NEW! Zoom Whiteboard Is Now Available

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

Per Zoom's April 19, 2022, blog post, Zoom has "completely rebuilt our whiteboard experience to bring you the all-new Zoom Whiteboard, a cross-platform, persistent, online, visual collaboration solution that’s built right into the Zoom desktop client, Zoom Meetings, and Zoom Rooms for Touch devices. Take your collaboration to the next level with features like; shapes, connectors, sticky notes, adding images, and more."

The IDT team has activated the new whiteboard tool and it should now be available to all users in UHCL's Zoom system. We recommend the following resources to anyone who is ready to learn more about the Zoom Whiteboard feature:

• Video: The All-New Zoom Whiteboard
• Article: Getting Started with Zoom Whiteboard
• Article: Zoom Whiteboard User Guide

You are welcome to request a consultation with a member of our Instructional Design and Technology (IDT) team to learn more about Zoom Whiteboard or any other instructional design/technology topic. To request personalized assistance, don't hesitate to contact OIT's Support Center at 281-283-2828 or supportcenter@uhcl.edu.

2018/2019 Blackboard Course Shell Deletions Starting Soon!

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

OIT's Technology Learning Services team will delete 2018 and 2019 Blackboard semester offerings on Friday, May 27, 2022. In addition to this newsletter article, multiple emails from the IDT team to faculty will be sent beginning Wednesday, April 27. Periodic course deletions are needed to reduce the size of our Blackboard database (and to avoid incurring additional storage space costs from Blackboard).

Course shells to be deleted are only those that have SP18, SU18, FA18, SP19, SU19, and FA19 in their CourseIDs. Our team's Learning Technology Administrators (LTAs) will restore faculty access to their 2018 and 2019 semester offerings this week so that you can review those courses and decide whether or not you want to retain an offline copy for your records. Faculty who would like to retain copies of their 2018 and 2019 courses may use either the Archive or Export option in Blackboard to do so. The difference between the archive and export process, as provided by Blackboard, is as follows:

• The archive course feature creates a frozen snapshot or permanent record of your course. An archive includes all the content, course statistics, users, and course interactions, such as blog posts, discussions, attendance data, and grades.
• The export course feature creates a ZIP file of your course content that you can import to create a new course. Unlike the archive course feature, the export course feature doesn't include any users or user interactions with the course.

Please note that neither process results in a version of your course contents that you can access or use outside of Blackboard. You may import a Blackboard export file to load old contents into a new blank semester shell. To access an archived file, you would need to work with our Learning Technology Administrators (LTAs) to temporarily restore a shell from that file to access materials or data. OIT will not be retaining any copies of 2018 and 2019 course shells, so please make plans to export or archive courses that you want to save before Friday, May 27, 2022.

Collaborate Recording Migration Update

Contributed by Jenn Ray, Learning Technology Administrator I

We’re happy to announce that the migration of Blackboard Collaborate recordings into Echo360 is complete! Echo360 was able to move over 14,000 recordings and assign them to a Collaborate-specific section for each user. If you already have access to Echo360 and you had recordings in Collaborate, you’ve probably already seen them show up in your library. If you are not already utilizing Echo360 but you know you had Collaborate recordings, please reach out to the Support Center so that we can get you set up. Once you’re into Echo360, you’ll be able to review your recordings and save or delete them from Echo360 as desired.

Blackboard Collaborate has been and will remain unavailable, and recordings will be deleted from Blackboard in May 2022, so Echo360 will be the only place where these recordings are available to you.

If you have any questions, or if you need access to Echo360 to review your Collaborate recordings, please reach out to the Support Center at SupportCenter@uhcl.edu or 281.283.2828.

Revisiting Objectives for Course Design

Contributed by Henry Newkirk, Instructional Designer II (HSH)

When building a new course, especially a new online one, where do you begin? Should you construct the syllabus and schedule? Select a textbook? Assemble your exams? Although these questions contribute to the design and development of a new course, there is a more fundamental place to start -- learning outcomes and objectives.

