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Published on Leave a comment on Bb Tip #65: Word Count

One feature missing from Blackboard is the ability to get a word count for discussion board threads, blogs, wikis, and journals. Currently, most professors get a word count by copying text from Blackboard, pasting it into Microsoft Word and then getting a word count inside MS Word. A new “Word Count” Add-on for the Firefox web browser skips this whole process and gives you the ability to get a word count for discussion board threads, blogs, wikis, and journals while on the respective page in Blackboard.

Follow these steps to do it.

First download and install the Add-on:
Liberty University Word Count Add-on for Firefox
To get a word count in Blackboard:

When on the Blackboard page (i.e., discussion boards, blogs, wikis, or journals), you will see a button labeled ‘Word Count’ at the top and bottom of the page. Highlight the text you would like to count and click the Word Count button. A count of the number of highlighted words will be displayed in the box next to the Word Count button.

Want more information?
Explore Blackboard's On Demand Learning Center [HTML].
Blackboard How-To documents [HTML]
Visit the Blackboard FAQs for additional blackboard information
or email or call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418

Published on Leave a comment on Bb Tip #64: Grade Center – Weighting Grades

A weighted grade column is a calculated column that displays the calculated result of component parts (columns and/or categories); each part is worth some percentage of the total. You can create a weighted grade based on any column and/or category in the Grade Center. For example, you can create a weighted grade column that calculates the final grade for the course. Categories such as Test, Discussion, and Assignment would be given a certain percentage of the final grade along with the percentage for other grade columns (e.g. Mid-term, Final Exam).

Follow these steps to do it.
To create a weighted grade column:

  1. Goto the [Control Panel] for the course and click on the [Grade Center] link to expand it. Click on [Full Grade Center].
  2. Roll your mouse over [Create Calculated Column] on the menu bar and select [Weighted Column] from the drop down menu.
  3. In the Column Information field, enter a name for the weighted grade column.
  4. Choose the primary display and optionally a secondary display for the weighted grade column.
  5. In the Select Columns area (section 3) click on grade columns and categories to be included in your weighed total calculations and click the arrow on the right to move the column/category to the “Selected Columns” area.
  6. Enter the weight percentages to be applied to each column/category. Categories that you choose to be included in the weighted total will give you an option to drop grades where you can enter the number of grades to drop if appropriate.
  7. Choose your options and then click on [Submit] when done.

Want more information?
Step-by-step instructions are available [PDF].
Explore Blackboard's On Demand Learning Center [HTML].
Visit the Blackboard FAQs for additional blackboard information
or email or call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418

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Published on 1 Comment on Bb Tip #63: Grade Center – Categories

Categories can integrate with Grade Center calculated columns such as Weighted Grade Column, Total Points Column, or Average Grade Column. For example, you could weight your grades by category assigning 20% of the final grade to the category "Assignment". Or you may want to create an Average grade column to calculate statistics for all columns that are in the "Assignment" category. Gradable items that are categorized as "Assignment" would automatically be included in the average calculation.

Categories are useful when you want to drop grades. Use categories to drop the lowest grade (or a number of grades) and then include the result in Grade Center calculations. Alternatively, you can use the highest grade in a category to include in Grade Center calculations.

Categories are helpful in organizing and utilizing the Grade Center. If you assign columns to Categories you would be able to sort the Grade Center by a specific Category to compare how the students scored in the Category. You can use Categories with Smart Views in order to have only columns associated to specific Category or Categories shown in the Smart View.

Follow these steps to do it.
To create categories:

  1. Goto the [Control Panel] for the course and click on the [Grade Center] link to expand it. Click on [Full Grade Center].
  2. Roll your mouse over [Manage] on the menu bar and select [Categories] from the drop down menu.
  3. Click on the [Create Category] button.
  4. Enter a name for the Category then click [Submit].

To edit/delete categories:

  1. Goto the [Control Panel] for the course and click on the [Grade Center] link to expand it. Click on [Full Grade Center].
  2. Roll your mouse over [Manage] on the menu bar and select [Categories] from the drop down menu.
  3. Roll your mouse over the category you would like to like to edit/delete then click on the arrow to the right of the category name. Select the appropriate action from the shortcut menu.

NOTE: You can delete any Category you created as long as the category is not in use. Default categories cannot be deleted. Categories currently in use will not have the Delete option.

Want more information?
Step-by-step instructions for creating categories and assigning Grade Center columns to categories are available [PDF].
Explore Blackboard's On Demand Learning Center [HTML].
Visit the Blackboard FAQs for additional blackboard information
or email or call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418

Published on Leave a comment on Conversation #17: Contemplative Pedagogy

Download Conversation #17

Daniel Barbezat

A conversation with Daniel Barbezat of Amherst College, on teaching, learning and contemplative pedagogy.

