Are there times when you would like your students to sign-up for an activity where there are a limited number of places (e.g., student presentations on a specific class day, study groups, service learning project, office hours, etc.)? The Groups Tool in Brightspace can help you organize sign-ups for one-off events. With the self-enrollment option in the Groups tool, students can add themselves to a group using a sign-up sheet.
The sign-up sheet functions like an electronic version of a paper sign-up sheet. You can make sign-up sheets available to students on the Groups listing page or by inserting a Quicklink in the Brightspace Editor.
Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.
Image credit: "sign-up sheet" by jflorent is dedicated to the public domain under CC0 and is a derivative of image by alphanumericlogic from Pixabay
D2L (the company that owns Brightspace) recognized that video is a core part of the learning experience clients create in Brightspace. In an effort to do more to help clients have better audio/video experiences, D2L announced some amazing new Media features to the Core product suite that were not previously available in our Brightspace system.
Example of the Advanced Editing link in the Audio-Video Editor
When uploading video topics, your videos will now store and play similarly to Video Notes. Videos will be converted to playable formats automatically and streamed, viewers can downscale files if they are on slower connections, and they can search inside videos for keywords. They have also worked to bring some of their video editing capabilities into Core for media creators including: auto-captioning, clipping, chapters, and caption editing.
What’s New?
Media Editing:
Video files uploaded as topics in Classic Content (through the Upload/Create > Video or Audio workflow) can be edited from course content. Video Notes can be edited with the new Audio-Video Editor as well.
An example of Advanced Editing options in the Audio-Video Editor
Editing timelines allows users to skip unwanted sections of a video recording.
Chapter titles can be used to create a Table of Contents for videos to allow quick navigation to specific sections.
Captions can be uploaded from a .vtt or .srt file or automatically generated to make videos accessible to all users.
Versions and Drafts allows users to roll back to earlier versions and revisit previous edits. The latest Saved version appears wherever the file is used within Brightspace.
An example of captions in an audio file
NOTE:
The editor features are available for all Video Notes AND for newly uploaded audio-video files. The editor features DO NOT apply to files that were uploaded prior to the January 2022 Continuous Delivery Updates. Audio/Video files that were uploaded prior to the January 2022 Continuous Delivery Updates and are located in Manage Files, will not see the Advanced Edit workflow. Migrating these videos is currently a manual process involving downloading and re-uploading your media files through the Upload/Create > Video or Audio workflow in Content.
Videos uploaded as Assignment submissions or uploaded to a course’s Manage Files area continue to use the legacy method for handling files.
D2L recommends using the desktop experience when editing audio-video files.
Player Improvements:
To improve the functionality of the Audio-Video player in Brightspace Learning Environment, multi-bitrate streaming, and search functionality are now available.
Multi-bitrate streaming allows high-definition videos to be played at standard definition to reduce the bandwidth necessary for users to watch videos.
The new search functionality allows users to locate key words in video captions and quickly navigate to those sections.
An example showing the search for a keyword in the video caption track
For additional information, including screenshots, of the updated Audio-Video player and editor refer to the Evolving the Audio-Video Experience article in the Brightspace Community.
Follow these steps to do it.
To upload an audio/video using the Audio-Video Editor:
Go to the content module where you want to insert an audio or video.
Click Upload / Create and select Video or Audio.
In the Add Video or Audio window, select the Upload tab.
Browse for your file, or drag your video file into the upload space.
The upload process begins Note: The transcoding process starts when the file reaches 70% upload and may result in a momentary pause.
When the upload is complete enter a title and select Advanced Editing.
To edit an audio/video using the Audio-Video Editor:
Go to the content module where you uploaded the audio or video.
Locate the audio or video you want to edit.
Click on the context menu and then select Edit Video or Edit Audio.
Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.
Accessibility is about everyone. It is extremely important for students with disabilities to have access to accessible course content.
Video Notes is a built-in media recording tool in Brightspace that allows instructors and learners to record short videos with a webcam. This makes it easy to personalize the learning experience with short, video-based feedback, comments, or instructions. Video Notes can be added where video attachments are supported and when the Brightspace Editor’s Insert Stuff option is available.
