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Published on Leave a comment on Conversation #18: Online Engagement

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Dave Yearwood

A conversation with Dave Yearwood of University of North Dakota, on teaching, learning and online engagement.

The one thing I'm really cautious about is making sure these technologies are not used as souped-up dump trucks. Meaning you load them up with content and you just drive it to where students are and you drop off the content and say to students, "Now you work with it." That's the one thing I try to stress that we have to be careful about not doing with our students.

Links for this episode:

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Published on 2 Comments on 50 Web Tools

50 Web Tools in 50 Minutes

Thanks to everyone who attended our workshop on "50 Web Tools in 50 Minutes."

Full House

For your clicking convenience, check out the full list of web-based tools that we covered.

  1. Online OCR — Convert scanned documents to text.
  2. Wordle — Word clouds! (example) See also Tagxedo
  3. Up-Goer Five Text Editor— Can you explain a hard idea using only the ten hundred most used words?
  4. Scribd — Document sharing. (example)
  5. WordPress.com — Blogging platform.
  6. Edublogs — Like WordPress.com or Blogger but specifically tailored to educational needs.
  7. Wikipedia — "a collaboratively edited, multilingual, free Internet encyclopedia"
  8. NolaWiki — "a collaborative, reliable, comprehensive look at the people, places, events and ideas of the city of New Orleans."
  9. Wikispaces — Create your own wiki. (Note: This page is hosted on Wikispaces.)
  10. Google Sites — Create your own website/wiki. (example)
  11. visualizing.org — Find (and share) visualizations of complex issues. (example)
  12. Many Eyes — Find and create data visualizations. (example)
  13. Pinterest — A social environment for collecting, discovering and sharing images. (example) (more on educational use)
  14. Compfight — Search tool that makes it easy to find Flickr photos, including those licensed for re-use.
  15. YouTube — Everybody knows about YouTube, but did you know about their Education Channel?
  16. Vimeo — Video hosting. Like YouTube but cooler. Lack of support for captioning could be a deal-breaker.
  17. CaptionTube — Speaking of which, here's a tool for captioning YouTube videos. (example)
  18. TED-Ed — Like YouTube's Education Channel but even more highly curated.
  19. Animoto — Easy-to-make online videos from photos and music. Free for videos under 30 seconds. (example)
  20. Screenr — Screen recording. Yes, it's web-based. (example)
  21. SoundCloud — Audio sharing platform. Free version limited to 120 minutes total. (example)
  22. AudioBoo — Audio sharing platform. Free version limited to three minutes per file. (example)
  23. Educreations — Recordable interactive whiteboard. Captures voice and handwriting/drawing to produce movies. Especially nice with an iPad but can also be used via web browser. (example)
  24. Prezi — Make (and find) crazy zooming presentations. (example)
  25. Timetoast — Build (and find) interactive timelines. (example)
  26. Capzles — Make (and find) multimedia storylines. Educational version in the works. (example)
  27. SlideShare — Share and find presentations (mainly PowerPoint). (example)
  28. VoiceThread — "A VoiceThread is a collaborative, interactive, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos." (example)
  29. MentorMob — Make and find learning playlists. Virtually all media supported: videos, PDFs, webpages, etc. (example)
  30. Quora — Social Q&A site. There are many of these but Quora's the best. (example)
  31. Khan Academy — Lectures and quizzes with an emphasis on math, science and finance. (example)
  32. Poll Everywhere — Easy way to aggregate live responses. (example) (example) (see also Socrative)
  33. SurveyMonkey — Surveys made easy.
  34. Moodle — Free course-management system.
  35. Quizlet — Make and find study tools (flash cards etc.) (example)
  36. Evernote — Store notes, images, documents, web clips, audio notes. Searchable. Sync across your devices. Claims to recognize handwriting from, say, a photo of a whiteboard.
  37. LiveBinder — Like a three-ring binder for web pages. (example)
  38. Delivr — Make and manage QR codes. (example)
  39. Facebook — Yes, it can be used for teaching. For example, make a group for your class.
  40. Twitter — For developing connections with colleagues around the world.
  41. LinkedIn — Professional networking.
  42. Yammer — Enterprise social network: social software designed for the institutional context.
  43. Dropbox — Easy file sharing.
  44. Popplet — Mind mapping, image galleries, more. (example)
  45. MindMeister — Collaborative mind mapping. (example)
  46. Voki — Create talking avatars. See example below. (example)
  47. MakeBeliefComix — Create your own comic strips. You'll have to make a screenshot for sharing online. (example)
  48. Diigo — Bookmarks on steroids. Allows you to highlight and add sticky notes to web pages. (example)
  49. ScoopIt — Curated web content. (example)
  50. Learnist — Curated web content, possibly more education-oriented. (example)

See also: The Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies' Top 100 Tools for Learning

Published on Leave a comment on Bb Tip #69: Simplify Assignment Collection

The Assignment Tool is an efficient way to manage and collect your student's individual and group assignments digitally. Blackboard's Assignment Tool allows faculty to create a secure location for students to submit class assignments. Faculty use the Grade Center to monitor the submission process, to view and/or download submitted work, to compose and send confidential feedback to students and to grade the assignment. Faculty can download all of a particular assignment’s student submitted files in a single zip file. In the download zip file, each student submitted file will be renamed automatically to include the assignment’s name, the student’s username, as well as the filename the student originally submitted.

A number of options are available when creating an assignment using the Assignment Tool:

  • Assignment Files - allows faculty to attach supplemental information
  • Assignment Availability - allows faculty to create assignments in advance
  • Assignment Submissions (attempts) – allows for multiple or unlimited submissions
  • Date and Time Restrictions - allows faculty to decide when students can access the assignment
  • Individual or Group Assignments – allows faculty to choose who has access to assignment
  • Tracking Statistics - track the number of views and by whom

Use the Assignment Tool to help you set and manage deadlines, unclutter your inbox, and save trees.

