes, which made it difficult for them to gauge classroom engagement. Focus Mode was developed based on educator feedback to allow instructors to see all students’ videos, while only allowing students to see their teacher. Not only does this promote educational equity by helping all students feel comfortable, it also reduces visual distractions from classmates.

You can even schedule meetings to start in Focus Mode, which can offer an ideal environment for proctoring exams or other situations where you want to eliminate distractions.

If you don’t see the option for Focus Mode (by clicking the “More” icon on the meeting toolbar), you may need to enable this feature in your account settings.

New! Echo360 Support Site for Faculty

The IDT team’s partners at Echo360 have recently launched a wonderful new support site for instructor Echo360 users. Although the site is called Getting Started with Echo360, the site offers great information, even for our experienced Echo360 users. As described on the landing page of the site, Getting Started with Echo360 is designed “to provide Instructors a walk-through of the more commonly used features of Echo360. The pages contain click-through infographics, videos, links to online documentation, and Quick Reference Card links, available for viewing and download as PDFs.” To learn more about this new support resource, feel free to watch the IDT team’s latest short video, Crash Course – Getting Started with Echo360 [2:59].

For Your Students - Download Graded Assignment with Instructor Comments

When grading inline assignments in Blackboard, instructors can make comments on students’ submitted documents. If you use that feature when grading, we recommend sharing the following instructions with your students.  The procedure below enables students to download and save their submitted documents, including your comments.

1. Click on the “My Grades” link in your course menu. Note: If the My Grades link is not located in your course’s menu, you should be able to access your grades from the Blackboard “Grades” tab accessible when you log into Blackboard.
2. Once in your course’s “My Grades” area, click the title of your assignment.
3. On the resulting screen, you should see your assignment document along with your instructor’s feedback/comments and your grade.  Note: Unfortunately, any notes made by your instructor under “Feedback to Learner” are not included in the downloadable file.  
4. Once you have verified you can see your instructor’s comments, click the download icon above the document.  Note: The document link under “submission” on the right is your originally submitted document.  If you download this document, your instructor’s comments will not be included.
5. On the resulting screen, click “Save” to save the document (including your instructor’s comments) on your computer (Note: if your computer automatically downloads documents, navigate to the folder where downloads are saved to find your document).
6. To verify that you have downloaded the document that contains your instructor’s comments, open the document from its saved location and scroll down the document to view the comments.  Note: in Adobe Reader, you should also be able to view the comments on the right side of the document.  Simply click the left arrow to reveal the comments.
7. If you have any questions, please contact the Support Center at either 281-283-2828 or supportcenter@uhcl.edu and a member of our team will be in touch to assist.

NOTE: A copy of these instructions with screen captures of each step is available in our team's new support document, Downloading Graded Assignments with Instructor Comments.

Technology Learning Services Newsletter Archives (2022)

Our team prepares a weekly newsletter that is emailed to faculty and staff every Monday night. This page contains links to the Sways of all previously distributed newsletters for 20212. Please use the hyperlinks below to open any of these archives. The previous years' newsletter archives are available on the blog posts, IDT Newsletter Archives (2020) and IDT Newsletter Archives (2021).

• Volume 3, Issue 1 - Week of January 10, 2022
• Volume 3, Issue 2 - Week of January 18, 2022
• Volume 3, Issue 3 - Week of January 24, 2022
• Volume 3, Issue 4 - Week of January 31, 2022
• Volume 3, Issue 5 - Week of February 7, 2022
• Volume 3, Issue 6 - Week of February 14, 2022
• Volume 3, Issue 7 - Week of February 21, 2022
• Volume 3, Issue 8 - Week of February 28, 2022
• Volume 3, Issue 9 - Week of March 7, 2022
  