People ask, "What does a liberal arts college do? What does a good education do? It teaches people how to think." It's kind of a ridiculous claim in a way, because people know how to think. But we're giving them tools to think more deeply, clarifying what they're thinking about. That process can be deepened and expanded by a reflective process: not only of an abstract reflection, but a reflection on the inner life of the student... This inner life is being directly nurtured and sustained in an inquiry of the material that's being learned. The students now see how their inner life connects to what they're learning, and... that deepens both their curiosity and interest and their understanding of the material.

Links for this episode:

Published on Leave a comment on Race and the Digital Humanities

The National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education (NITLE) has invited Xavier faculty and staff to a rare open seminar titled, "Race and the Digital Humanities: An Introduction."

This is an online seminar, or webinar, so no travel is necessary. It's also quite unusual for a NITLE seminar to be open to non-members, so there's no cost.

The seminar will give a brief survey of the emerging field of race and the digital humanities, introduce the audience to a variety of digital projects informed by race, and provide links to resources for people interested in working in this field. Topics covered will include: the genealogy of these debates, the theoretical assumptions that inform them, and issues to consider while constructing a race and digital humanities project.

Dr. Adeline Koh is a visiting faculty fellow at Duke University (2012-2013) and an assistant professor of literature at Richard Stockton College. She is also a core contributor to the Profhacker blog at The Chronicle of Higher Education, and a member of the Editorial Board for Anvil Academic. (Follow her on Twitter.)

The seminar takes place Friday, November 16, 3 – 4pm Central Time.

If you are interested, register now.

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Published on 1 Comment on Bb Tip #62: Grade Center – Row Visibility

You can temporarily hide rows in the Grade Center using row visibility. This can be useful if you are meeting with a student and would like to only display that student’s grades in the Grade Center. Using row visibility, you are able to temporarily hide the grades of all the other students.

Follow these steps to do it.
To hide rows:

  1. In the Grade Center, roll your mouse to the Last Name, First Name, or Username cell of the desired student and click on the drop-down arrow in the right of the cell.
  2. Select [Hide Other Rows] from the short cut menu. When done, you should only see the selected student.

To show rows:

  1. In the Grade Center, roll your mouse to the Last Name, First Name, or Username cell of the student and click on the drop-down arrow in the right of the cell.
  2. Select [Show All Rows] from the short cut menu. When done, you should see all students.

Want more information?
Step-by-step instructions are available [PDF].
Explore Blackboard's On Demand Learning Center [HTML].
Visit the Blackboard FAQs for additional blackboard information
or email or call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418

Published on Leave a comment on Bb Tip #61: Course-to-Course Navigation

Course-to-course navigation is a new feature in Blackboard. You no longer need to go to the Home page or Courses tab to access your other Blackboard courses. You are able to move from course to course by clicking the course-to-course navigation drop down menu to select the next course.

Follow these steps to do it.
Click on the course-to-course navigation arrow and select the course you want to go to.

navigation

Note: When selecting a course using course-to-course navigation, you will land in the same content area or course tool when you enter the selected course. For example, if you are in the Grade Center of a course and use course-to-course navigation to enter another course you will land in the Grade Center of the selected course.

Want more information?
Explore Blackboard's On Demand Learning Center [HTML].
Blackboard How-To documents [HTML]
Visit the Blackboard FAQs for additional blackboard information
or email or call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418

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Published on 1 Comment on Some Interesting Wikis That Aren’t Wikipedia
W i K I S

I've been looking at wikis — lots of wikis — in order to find a few of the most interesting to present at a hands-off technology workshop next week. (Won't you please join us?) Of course interest is highly subjective, but I hope you find these projects intriguing, stimulating, and otherwise though-provoking.

First let me mention the elephant in the room. In my opinion, Wikipedia is one of the most interesting projects in the history of humanity. But we all know about Wikipedia. My goal here is to show that Wikipedia is not the only wiki on the planet. Onward!