People who are deaf or hard of hearing rely on captions and subtitles to understand video content. But there are a lot of other great reasons for using captions. For example, you may have some learners who choose not to use the sound or they cannot use it without disturbing those around them. You may have some learners who are not native in your language or who have trouble understanding you. Closed captions and subtitles will allow these individuals to receive your message and understand it.
Did you know you can generate automatic closed captions for newly created Video Notes AND you have the ability to manually add or edit closed captions for all previously recorded Video Notes?
Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.
Video Notes is a built-in media recording tool in Brightspace that allows instructors and learners to record short videos (up to 30-minute video recording) with a webcam or up to 1GB file upload. This makes it easy to personalize the learning experience with short, video-based feedback, comments, or instructions. Video Notes can be added where video attachments are supported and when the Brightspace Editor’s Insert Stuff option is available.
Add a Description to a Module or a Topic in the Content area
Create an Announcement
Provide instructions when creating a Submission Folder for Assignments
Provide a feedback on students’ Assignments
Give a description of a new Topic in Discussions or make a post on a Discussion topic
Give students feedback in the Grade Book
Post a message in the Activity Feed
Anywhere Brightspace Editor is available
Learners can use Video Notes in these areas of Brightspace:
When adding comments to uploaded assignments in a Submission folder
When posting a new thread or replying on someone’s thread in Discussion topic
Anywhere Brightspace Editor is available
Follow these steps to do it.
To create and insert a video note in the Brightspace Editor:
In the Brightspace Editor, click the Insert Stuff icon.
Click Add Video Note.
Select Record Webcam Video, or Upload File.
If Record Webcam Video is selected, follow these steps:
Click New Recording.
Record up to 30 minutes of video and click Stop Recording.
To view the video note, click the play icon.
If you are satisfied with the video, click Next.
Enter a title, description, and audio language for the video note. To generate captions automatically, select Automatically generate captions from audio.
Click Next.
Click Insert.
If Upload File is selected, follow these steps:
Click Choose File and select the file you want to upload from your computer.
File format must be .mp4, .webm, .mov, .flv, or .f4v, and file size cannot be larger than 1GB.
Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.
D2L (the company that owns Brightspace) uses Continuous Delivery to update our Brightspace system. The Continuous Delivery model gives us regular monthly updates allowing for incremental and easily integrated changes with no downtime required for our Brightspace system.
Our Continuous Delivery update occurs on the 4th Thursday of each month. D2L provides release notes to help users stay up-to-date with the changes.
Here are a few updates in the January 2022/20.22.1 release that were added to our system this month:
1) Brightspace Learning Environment – Improved editing features in Audio-Video Editor
This feature introduces new capabilities to the Audio-Video editor for files uploaded to the Content Service. Users can now edit video timelines, create chapters, and add captions to their videos. D2L recommends using the desktop experience when editing audio-video files.
Video files uploaded as topics in Classic Content (through the Upload/Create > Video or Audio workflow) can be edited from course content. Video Notes can be edited with the new Audio-Video Editor as well.
Example of the Advanced Editing link in the Audio-Video Editor
Editing timelines allows users to skip unwanted sections of a video recording.
Chapter titles can be used to create a Table of Contents for videos to allow quick navigation to specific sections.
Captions can be uploaded from a .vtt or .srt file or automatically generated to make videos accessible to all users.
An example of Advanced Editing options in the Audio-Video Editor
NOTE: The editor features are available for all Video Notes AND for newly uploaded audio-video files. The editor features DO NOT apply to files that were uploaded prior to this feature being introduced. Audio/Video files that were uploaded prior to our January 2022 Continuous Delivery Updates and are located in Manage Files, will not see the Advanced Edit workflow. Migrating these videos is currently a manual process involving downloading and re-uploading your media files through the Upload/Create > Video or Audio workflow in Content.
This feature addresses the following accessibility criteria:
For additional information, including screenshots, of the updated Audio-Video player and editor visit the Evolving the Audio-Video Experience blog post in the Brightspace Community.
2) Brightspace Learning Environment – Improved viewing features in Audio-Video player
To improve the functionality of the Audio-Video player in Brightspace Learning Environment, multi-bitrate streaming, and search functionality are now available.