• Volume 3, Issue 10 - Week of March 14, 2022
• Volume 3, Issue 11 - Week of March 21, 2022
• Volume 3, Issue 12 - Week of March 28, 2022
• Volume 3, Issue 13 - Week of April 4, 2022
• Volume 3, Issue 14 - Week of April 11, 2022
• Volume 3, Issue 15 - Week of April 18, 2022
• Volume 3, Issue 16 - Week of April 25, 2022
• Volume 3, Issue 17 - Week of May 9, 2022
• Volume 3, Issue 18 - Week of May 16, 2022
• Volume 3, Issue 19 - Week of August 3, 2022
• Volume 3, Issue 20 - Week of August 10, 2022
• Volume 3, Issue 21 - Week of August 17, 2022
• Volume 3, Issue 22 - Week of August 31, 2022
• Volume 3, Issue 23 - Week of September 7, 2022
• Volume 3, Issue 24 - Week of September 14, 2022
• Volume 3, Issue 25 - Week of September 21, 2022
• Volume 3, Issue 26 - Week of September 28, 2022
• Volume 3, Issue 27 - Week of October 5, 2022
• Volume 3, Issue 28 - Week of October 12, 2022
• Special Edition - Canvas LMS Transition - October 24, 2022
• Volume 3, Issue 29 - Week of November 2, 2022
• Volume 3, Issue 30 - Week of November 16, 2022
• Volume 3, Issue 31 - Week of November 23, 2022
• Volume 3, Issue 32 - Week of November 30, 2022
• Volume 3, Issue 33 - Week of December 7, 2023

Tips for a Great Start of the New Semester

It's not too early to begin preparing your SU22/FA22 Blackboard shells. For this week, I thought I would look at a few articles from past newsletters that may be useful as you get your course ready for the new semester.

Copying content from a master course or a previous semester’s course shell is one of the first things an instructor does to prepare for a new semester. There are a few mistakes we see regularly that can make this process more confusing or frustrating than it needs to be. In an earlier newsletter, I presented the article Blackboard Tip: Using the Course Copy Tool, in which I took a look at the Course Copy tool and discussed some simple tips for completing the process as smoothly as possible.

There is another tool in Blackboard that many instructors don’t even know about that can be a big help when preparing for a new semester. The Date Management tool allows instructors to update all of the date information in their courses, including due dates, adaptive release dates, and test dates. In another previous newsletter article, Blackboard Tip: Date Management Tool, I discussed the Date Management tool and how to use it to update the dates in your course each semester.

The entry point of a Blackboard course is the first page the user sees first when they open the course. When an instructor is preparing a course, they may decide they want it to open to a different page than it has in the past, particularly if they are borrowing course contents from another instructor. I wrote another newsletter article, Blackboard Tip: Changing the Entry Point of Your Course, discussing this feature, and provided instructions for resetting the entry point to your course.

Finally, in the blog post Don't Panic!, I discuss the most important tip I know: Don’t Panic! Remember, your IDT Team and the Support Center are here to help you get your courses ready and will do what it takes to make that process go as smoothly as possible. Please do not hesitate to contact us if there is anything we can do to help you.

Pivoting Back to Online Instruction

As described in recent emails from both Dr. Walker and Dr. Maynard, UHCL is temporarily pivoting back to online instruction for the first two weeks of the semester. Most instructors have a year or more of "emergency" online teaching experience on which to rely during this disruption. However, for those of you who may want or need assistance with getting your course started in the online format, please know that the members of OIT's Instructional Design and Technology (IDT) team are here to assist you. Whether you have questions about online exam proctoring, holding virtual class meetings via Zoom, creating lecture videos and making them available in Blackboard via Echo360, or any other online teaching and technology concerns, please let us know how we can help. To request a virtual consultation with an IDT team member, please call or email the Support Center (supportcenter@uhcl.edu/281-283-2828) with your request. The Support Center staff will create a help ticket that will be assigned to the next available member of the IDT staff.

