New! McGraw Hill Connect LTIA Tool in Blackboard

Contributed by Jenn Ray, Learning Technology Administrator

Last month we updated our integration with McGraw Hill (McGraw Hill Connect) to their new LTIA tool from the older building block. This is due to the current building block being scheduled for decommissioning by Blackboard in December 2023. We will likely disable the old building block ahead of the Fall 2023 semester, but that leaves ample time for McGraw Hill users to familiarize themselves with the new process.

When transitioning from the legacy tool (the building block) to the new LTIA tool, you’ll need to delete all Connect content (assignments and grade columns) then redeploy Connect content after pairing with the new LTIA tool. If you are a McGraw Hill Connect user please review the information below:

• Informational Video: https://video.mhhe.com/watch/RaiKjxK34o5bADisSE6qgs (downloadable PDF at the :30s mark)
• Student Registration Information: https://www.mheducation.com/highered/support/connect/first-day-of-class/blackboard-ltia.html
• Faculty Training: https://www.mheducation.com/highered/acuity-scheduling
• McGraw Hill CXG Customer Support: https://mhedu.force.com/CXG/s/ContactUs

As always, if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact the OIT Support Center and a member of our team will reach out to assist.

Maximize Engagement with Articulate Rise 360

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

Although UHCL doesn’t have a campus-wide license for Articulate 360, the members of our IDT team have the software and are ready to support faculty and staff with designing and developing interactive lessons and tutorials for use within and outside Blackboard Learn.

What is Articulate 360?

Articulate 360 is a suite of software applications that can be used to create and deploy media-rich and interactive instructional content. The two primary Articulate apps are Rise (a great option for creating simple projects or for learning basic Articulate knowledge and skills) and Storyline (a much more robust and slightly more complicated tool, best for creating complex lessons and interactive elements). For this article, we’ll focus on Rise 360, which Articulate describes as “the fastest and easiest way to create fully responsive courses for any device.”

Rise 360 Sample Courses/Demonstrations

To better understand Rise 360’s capabilities and begin thinking about how you might leverage it to support your teaching, we recommend the following resources:

• Rise Example: Creating Social Change: A Guide for Everyday Citizens
• Rise Example: Food Allergy Awareness
• Rise-Based Interactive Infographic: Beer Brewing 101
• Rise-Based Example: AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) is UDL (Universal Design for Learning)

As shown is these sample lessons and courses, Rise 360 enables you to combine video, audio, text, images, and interactive exercises to create engaging and creative instruction. Once you’ve had time to review these samples, and assuming they prompt you to consider how Rise 360 lessons might support your teaching, contact the IDT team for a consultation. The quickest way to reach us is by contacting OIT’s Support Center and requesting assistance from OIT’s Instructional Design and Technology (IDT) team. Our Support Center colleagues will create a help ticket for your inquiry and pass it on, where it will be assigned to the most appropriate member of the IDT staff.

Bb Ally: Adding a Layer of Accessibility to Online Learning

Contributed by Henry Newkirk, Instructional Designer II (HSH)

Ally is a Blackboard integrated tool that helps makes course materials accessible to all students regardless of differences in vision or hearing, specific learning disabilities, or learning preferences. Leveraging the Ally tool in Blackboard helps address students' diverse needs online. Ally provides equitable access to online course materials, not just for accessibility accommodations.

Ally Alternative Formats

Ally creates alternative formats of instructors' course content based on the original. Instructors do not need to do anything to provide these options to students. The user gains access to the automatically created alternative formats via the Ally link that appears next to content items in Blackboard courses. For a complete description of the formats, go to the Blackboard Ally Alternate Format page.

Accessibility Score Indicators

Ally measures the accessibility of each file attached to a course and shows the instructor at a glance how it scores (these scores are not visible to students). Scores range from Low to Perfect. The higher the score, the fewer the issues. For files with Low to High scores, Ally provides the instructor with information about the problems and step-by-step guidance on fixing them. To get the course report from the Add Menu Item on the Course Menu, click Tool Links and select from the (Type row) drop-down menu Accessibility Report. Once you choose it, you must type in a name for the link; you do not have to make the link available to users. Click the Submit button, and the link will appear on the Course Menu.