Multi-bitrate streaming allows high-definition videos to be played at standard definition to reduce the bandwidth necessary for users to watch videos.
The new search functionality allows users to locate key words in video captions and quickly navigate to those sections.
An example showing the search for a keyword in the video caption track
This feature addresses the following accessibility criteria:
For additional information, including screenshots, of the updated Audio-Video player and editor visit the Evolving the Audio-Video Experience blog post in the Brightspace Community.
With this release, Brightspace Learning Environment's browser version check now displays warnings for browsers earlier than the following versions:
Chrome 93 (released in August 2021)
Safari 13 (released in September 2019)
Firefox 91 (released in August 2021)
Edge 93 (released in August 2021)
You can access Brightspace Learning Environment with older versions of the supported browsers; however, D2L does not test Brightspace Learning Environment against these older versions. This means you may encounter unexpected user interface behavior and appearance or broken and unsupported functionality. In most cases, D2L does not fix software defects experienced in unsupported browser versions. For an optimal experience that offers better performance, accessibility, and security, D2L strongly recommends that all users access Brightspace Learning Environment with the latest version of a supported browser.
4) Brightspace Pulse – Subscription notifications for Discussions
With this release, subscription notifications in Brightspace Pulse are now consistent with subscription notifications in Brightspace Learning Environment. From the Notifications > Subscriptions tab in Brightspace Pulse, learners now receive all replies to discussions they are subscribed to and @mentions in discussion threads. Previously, the subscription notifications that learners received in Brightspace Pulse were inconsistent with the subscription notifications that they received in Brightspace Learning Environment.
5) Calendar – Improvements to Date and Time Selection Web Components
Building upon the Calendar – Improvements To Date And Time Selection Web Components | Updated feature released in Brightspace Platform March 2021/20.21.3 Release Notes, this release updates the date and time picker in Brightspace Learning Environment to include the following usability changes:
The Set to Today button is renamed to Today. The Today button continues to set the date and the time based on the context. For example, choosing Today for an End Date sets the current date and sets the time to 11:59 PM.
Added a Now button that sets the current date and time. The Today and Now buttons only appear when a date and time are required. When only a date is required, only the Today button appears and functions the same as the Now button.
The Today, Now, and Clear buttons are center-aligned in the date and time picker.
The new date and time pickerThe previous date and time picker
This feature addresses the following accessibility criteria:
WCAG 2.1 Success criterion 2.1.1 Keyboard
6) Content Service – Uploaded media files use Content Service
To improve the functionality of audio-video files in Brightspace this feature ensures most audio-video files are handled by the Content Service. The new capabilities are documented in the Brightspace Learning Environment – Improved viewing features in Audio-Video player | New, and the Brightspace Learning Environment – Improved editing features in Audio-Video Editor | New features from this release. Newly uploaded audio-video files can now take advantage of all the features of the Content Service, and similar behavior is experienced in all locations where media files can be uploaded or edited. Audio-video files that were uploaded prior to this release do not have access to the features available to files hosted by the Content Service. All audio-video files uploaded to Content service are now automatically converted to mp4 files (or mp3 for audio) to ensure they are playable on all supported devices.
Note: Videos uploaded as Assignment submissions or uploaded to a course’s Manage Files area continue to use the legacy method for handling files.
7) Discussions – Scoring Rubric drop-down for evaluations
To make the Discussion evaluation consistent with the Assignments evaluation, this feature adds the Grading Rubric drop-down to the sidebar menu. This allows the instructor to choose a grading rubric when evaluating a discussion.
If a normal topic assessment with Points/Custom Points-based rubric is selected, this rubric is the one whose score transfers to the Overall Grade field. The score transfer does not occur if Allow assessment of individual posts or a Percentage rubric is selected.
The new Discussions evaluation with the Grading Rubric drop-downThe previous Discussions evaluation without the Grading Rubric drop-down
Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.
Thanks to those of you who attended this week's Utilize Brightspace to Help Students Stay on Track workshop. The workshop, the ninth in our #LEX Advanced series, helps you to build on the skills you learned in the #LearnEverywhereXULA course. The focus of this workshop was to provide training on ways you can utilize Brightspace tools to help your students to manage their time and track their learning progress.