Below are a few recommendations from our team for this temporary transition back to online teaching and learning:

• Review your syllabus and schedule for the first few weeks of the semester and determine what content, activities, assignments, and assessments need to be transitioned to online delivery. Do you need to create a video recording of your "first-class day" presentation and/or your first few class lectures? Are you going to hold class meetings, at the usual day/time via Zoom (with the option of recording those synchronous meetings for later student review)?
• Clearly document for students your expectations for class attendance and participation during the start of the semester and share that in Blackboard via a document, announcement, discussion, email, video, or any combination of these. We recommend posting this critical information via multiple channels of communication.
• Implement a way to establish two-way communication and relationships with your students in the absence of the on-campus face-to-face setting. Synchronous virtual class meetings are one option, but there are other asynchronous options that will work, too.
• Don't struggle unnecessarily with technology issues/questions. Our team applauds the many instructional technology DIYers across the UHCL faculty. However, please remember that the IDT team is here to answer your questions, direct you to self-help resources, and project just-in-time training/support to anyone who requests our services. Don't have the time or inclination to DIY...contact the Support Center to reach the IDT staff!

For a more comprehensive list of ideas, consider reviewing Purdue University Northwest's document, PIVOT Ideas & Tips. Although it references their learning management system, Brightspace, instead of UHCL's Blackboard, much of the advice provided is relevant to university instructors anywhere.

SP23 Critical Reminders from OIT's Technology Learning Services Team

Course Merges and Content Copies

If you are teaching courses in SP23 that you would like merged into one course shell in Blackboard, don't forget to fill out the Course/Section Merge Request form no later than Wednesday, January 12, 2023, so that your courses will be merged before students gain access to them on Sunday, January 15, 2023.  Note for 8W2 classes ONLY: You will have until Wednesday, May 15 to get your merge requests in for 8W2 so that we can process them before those courses go live at 12:00 am on May 18, 2023.

Once your courses have been merged, you will be able to copy contents from your existing courses into your newly merged course.  Information about other preparatory measures for the next semester's courses is available on our team's blog post, Blackboard Tips and Reminders for the New Semester.

IMPORTANT! If the section number for any of your classes is changed or canceled, or if a section is added that you need to have merged with these sections, please email the Support Center ASAP so that we can resolve any issues arising from those changes before students gain access.

If you have any questions, please contact the Support Center at either 281-283-2828 or supportcenter@uhcl.edu, and a member of our team will be in touch to assist.

Add TA to Blackboard Course

TA adds are not time-sensitive like course merges and can be done anytime via our "Request Adding TAs to Courses" online form. Please carefully select which role you would like your TA to have in the course when filling out the form. Additionally, if your TA has an active Staff account, regardless of their role, it will be used to add them to your course. This is done to keep work done as a TA separate from work done as a Student as much as possible. The exception is TAs who are doing their job for course credit. If your TA is getting credit for their TA work, please note this on the form to add them via their Student account if they also have an active Staff account. Note for BUS TAs: Per the Dean of the College of Business, all TAs in BUS courses may only be given the role of Student. We will only add TAs to any BUS course with the role of Student, regardless of what is marked on the form.

For the Fastest Assistance, Contact the Support Center!

OIT's Instructional Design and Technology (IDT) team works closely with OIT's Support Center. These two units work closely to ensure that faculty, staff, and students can access timely and helpful support regarding IT-related issues. The members of the IDT staff have formed excellent relationships with many of our faculty/staff clients, and we know that some of you contact your designated ID (or another member of the IDT team) directly by email or telephone for assistance. Although we love hearing from you, the IDT team encourages users to rely on the Support Center for your point of first contact. Especially during our most business times of the year, going through the Support Center offers several benefits over directly contacting individual team members:

• Your question isn't sitting in a team member's email, waiting until their workload permits them to review their emails;
• Your email or voicemail is less likely to be "lost" in the crush of communications, especially around the start of each term; and
• If an individual staff member is incapacitated or otherwise unavailable, an inquiry that goes to the Support Center ends up in the IDT team's help ticketing queue, where it will be seen and can be assigned to another available member of our staff.

Contact the Support Center by email at SupportCenter@uhcl.edu or telephone at (281) 283-2828.

Coming Soon! GoUHCL Application Portal

The Office of Information Technology (OIT) is proud to announce the impending arrival of GoUHCL (Powered by OIT & QuickLaunch).