Course Accessibility Report

The course accessibility report acts as a complement to the existing accessibility indicators. It provides an accessibility summary and overview at the course level.
The report shows instructors this helpful information:

• Accessibility score for the course
• Distribution of course content by content type
• List of all issues identified in the course

The Remaining issues section of the report allows the instructor to address each issue.

Watch the two brief videos, Introduction to Ally and an Overview for Faculty, to learn more about Ally. As always, you are welcome to request a consultation with an Instructional Design and Technology (IDT) team member to learn more about Blackboard Ally or any other instructional design/technology topics. To request personalized assistance, don't hesitate to contact OIT's Support Center at 281-283-2828 or supportcenter@uhcl.edu.

Blackboard Puzzler: How Can I Check on My Student Groups?

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

It’s quite common for the IDT team to field inquiries from instructors who would like to see what’s going on in their individual Blackboard groups. When in Instructor mode, you simply can’t see or experience the groups as your students do. However, you can do so when in Student Preview mode…with a bit of planning and preparation.

Begin by entering Student Preview mode using the Enter Student Preview icon in the upper right of your Blackboard screen.

Activating and Saving Your Student Preview User

Once in Student Preview mode, complete as a student any Syllabus Quiz, Academic Honesty Quiz, or other tasks if you use such assignments to adaptively release contents. Next, click the Settings button for Student Preview (1). In the Student Preview Settings box, select the option to “Keep the preview user and all data (2).” Then, click the Save button (3). With those steps complete, click the Exit Preview button (4) to return to Instructor mode.



You have now created and saved a new student user, Username_PreviewUser, in the course. You can even see them in the Grade Center. You’ll next add that student user to all of your student Groups.

Adding PreviewUser to Groups

Navigate to where you have the Groups tool deployed for students. If you can’t locate it, that’s OK. Go to your lower Course Management menu, expand the Users and Groups label, and then click the Groups option.



Locate a group to which you want to add your PreviewUser. Click the edit icon to the right of the group name. Then select the Edit Group option from the menu.



Once on the resulting Edit Group screen, scroll all the way down to the Membership region of the page. Then, click the Add Users button.



At the Add Users screen, check the box to the left of your PreviewUser name. Then click the Submit button.



You’ll be returned to the previous screen’s Membership area, where you can confirm that your PreviewUser has been added. Click the Submit button to proceed.



Repeat the steps above to add your PreviewUser to other groups.

Accessing a Group as PreviewUser

To enter a Group space as your “student” PreviewUser, use the Enter Student Preview icon in the upper right of your Blackboard screen.



Next, locate and click the Groups link you’ve provided to your students to let them access their Groups. At the Groups screen, click the name of a group to access it.



Once on the Group’s page, you can access all of the areas and tools (e.g., Discussions, File Sharing) that you provided students when you originally created the groups. For most instructors, they want to see whether discussions are taking place, which you can do from this screen by clicking the Group Discussion Board link.

Once you’re finished checking on your student groups’ activity, remember to exit Student Preview to return to Instructor mode in your course.

Improving PowerPoint Presentations: Images

Contributed by Jane Nguyen, Instructional Designer I (CSE)

This is the third article in my series about improving PowerPoint presentations. As with many ed tech tools and pedagogical approaches, PowerPoint undeservedly catches a lot of flak, with people calling it “unimaginative,” “boring,” and “lazy.” What people often don’t realize is that the tool itself is amazing; it is the way people use it that is poor; they fail to engage when they don’t have sound knowledge of how to (or even if they should) place elements and in what quality and form. Personally, I can never get tired of talking about PowerPoint because it is a tool that I love, despite all the hate it gets.

So…let’s get back into it. I’ve previously talked a lot about text in PowerPoint, and now I want to focus on images.

Making images larger

The thing is…images are king. PowerPoint presenters don’t leverage them enough. People are very visual and nothing reels them in like a powerful image. So…even if you are already a person who includes images near text to convey your learning content, consider making the images bigger in relation to the text, especially if you are presenting your PowerPoint and it is not simply being posted to Blackboard or another LMS for learners to view and read.