Outcomes/Objectives lay the foundation for beginning course design with the end in mind. Specifically, you should ask yourself, "what should my students be able to do at the end of the class that they may have been unable to do at the beginning?" Once you know where you want your students to go (academically speaking), you can better select, plan, and develop the contents and activities to get them there and design assessments that accurately measure whether or not they have arrived. Let's look at an example of how we might operationalize and guide course development around the objective "Explain the effect of immigration on American culture."

It's All About the Action Verbs

Objectives define what students should be able to do as a result of successful completion of a course. They should also be measurable, a lack of which is a critical weakness in many "objectives" provided by textbook publishers and others. Although not the only such tool, Bloom's taxonomy (as shown in this table) provides a good starting point for identifying actionable, measurable verbs on which to base learning objectives for your class.

Be careful of two common errors: (1) vague verbs and (2) non-objectives. Vague verbs include statements such as "The student will understand how multiple factors led to America's entry into World War II." In addition to "understand," other common vague/weak verbs are "know," "appreciate," "learn," and "be familiar with." They are considered vague because they don't describe what students will do to demonstrate their knowledge, appreciation, learning, or familiarity. Non-objectives are statements such as "The student will be able to complete the Chapter 3 exam successfully." As Smith (2012) explained in a blog entry from Arizona State University's Teach Online resources, "If your assessment is being used to meet your objective, then you will want to write a measurable objective that describes the content of the assessment."

Course Design and Learning Objectives

What do learning objectives have to do with effective course design, you ask? Good objectives are the foundation of an excellent course, and all instructional materials, activities, assessments, and tools must align to support student success in mastering the objectives. Keeping this in mind, the three main course components that provide a solid course structure are:

• Learning Objectives represent the outcome and attainment of knowledge and skills planned using the supporting two components. Objectives should be created and or written from the student's perspective and then clearly referenced throughout the course to show students how each element contributes to their attainment of the learning outcomes. Such clarity and prominence make the objectives the foundation of learning.
• Instructional Content and Activities are critical to course design. Examining each learning objective should guide you in selecting, developing, and implementing course materials and activities that are directly related to the objective. Use activities that align with the actual skill you want the students to master. For example, suppose you have an objective that stipulates students will be able to compare and contrast the advantages and disadvantages of government systems. In that case, the only related activity should not be a multiple-choice self-quiz.
• Assessments and Tools are the final components that must align with a course's learning outcomes. Assessments, especially comprehensive or terminal projects, papers, exams, etc., should be overtly related to learning objectives and course outcomes. Often left unconsidered is the selection of course tools based on which will most likely promote learners' achievement of course and module objectives. For example, assume that your course includes a learning objective in which students will "debate the merits and limitations of representative democracy." In this case, an assignment in which students write a paper for instructor review/feedback only would not align with the objective. You would want to select a tool that supports students in debating one another, such as a discussion forum, virtual meeting, etc.

To plan for instructional alignment during the course design process, we recommend using a course planning/design tool. Examples include the IDT team's Instructional Plan document, DePaul University's Course Blueprint document, and the Online Course Blueprint Planning Guide from the University of Michigan's Center for Academic Innovation. In addition, it's a good idea to examine each section of your course as you develop it and ask the following questions regarding instructional alignment:

• Are the learning activities consistent with all the learning goals? 
• Are the feedback and assessment activities consistent with the learning goals and the learning activities?

Additional details regarding instructional alignment, and course design in general, can be found within Fink's online A Self-Directed Guide to Designing Courses for Significant Learning.

You are welcome to request a consultation with a member of our Instructional Design and Technology (IDT) team to learn more about objectives for your course design or any other instructional design/technology topic. To request personalized assistance, don't hesitate to contact OIT's Support Center at 281-283-2828 or supportcenter@uhcl.edu.

Locating and Showing Hidden Courses

Contributed by Sam Houston, Learning Technology Administrator I

Instructors can hide courses in their Backboard course lists. If you find that you are missing a course, you may have inadvertently hidden it from your view. Note: If you are missing a current merged course, please see our article, Has a Current Merged Blackboard Course Disappeared?, from our March 21, 2021 newsletter.

To look for and show hidden courses in your Blackboard course list:

Navigate to your courses page, click the drop-down menu next to Filter, and click Hidden from me.