  1. What if Hitler won World War II? That's one of the most common scenarios when imagining alternate histories. The Alternate History Wiki goes much further, with contributors speculating on thousands of other possible timelines that might have unfolded. What if Robert Kennedy had not been assassinated? What if a virus had devastated the Mayans in the 9th century? What if the earth was tilted 90º so the North Pole was off the coast of Africa? (In a similar speculative-imaginative vein, see also Galaxiki, which bills itself as a fictional galaxy anyone can edit.)
  2. As the name suggests, Appropedia is structured much like an encyclopedia. Because wikis can be sprawling in their scope, this is a common and sensible form. Appropedia is notable not merely for its admirable focus (on sustainability, appropriate technology and poverty reduction) but also for the quality of its engagement, which includes a substantial service learning component.
  3. There's a type of wiki known as a "city wiki," focusing on a single urban locality. Examples abound, but one of the weirdest and most wonderful is surely Davis Wiki, dedicated to the city of Davis, California. What makes this one stand out, besides its prodigious size, is that it's not as serious and straight-laced as many others. The wiki provides a wealth of serious content where appropriate, but also has room for a listing of the bathrooms at UC Davis — ranked by cleanliness or lack thereof.
  4. The Internet Movie Firearms Database is dedicated to figuring out just what guns were used in every scene of every movie ever made. As you can imagine, that's a lot of guns. I'm not a gun nut, but to me this is an intriguing proof-of-concept, demonstrating how a data-set can be developed with collaborative tools.
  5. The most interesting wiki I discovered was undoubtedly TV Tropes. A trope is a commonly recurring device or motif, not necessarily cliché, found in writing of all sorts. This site aims to catalog such tropes, initially stating with television (and apparently involving more than a few script writers) and eventually branching out to other forms such as film, radio, comics, theater, literature and more. Note that this analysis is very different from the encyclopedic approach. According to the site itself, you "can probably gain more info on the what of (for example) Star Trek from [Wikipedia] than you can from actually watching the show, and that's nice. Here? Here, you can get a glimmering of why the show is like that." Fascinating stuff — to me, anyhow. Your mileage may vary.

In recognition of the fact that interests vary, I've compiled a further listing of wikis that may be interesting to other people — perhaps one of them will be interesting to you.

  1. For those who are interested in the U.S. political process, OpenCongress Wiki, Ballotpedia & Judgepedia may be worth a look.
  2. SourceWatch, run by the Center for Media and Democracy, "aims to produce a directory of public relations firms, think tanks, industry-funded organizations and industry-friendly experts that work to influence public opinion and public policy on behalf of corporations, governments and special interest groups." (See also CoalSwarm, a sub-project.)
  3. I hesitate to post a link to Metapedia. It's a multilingual white nationalist and white supremacist, extreme right-wing encyclopedia. The perspective represented here is morally repugnant to me personally, and I expect to the Xavier community as well. And yet, I think access to this site presents obvious educational possibilities for creative teachers interested in history, politics, race relations, ethics and morality — to say nothing of critical thinking.
  4. Given Xavier's stake in the life sciences, the following may be useful: MedPedia is an open access online medical wiki encyclopedia, and MetaBase is a user-contributed database of biological databases.
  5. NotePub is an online notepad. You can write private, public, and shared notes. Extremely simple, easy-to-use and possibly quite handy.
  6. OpenStreetMap is quite impressive. Compare to Google Maps, but note this is published under the Open Database License. I think this is more of a tool for web developers to build upon but the potential is inspiring.
  7. Scholarpedia is kind of like an open access online journal in a wiki format. The articles are written by invited expert authors and are subject to peer review.
  8. Uncyclopedia & Encyclopedia Dramatica are satirical. The former is a direct parody of Wikipedia and feels a bit safe, while the latter is focused more on net culture and is not for the faint of heart.
  9. Wikitravel is a travel guide. Nuff said.
  10. Sensei's Library is a wiki about the game Go. It may be the most extensive Go resource on the web.
  11. Wookieepedia is an example of a fannish wiki. It's all about Star Wars, not just the movie but every aspect of the franchise. Any popular culture phenomenon with a dedicated cult is likely fodder for a wiki. I cite Wookieepedia because it's one of the biggest and most popular of such wikis, and provides an excellent example of the form.
  12. If you don't find any of the above even vaguely interesting, then Meatball Wiki is surely not for you. It's a wiki about wikis. Not a mere list of extant wikis, it "contains technical analyses of indexing schemes, wiki architecture, and inter-wiki protocol design. Yet it also philosophizes about the nature of hypertext, government, and identity, not to mention detailing user interfaces, community building, and conflict resolution."

If you're interested in learning more about using wikis, let me know. I'm happy to work with you. And don't forget to come to our workshop.

Photo credit: Various letters by Chris / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0/

Published on Leave a comment on Teacher Becomes Student — Online

Phoenix

An English professor from NYU enrolls in an online course and reports her experiences in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

On Becoming a Phoenix: Encounters with the Digital Revolution

Published on Leave a comment on Bb Tip #60: Turnitin – Add Voice Comment

There is a new Turnitin GradeMark feature that lets instructors add a voice comment to a student’s paper. The ability for an instructor to leave a personal voice comment is a powerful tool for providing feedback to students. With just a few clicks, instructors can quickly record a detailed message of up to 3 minutes in length and attach it to the student’s paper. Instructors can use the orally recorded feedback as a supplement to written comments.

Want more information?
Step-by-step instructions are available [Video]
How to use Turnitin GradeMark [Video] [PDF]
Blackboard How-To documents [HTML]
Explore Blackboard's On Demand Learning Center [HTML]
Visit the Blackboard FAQs for additional blackboard information
or email or call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418