Presenters and teachers are conditioned to believe that the words are the most important element on PowerPoint slides because…well, that’s the information. There’s some validity to that, but it is still the case that in terms of engagement, viewers are drawn into a powerful image and may listen to your words more attentively since you’ve caught their attention. The image being “powerful” has to do with the image itself, but also to do simply with how big you make it on the slide.

Look at the difference between these two slides and consider how one might be more captivating than the other. It’s a subtle effect, but…don’t be afraid to size up your images for greater engagement.

Of course, size decisions still depend on what you want for a given slide. There may be some slides where you want students to notice the text more than the image, at least initially (presumably you want them to notice both). In those cases, by all means make the text bigger. The point is, be intentional with where you want attention drawn, and size elements accordingly rather than rotely make everything the same size.

Avoid multiple images

Another image mistake to avoid is having too many photos on a single slide. The temptation to put four photos on one slide may be there sometimes, as you’ll feel “thorough” having many photos reinforcing your content. Two or three photos may be an acceptable max; when you get into four or five, you may be dividing the viewer’s attention too much, to the point that they are too distracted by various photos to listen to you (the speaker) or to even be able to focus on any one photo. A quality image or two should be good enough.

Maintain diversity in photos

When including images of people in your PowerPoints, be mindful of including people from many different backgrounds, in terms of race, ethnicity, disability status, body size, height, age, hair color, etc. It can be easy to inadvertently include only a narrow “type” of people in images, especially if one is drawing from free stock photos on the Internet, which for a while now have skewed toward very mainstream. Though this is changing and you will see stock photos that reflect more diversity, you may still end up having to be intentional about which photos you pick. The reality is that college students come in all body sizes, hair colors, ages, backgrounds, etc, Some are in wheelchairs, some are 40 rather than 18 or 20, some have hair with green highlights, some have tattoos. They are all students who should be represented even in learning content such as images in PowerPoints.

For more on images in PowerPoints, here is an excellent tip sheet:

A Guide to Using Images and Photos for PowerPoint.

Zoom Learning Center

Contributed by Samantha (Sam) Houston, Learning Technology Administrator

Did you know that Zoom offers free training through its Learning Center? The Zoom Learning Center provides video tutorials, on-demand courses, and live training covering Zoom Meetings and Webinars. It is available to all Zoom users, regardless of account type or user role!

To access the Zoom Learning Center, ensure you are logged into your Zoom account. Log into https://go.uhcl.edu with your UHCL credentials and click the Zoom tile. Once logged in, click or paste the following link into your browser's address bar: https://learning.zoom.us/pages/27/home

From Zoom Learning Center, you can:

Enroll in an On-demand course!

Not sure what to take or how to get started? Click on the Course Catalog tile to search for and enroll in an on-demand Zoom course of your choice:

Register for a Live Training Session!

Get tips, tricks, and real-time demonstrations from one of Zoom's expert trainers in a live training session. Click the Live Training tile and search for an upcoming live training on a Zoom topic of your choice:

View the Video Tutorials

If you're looking for quick help on a specific skill or feature, explore our vast "Show Me" video collection. Click on the "Show me" Videos tile to view Zooms Video tutorial collection:

If you have any questions about the above information, don't hesitate to contact the Support Center at either 281-283-2828 or supportcenter@uhcl.edu, and a team member will be in touch to assist!

Improving PowerPoint Presentations: More on Text

Contributed by Jane Nguyen, Instructional Designer I (CSE)

Last week I ended my article on improving PowerPoint presentations with the tip that you should not have too many words on a single slide. A rule of thumb is to have a maximum of 30 words per slide. Even if you have several paragraphs that you want to convey, and they are all related to the same idea or subject, break up the information over many slides rather than try to fit them into one or two slides.

At the same time, balance this with not going from slide to slide too frequently, which can be distracting to a listener. Generally, 1 to 2 minutes of talking per slide is a minimum that ensures you aren’t going “too fast.”

Furthermore, for presentation purposes (meaning you plan to deliver the presentation to students as opposed to the Power Point functioning as detailed notes for them), don’t put all the words on the slides anyway. Instead, keep them in Word document notes that are for you as you present. If you want, you can make your notes available to students afterward. The slide itself should only have keywords, phrases, or names (such as of a theory or concept) that help keep the listener focused as you present.

