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.