Want more information?
Step-by-step instructions are available for faculty [PDF].
Step-by-step instructions are available to show students how to submit assignments [Video].
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 Sustaining the Dialog

"Compassion grows out of the things we are..." (366/315 Nov. 10, 2012)

CAT is pleased to announce that our grant proposal to the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society has been funded. Now we're turning it back around to you. We invite all Xavier faculty to consider applying for support in developing a contemplative curriculum. Download the RFP to learn more.

Photo: "Compassion grows out of the things we are..." / Irmeli Aro / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Published on Leave a comment on Bb Tip #68: Beginning of Semester Tasks

The beginning of the semester is a good time to get started using Blackboard. Blackboard courses are automatically created using the course information in Banner approximately two weeks before the start of the semester. You can post your syllabus, course documents, and announcements to your Blackboard courses. You can also customize your course menu and/or add a course banner.

If you teach a course that is cross listed you will have a Blackboard course for each cross listing. You can combine the cross listed courses into one Blackboard course so that you can post course materials and grades to one combined Blackboard course. Combining courses may also work for you if you are teaching different sections of the same course and would like to have the different sections combined into one Blackboard course so that you can post course documents and grades in the one combined course. The beginning of the semester is the best time to combine your Blackboard courses before you add course material or grades to the courses.

Follow these steps to do it.
Here are links with instructions for

  • Merging courses [HTML]
  • Hiding old courses from view [HTML]
  • Getting started with the course environment [PDF]
  • Course structures and course themes [HTML]
  • Changing the display name for your course [HTML]
  • Adding a course banner [HTML]
  • Adding items to the course menu [PDF]
  • Posting announcements [HTML]
  • Copying content into another course [HTML]

Want more information?
Stop by one of the drop-in sessions for one-on-one help.
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 7 Comments on Bb Tip #67: Course Structures and Course Themes

Two new features included in the Blackboard Learn 9.1 SP9 upgrade are course structures and course themes. (See Bb tip #55 for more information on the upgrade.)

Course structures are predefined structures that correspond to teaching styles. There are five categories of course structures you can use as a launching pad to create content and to organize your course. Each course structure contains materials such as Course Menu links, instructions, and content examples you can add to your course to begin the design process quickly.

Course themes add a background image to the course display and change the color of the menu, buttons, controls, etc.

Setting up your course for the start of the semester is good time to try course structures and/or course themes.

Important: Adding a course structure does not replace existing Course Menu items or content. When using a course structure, its content is added to the existing content and Course Menu in your course. After applying the new course structure you will have to delete content and Course Menu items you do not want.

Themes do not affect course content or a chosen course structure. You can change the theme at any time. Unlike course structures, changing to a new course theme will not affect your course content or structure.


Follow these steps to do it.

To apply one of the predefined course structures to your course:

  1. Goto the [Control Panel] for the course and click on the [Customization] link to expand it. Click on [Teaching Style].
  2. Scroll through the course structures in the list on the left of section 1 and click one that you are interested in. A description will appear in the middle box and an example of the Course Menu for the selected course structure will be displayed to the right of the description. Each time you click on a course structure you will get a description and an example of the corresponding Course Menu.
  3. To select a course structure to apply to your course, select it from the list on the left and then click the [Use This Structure] button which is located under the course structure’s description.
  4. Optionally, you can check the box to include content examples for the selected course structure. If you choose this option sample content and instructions will be copied to your course.
  5. Click [Submit] to apply the selected course structure.


To apply a course theme to your course:

  1. Goto the [Control Panel] for the course and click on the [Customization] link to expand it. Click on [Teaching Style].
  2. Scroll through the course themes in section 3 and click on the one you want to use.
  3. Click [Submit] to apply the selected course theme.

Note: You can change the course theme without going through the control panel by 1) clicking on the color wheel icon which appears to the left of edit mode when edit mode is on, 2) scroll through the list of available themes, and 3) click on a new theme.

Want more information?
Selecting a course structure [HTML].
Setting Course Style Options [HTML].
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 #66: Download Your Gradebook

You should download your gradebook to your local computer after you submit your final grades. Student access to Blackboard courses is removed two weeks after the end of the semester. During this process Grade Center records are deleted. All your Grade Center records will be lost if you do not download your gradebook before student access is removed from Blackboard courses.

Follow these steps to do it.
In order to download (export) the gradebook for a course, you should:

  1. Goto the [Control Panel] for that course and click on the [Grade Center] link to expand it. Click on [Full Grade Center].
  2. Move your mouse over the [Work Offline] button on the menu bar and then click on the [Download] link.
  3. Under [Data] section, select the [Full Grade Center] option, under the [Options] section, select [Tab] as the delimiter type and [Yes] to include hidden information.
  4. In the [Save Location] section, choose [My Computer] and then click on the [Submit] button at the bottom of the page.
  5. On the next page click on the [Download] button. You should get a dialog box with a request to save the file. Save the file to a location where you can find it later. The file you saved can be opened with Microsoft Excel.

Want more information?
Step-by-step instructions are available [PDF].
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 Using Scribd to Ask: “Is College Worth It?”

Bill Gates provides a good overview of the challenges facing higher education.

Is College Worth It?

Most of us actually working in higher education are already painfully aware of these realities. This is a good resource to share with people outside the academy. Social media makes this easier than ever. Gates has published this presentation on Scribd, a document-sharing website. Scribd offers a number of tools that make it easy for people to share documents on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or via embedding as I've done here. Get a free Scribd account and you can publish documents there as well.

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