Another frequent inclusion on Power Point slides is bullet point lists. (The keywords, phrases, and names of concepts/theories mentioned above could be in bullet point lists.) It is recommended that you have no more than 6 bullet points per slide. Thus, if you have twelve bullet points, you’ll need at least two slides to present them.

Consider using the “animations” function in Power Point to have those bullet points appear one at a time instead of all at once. Words or phrases appearing to the audience as you talk about them can help to focus learners so that they are not “reading ahead” to your other topics as you try to talk about them and keep them focused on the current one.

To have bullet point items appear one at a time, just select all of the bullet point text items, go to “animations” in the toolbar/menu, and select an animation type. There are many. I tend to like “random bars,” but you can select from many others that are visually appealing but not distracting. As soon as you apply that animation to the items you’ve selected, you’ll see in a right-hand menu an ordering of the items: 1 through 6 or 1 through 5 (however many bullet point items you have). You can change the order of the items (and/or have an image appear with an item) as you see fit.

At the top, you have an option to choose what will make the item appear. Choose “on click.” This will make it such that your first bullet point won’t appear until you mouse-click, your 2nd bullet point won’t appear until you mouse-click again after that (after you’ve talked about your first item), and your 3rd bullet point won’t appear until you click after that (after you’ve talked about your 2nd item). And so on. It is a very nice touch to give your PowerPoint a true “in the moment” presentation feel.

A final text tip:

You may be tired of hearing this one, but it bears repeating. Provide good contrast between the text and the background. It’s hard to not want to choose favorite colors regardless of what is most readable. But readability is paramount. Place light text on a dark background or dark text on a light background.

Next week, I will talk about images and how to place them for optimal engagement. Until then, check out this short write-up that offers yet more Power Point recommendations: Top 10 PowerPoint Tips to Make Your Slides More Effective.

At-Risk Students and Blackboard Retention Measures

Contributed by Henry Newkirk, Instructional Designer II (HSH)

Many instructors have heard the term “at-risk student,” but may still wonder what does that mean, and why would Blackboard provide a Retention Center specifically to support at-risk students? At-risk student is a term used to describe students with a higher probability of failing your course. There are many reasons why students are identified as at risk, including individual and family factors. For more information about at-risk college students, we recommend Joann Horton’s 2015 paper, Identifying At-Risk Factors That Affect College.

This newsletter article will focus on how instructors can use the Blackboard Retention Center to monitor the level of engagement of all students to identify potential academically at-risk students in their courses. At most institutions, the risk is calculated from the probability of students achieving a passing grade of C or higher in the course. Those that are at increased risk have a low likelihood of earning a passing grade. A recent Blackboard press release indicated some profound points. According to a Blackboard survey of at-risk students and students of color, “nearly 80% of students considering discontinuing their studies believed their institution can do more to keep them enrolled.” The survey also revealed that 48% of students of the students at risk of not returning to school were not satisfied with the level of support received during COVID.

At the University of Houston – Clear Lake, UHCL, we know that instructors already go above and beyond to provide academic support links in their Blackboard shells, and guide students to the different resources when they need help. You may be wondering how you can extend this support with the limited time you have available while juggling the many demands as faculty.

The Blackboard Retention Center (BRC) provides an easy way to discover which students in your course are academically at risk and allows you to communicate with them to help them take immediate action for improvement. With this tool, instructors can focus attention on students who need it the most to succeed in their classes. With Blackboard’s Retention Center, helping your students is easy as checking your email.

Blackboard Retention Center (BRC)

The tool provides a colored bar display of a table with pop-up information. There are (4) categories in that your course records information about student engagement within the course.

• Missed Deadlines
• Grades
• Course Activity
• Course Access

Instructors can instantly monitor and notify students with one click (email) of available resources. Another great feature of this tool is that instructors can add these private notes about an individual student:

• Remedial activities or accelerated materials offered
• Special accommodations for disabilities or language barriers
• One-on-one meetings
• Extra attempts allowed on assignments or tests
• Who is assigned to help the student
• Possible teaching assistant or student mentor opportunities

Course Activity - Zooming in on What You Do

Monitoring activity in your course is an essential aspect of how you can help your student at risk of failing. The course activity section provides the instructor with a one-stop view of the course activities, engagement, and participation history of the instructor.