• The What - GoUHCL is a cloud-based Identity & Access Management (IAM) solution that will provide the following key services to UHCL students, faculty & staff:
• GoUHCL will enable One Portal for UHCL Students, Faculty & Staff to access UHCL-Wide Applications such as Blackboard, Zoom, Taleo, Microsoft365 (M365) & Echo360.
• GoUHCL will enable One Portal for UHCL Faculty & Staff to securely reset lost or forgotten passwords with multi-factor authentication (MFA)
• The When - GoUHCL will officially launch on Tuesday, February 1, 2022.
• The How - Upon launch, UHCL Students, Faculty & Staff will automatically be routed to GoUHCL when attempting to access the following systems:
• Blackboard
• Zoom
• Tale
• Microsoft 365 (M365)
• Echo360

The Office of Information Technology (OIT) will provide updates to the UHCL community as we move toward the Go-Live Date and are excited about the immense value GoUHCL will provide.

For more information regarding GoUHCL, please contact the OIT Support Center at 281-283-2828 or supportcenter@uhcl.edu.

Blackboard Tip: Changing the Entry Point of Your Course

Recently I've worked with a few instructors who did not realize that any page in a course can be the Entry Point, or first page, that someone sees when entering the course. Most courses open to either an Announcements page or a Course Information/Welcome page, but you can set it to any page you want with a couple of simple steps.

The first step in customizing the Entry Point is to ensure that the page you would like to use has a link in the course menu. If you see the page you want listed in the menu, you are ready to move on to the next step. If not, you will have to create one using the "Add Menu Item" button (small circle with a +) at the top of the menu. To add a page you have already created in your course, select "Course Link."

To add a link to a course tool, like an Announcements page, for example, select "Tool Link." If you would like to create a new page, select "Content Area." Each of these choices will open a pop-up window allowing you to give the link a name and, if necessary, select the page or tool from a drop-down menu. Also, be sure to check the "Available to Users" box. Once you have filled out everything in the pop-up window, click "Submit," and your new link will appear at the bottom of your course menu. You may want to move it to another location in the menu by clicking the left side of the link and dragging it to the desired location in the menu.

The next step is not intuitive and probably the reason many instructors do not know this option exists.

In the Course Management menu (the lower part of the menu in Instructor view), select "Customization," then select "Teaching Style." In the Teaching Style menu, find the "Select Course Entry Point" section of the page (you may have to scroll down a bit).

In the Entry Point drop-down menu, select the page you would like users to see when they open the course, then click the Submit button in the lower right corner of the page. Once you have clicked Submit, your course will open on the newly-selected page.

The Teaching Style page offers a few other options for changing the appearance and operation of your course. If you have any questions about customizing your course, don't hesitate to contact your designated Instructional Designer.

Blackboard Tip: Date Management Tool

I recently worked with a professor who was having a problem with some items in their course not being visible to students. After digging, we discovered that they had copied their course contents from a previous semester, and the availability dates on the non-visible items were still set for that semester. We updated the dates, and the items were visible to students again.

Blackboard offers two ways to update the availability dates in your course. The first is to go through the course and manually reset the dates. Depending on how many items in your course have availability dates that need to be updated, this can be very time-consuming. Luckily, Blackboard provides a tool that can make this quick and easy.

In the Course Tools section of the Course Management menu in your Blackboard course is the Date Management tool. This tool gives you three different ways to update the dates in your course (this also applies to other dates in your course, such as due dates).

The first option is Use Course Start Date. This option will compare the start date of the current session (actually the date the course is available to students, two days before the official start date) to the start date of the session the course was copied from and adjust the dates by the number of days between the two dates.

The second option is Adjust by Number of Days. This option will allow you to enter the number of days you would like to shift the dates.

The third option is List Dates For Review. This option will give you a list of all of the dates in your course and allow you to change each of them individually.

The Date Management tool can make a tedious and time-consuming process much easier and quicker. It can also help prevent problems that may arise mid-session because you may have missed a date on an important assignment or test. If you have any questions about the Date Management tool, contact your designated Instructional Designer.