NOTE: If “Hidden from me” is not in the drop-down menu, you currently do not have any hidden courses.

On the resulting page, click the ellipses (three dots) to the right of the course and click Show course.

Please note: If you show all your hidden courses, you should automatically be brought back to your default course view. However, if you choose to keep some courses hidden, you will need to click the drop-down menu next to Filter and click All courses to return to your default course view.

To hide a course from your view:

Navigate to your courses page, click the ellipses (three dots) to the right of the course, and click Hide course.

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.

Issues with Respondus Exam Builder

Contributed by Jane Nguyen, Instructional Designer I (CSE)

This past week I’ve helped a couple of faculty members who had issues with Respondus Exam Builder.

As described on our website, Respondus Exam 4.0 “is a software application for Windows-based computers that enables instructors to readily create and/or import pools of exam/quiz questions and move those pools into their Blackboard courses. The software also enables instructors to extract existing exams/quizzes and/or pools from a Blackboard course and save them in a Word document for review/editing or documentation purposes.”

It is an excellent tool, and once set up correctly, it usually works quite smoothly. However, you may find that if you have not used it before or you have not used it since we switched over to duo-factor authentication in Fall 2021, you get odd messages when trying to connect to Blackboard from Respondus. You may get an “authentication failed” error or, as shown in the image here, “Login Failed.”



If this happens to you, we suggest the following:

1. Uninstall Respondus Exam 4.0 (Go to Settings---->search “Add or Remove Programs”---->click on Add or Remove Programs-->your apps will come up--->Choose Respondus Exam 4.0 and click “Uninstall”)
2. Then, after it is uninstalled, reinstall it.
3. Once you have done that, use this Respondus Settings Tutorial video to set up your connection by adding a new server.

Note that the video is very clear and easy to follow. Professors have used it without needing any assistance, which has solved the problem.

If you continue to have issues even after following the steps outlined above, please contact the Support Center at SupportCenter@uhcl.edu or 281-283-2828. Your help ticket will be routed to a learning technology administrator or an instructional designer who can help.

Newsletter Article – XR Series: A Look at Two Highly Rated VR Applications

Contributed by Izaak Diefenbach, Instructional Designer I (COE)

A couple of weeks ago, I got to try out the new XR Lab in the Neumann Library. The demonstration was just a simple VR game where we threw baseballs at numbered targets, but it effectively showed what VR could do. This experience led me to wonder what kind of educational applications are available and their capabilities. In this article, I will look at a couple of VR apps that are currently available and have loads of content, and, best of all, are free.

The first app is Within. Within is an immersive cinematic virtual reality application with an extensive entertainment and educational film library. However, rather than watching them on a flat two-dimensional screen, Within enables you to look around and see the story unfold as if you were there. One example is the Mozart 360 series, which presents a performance of Mozart's Coronation Mass from the perspective of a member of the orchestra while presenting text information about the music. Other examples include 700 Sharks and Dolphin Man, which take you into the ocean to observe marine wildlife in their natural habitat, and My Africa, the story of life in the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary in Kenya from the perspective of a young Samburu woman. Within films cover a variety of subjects, including History, Culture, Climate Change, and many others.

The second app is Google Expeditions. Google Expeditions allows you to travel worldwide, to cities, cultural locations, museums, natural wonders, and more, without leaving the room. Museums include the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Gallery in London, the Guggenheim Museums in New York and Bilbao, and the Smithsonian Museums in Washington, D.C., among many others. Location tours include such places as the Great Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, the Colosseum in Rome, Alcatraz Island in San Francisco, and many more. Google curates the content into themed tours, collections, and topics and provides a weekly highlights section to bring attention to new and currently relevant content.

Both Within and Google Expeditions provide large and unique libraries and present content in a way that only VR can. By immersing the user completely, the user doesn't just view the content; they experience it, allowing a more profound, more fulfilling experience.

To learn more about these applications or discuss how AR/VR/XR might be used to enhance your current or future teaching needs, don't hesitate to get in touch with OIT's Support Center and request a meeting with a member of the Instructional Design and Technology (IDT) staff. You can reach the Support Center at 281-283-2828 or supportcenter@uhcl.edu.