If you would like to learn more about the Retention Center and how it can help you, IDT’s instructional designers can assist via individualized consultation sessions. To take advantage of our services, contact the Support Center at SupportCenter@uhcl.edu or via telephone at (281) 283-2828. The Support Center staff will create a help ticket for you that will be assigned to a member of our IDT team, who will then contact you to schedule a consultation.

Recommendations for Student Submissions of Video Presentations and Other Large Files in Blackboard

Contributed by Jenni Willis-Opalenik, Ph.D., Director - Technology Learning Services

Submissions of video presentation and other large files (especially those exceeding 100MB) in Blackboard can often present challenges for users arising from several external (non-Blackboard) causes, including the user’s ISP, user-side bandwidth issues, and user-side slow internet speeds. This article will present two options for faculty and students that can alleviate such problems.

Large File Submissions Via OneDrive Share Links

Because all UHCL students have access to O365 (including OneDrive) both on and off campus, they can save their large files in their UHCL OneDrive. To submit their large files in Blackboard, students can use the Share feature on their OneDrive file and present their work as a clickable hyperlink. Instructors can click that link in the student’s Blackboard submission to access and download the student’s file from OneDrive. For more information, please refer to our team's support document Submitting Large Files in Blackboard Via OneDrive Links.

Student Video Submissions from Echo360 to Blackboard

Students can use Echo360 Universal Capture: Personal to create video presentations and save them in their Echo360 Library. They can then submit their video as a hyperlink in a Blackboard assignment drop box, discussion, or another area in a course. Our team has created a short “crash course” video, Student Presentations Using Echo360, for students on all of these Echo360 topics.

Faculty who would like to learn more about either or both options should contact the Support Center at SupportCenter@uhcl.edu or via telephone at (281) 283-2828. The Support Center staff will create a help ticket for you that will be assigned to a member of our IDT team, who will then contact you to schedule a consultation.

AI Tools and Their Effect on Higher Education

Contributed by Izaak Diefenbach, Instructional Designer I (COE)

In recent years, there has been an increase in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in higher education. This is due to the many benefits that AI can offer to both students and educators. Some of the ways in which AI is being used in higher education include:

1. Online learning: AI can be used to create personalized learning experiences for students. For example, the edX platform uses AI to provide students with customized recommendations for further study based on their previous performance.
2. Assessment: AI can be used to automate the grading of student essays and other assignments. This can save educators a significant amount of time and allow them to provide more detailed feedback to students.
3. Research: AI can be used to help researchers identify relevant papers, find new patterns, and make predictions. For example, the Google Scholar search engine uses AI to rank search results by relevance.
4. Administration: AI can be used to automate administrative tasks such as scheduling and emailing. This can free up time for educators so that they can focus on more important tasks. Overall, the use of AI in higher education can provide many benefits to both students and educators. It can help to improve learning outcomes, save time, and make the overall educational process more efficient.

Before I go any further, I have to make an admission: this is the first sentence I wrote for this article. Everything above was written by an AI tool called GPT-3, part of the OpenAI project, a set of open-source tools that allow users to build AI applications. To generate the text, I set a few parameters in the tool and entered an eleven-word prompt: “Write an article on the use of AI in higher education.” Once I clicked submit, I had about 250 words in just a few seconds. I could have generated a much longer paper with just a few clicks.

In a recent Chronicle of Higher Education article titled “Will Artificial Intelligence Kill College Writing?” Jeff Schatten discusses the effect AI tools such as GPT-3 will have on higher education and what it will mean for the future. At present, the tools are good, but not great. On some topics, GPT-3 can generate a pretty good paper, but others give questionable results. However, results are improving at a very fast rate.

One immediate concern for many instructors will be that these tools generate original writing; they are not plagiarizing from other sources, meaning that anti-plagiarism tools cannot detect an AI-generated paper. Another concern is that these tools are available at almost no cost to users, making them accessible to most students.