In case you missed this week’s training session or if you attended the training session and want to recap what was covered, a copy of the workshop recording and resources referenced in the workshop are available. You can find the workshop recording and other resources in support of the workshop on the CAT+FD wiki.
The Discussions tool has a new @mentions feature. Within the Discussion tool, users can now tag other users within the same course using @mentions. Tagged users are notified by alerts in the Minibar directing them to the thread in which they were tagged. Additionally, users can edit their notification settings and opt to receive email notifications when they are tagged in discussions.
The @mentions will identify users who match the criteria
You may be wondering how @mentions could enhance your class discussions. Here are a couple of examples:
Example 1:
@Mentions can help thread together concepts from multiple people in a discussion. For example, student A may be reading through discussion posts and sees that fellow classmates (Jayne and Francis) are making similar points in their posts but they are coming from completely different starting points. Student A wants to draw Jayne and Francis into a conversation with each other. Student A could post something like, "Hey @Jayne, did you see that @Francis agrees with you on x and y, but starts with presupposition b instead of a? What do you think about his presupposition?" Both Jayne and Francis would receive notification that they have been tagged in the discussion. Likewise, you as the instructor, could use the @mentions to tag students to draw them into a conversation.
Example 2:
You have a student that wants to draw you, as the instructor, into the conversation for clarification. The student could use the @mentions to tag you. You would receive notification alerting you that you have been tagged and you could prioritize responding to that thread before reading through all the others.
Do you have other examples of how @mentions could be useful in discussions? If so, please leave a comment on this post.
Tagged users receive notification in the minibar
Follow these steps to do it.
To use @mentions in a discussion:
Navigate to the forum topic or thread where you want to use @mentions.
Post as normal by selecting Reply to Thread or Start a New Thread.
To tag a user, type @ and begin typing their first or last name.
The user will appear on a list under the text. Select the user to tag them.
The @mention will display the user's first and last name.
Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.
Many instructors are using reflective journaling as a teaching strategy. Reflective journaling is used as a means of aiding reflection, deepening students' understanding and stimulating critical thinking.
Brightspace does not have a Journal tool. However, you can setup private discussion forums for journaling using the Groups and Discussions tools. A private discussion forum is the same as any other discussion forum, except that only the instructor and an individually assigned student have access to the posted threads and replies. A private discussion forum ensures that students cannot see each other’s posts, but instructors can still respond and assign grades to the discussion threads.
IMPORTANT: Each group in Brightspace has a maximum capacity of 200 participants and is restricted to 200 groups per category. You WILL NOT be able to set up private discussions for journaling if your enrollment is more than 200.
Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.
Instructors can use Replace Strings to personalize Brightspace. Replace strings allow instructors to customize course content and communications in Brightspace by incorporating the intended learner's personalized information, such as their first name, automatically.
Example of a personalized Course Homepage
Use Replace Strings to create a more personalized learning environment. For example, you can personalize a welcome message, announcement, and/or honor pledge by including the learner’s name.
Follow these steps to do it.
Enter the {FirstName} replace string variable (must be enclosed in curly bracket) in the Brightspace Editor when you want to substitute the learners’s first name. Enter the {LastName} replace string variable when you want to substitute the learner's last name.
Example #1
In an announcement, enter:
Hi {FirstName}! Welcome to this...
Replace String in an Announcement example
Example #2
In module description, enter:
Welcome {FirstName}! Welcome to the study of...
Replace String in a module description example
Example #3
For an acknowledgement in an honor pledge, enter:
I, {FirstName} {LastName}, acknowledge that...
Replace Strings in an honor pledge example
NOTE: Not all Replace Strings are available in all areas of Brightspace and Replace Strings do not work when sending email inside of Brightspace.
Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.
As you move forward with teaching and learning, you may have Brightspace questions. Here is a list of Brightspace help resources you can use to get answers to your questions.
Additionally, if you are having difficulties using any of the course tools, you can get help from D2L. This help is available 24/7 via Email and Live Chat. You will find links for Email Support and Live Chat Support in the Help menu on the NavBar (inside of Brightspace). You must be logged into Brightspace to access the Email and Live Chat Support links.
Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.