The initial reaction to this will be to panic. If we can’t detect when students are turning in work they didn’t actually do, how do we assess their work? In the end, as with all technological advances, it will mean a change of approach in how we teach students. Instead of saying, “How can we fight this?” we need to ask, “How can we use this?” That’s where innovation will be essential. AI is just a tool. How can we use that tool to enhance instruction and better serve our students? This is just one of the areas the Instructional Design and Technology team is following so we can help our instructors help our students.

September is National Preparedness Month: Are You Academically Prepared?

Contributed by Henry Newkirk, Instructional Designer II (HSH)

Hello everyone, and congratulations on getting the semester off to a great start! As we forge ahead, remember that September is National Preparedness Month and that September is the peak of the hurricane season along the Texas gulf coast. Have you considered how you might prepare for campus closures due to the weather? What is your plan as an instructor? If you have not taken the time to think about an instructional continuity plan for your class(es), please consider making a simple plan now. Let’s review some essential preparation tips faculty can use to make up lost instructional contact hours for their face-to-face, web-supported, or partially online classes.

The great news is that, especially after two or more years of “emergency online” teaching, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Instead, let’s examine how you can use the wheel to your advantage. There are several essential elements you should know how to do to prepare your Blackboard shell for an emergency. You may find the information in our Disaster Recovery – Blackboard Basics document to be a useful starting point.

Please note that you already have a blackboard shell for all your courses. Once you log into Blackboard there are several resource links that I would like to bring to your attention.

 

The first resource option is the UHCL Faculty Blackboard Support link. Click this link to access several categories of resources to support your teaching.

One link on the Blackboard Faculty Support page leads to a link named Instructional Continuity, where you will find a variety of information, text, and video instructions on operating under extreme conditions. Here is a sampling of resource links from that page:
Blackboard-Specific Resources

• Document: Disaster Recovery Basics
• Video: Post-Disaster Blackboard Basics [9:44]
• Video: Create an Announcement [2:34]
• Video: Upload a Syllabus (or other documents/files) [2:29]
• Video: Using Course Messages [1:35]
• Web Page: Using Online Discussions
• Video: Create Assignment Drop Box [2:32]
• Video: Grading Assignments [1:17]
• Video: Creating an Online Test [1:41]

The final resource we will discuss is the OIT Instructional Design and Technology Blog. There are well over 223 archived blog training and support items we’ve posted over the past several years, including the team’s newsletters and our “Crash Course” videos. You can search for specific items by keyword or select from the list of topic-specific labels to find the information most useful to you.

In conclusion, we hope that these resources will support your efforts to maintain instructional continuity in the event of a campus closure. The following planning list includes critical items you may want to consider as you craft your personalized emergency plan.

1. What tools will you use to communicate with students?
2. Post an updated syllabus in each course.
3. How will you provide documents, videos, readings, and other content to students?
4. How will you collect student work?
5. How will you establish and maintain class interactions between yourself and your students and among the students themselves?
6. Do you know how to use Zoom or Microsoft teams for web-conferencing so that you could host virtual classes? Consider recording class sessions.
7. Think about how you will assess student learning and what adjustments you might make if on-campus attendance were suspended.
8. Familiarize yourself with instructor tools in Blackboard for grading student work and providing feedback via text, audio, and video.

The above items were adapted from the Continuity Planning Checklist. If you have all the items above planned for, you are well on your way to being prepared. If you need assistance in planning, please contact the Support Center and one of the IDT team’s staff members will be assigned to assist you.

Editing Time Zone for Zoom in Blackboard

Contributed by Jenn Ray, Learning Technology Administrator

Since we began using the Zoom integration in Blackboard we have received occasional reports that meeting times are showing the wrong time zone. This has been reported by both Students and Faculty alike. Our UHCL Zoom account is set to the Central time zone, but the display on the Blackboard/Zoom integration page doesn’t always sync with the time zone the meetings are created for. Users can change their time zone on the Zoom LTI integration page by following the steps below:

Click the Zoom link in your Course Menu.

On the Zoom LTI page, click the pencil icon next to the current time zone.

Click the arrow for the time zone drop-down in the resulting window and select the US Central time zone (or preferred time zone).

After selecting the correct time zone, click Update.

Meetings should now display with the correct time on the Zoom LTI integration page. NOTE: This change doesn’t seem to transfer between devices/browsers. If you use multiple browsers, you will need to make the change in each browser.