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Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #30: Setup Your Summer Course

As you prepare to teach this summer, now is a good time to get started setting up your Brightspace courses. According to our Information Technology Center (ITC), summer courses will be created in Brightspace this week.

To get started, you can post your syllabus, course documents, announcements, and setup your Grade Book in your Brightspace courses. You can also customize your course homepage and/or course image/banner.

checklist

If you teach a course that is cross listed you will have a Brightspace course for each cross listing. You can combine the cross listed courses into one Brightspace course so that you can post course materials and grades to one combined Brightspace 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 Brightspace 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 submit a request to merge your Brightspace courses before you add course materials or grades to the courses.

Additionally, Master Course Shells are available for faculty who want to get a head start on building their courses before the actual summer courses are created. You can copy the Master Course Shell contents into your “empty” Brightspace course once the course becomes available. Alternatively, if the summer course you are teaching is the same as your spring course you can copy the entire spring course (or copy components) into your "empty" Brightspace summer course.

Follow these steps to do it.

Listed below are links with instructions to:

Want more information?

View all the Brightspace training recaps
Brightspace Known Issues
Continuous Delivery Updates
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

Image credit: image by TeroVesalainen from Pixabay

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Published on 1 Comment on Free Image Sites and Tools for Educators

Often instructors are looking for images to use in their courses because images can liven up the course and help students understand the course material.

A picture is worth a thousand words, but it might also be worth a thousand dollars if your school gets hit with a copyright violation claim. —Eric Curts

There are many high quality pictures that can be used without any licensing concerns. These can include images that are released under creative commons, or are in the public domain, or simply are copyright-free.

Eric Curts compiled a list of free image sites and tools for schools that you may find helpful in your search for free images.

free image sites for schools

Additionally, you may find an image you want to use, but you would like to make changes to it. You can find free photo and image editing tools in this eLearning Industry blog post by Christopher Pappas. Just make sure the image copyright gives you permission to modify the image.

ICYMI, read my blog post on Digital Copyrights for copyright information.

Image credit: "free images" by Eric Curts is licensed under CC BY-NC 3.0

Updated: 2/14/2020

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #29: Training Recaps and Help Resources

in case you missed it

In case you missed the Brightspace training sessions or if you attended one of the training sessions and want to recap what was covered, you can review these resources:

Additionally, here's a link to my Brightspace Tip #16: Help Resources blog post.

**NOTE: Brightspace Tip #23 has additional/updated training information on the Grades Tool.

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #28: End of Semester Tasks

classroom with empty chairs

As we approach the end of the semester there are a few things you can do in Brightspace to wrap up for the semester.

Release final course grades

Unlike other grade items and categories in the Grade Book, final grades are not available to students by default. Final grades must be released. If you did not choose to enable the automatic release of final grades when setting up your Grade Book, you will have to manually release final grades in order for students to see their final grade.

Export your Grade Book

Student access to courses is removed two weeks after the end of a semester. During this process all Grade Book records are deleted. You should export (download) your Grade Book to your local computer after you submit your final grades.

NOTE: The export file that is created will NOT contain any student work. The grades in your Grade Book are exported.

Create a master copy of your course

Courses remain on the Brightspace system for three semesters before they are removed. You can request a Master Course Shell that you can use to develop and maintain your course materials. Master Course Shells will not be removed from the Brightspace system.

Follow these steps to do it.

Instructions are available for releasing final course grades, exporting your Grade Book, and requesting Master Course Shells.

Want more information?

Release Final Grades
Export your Grade Book (video [2:03])
Master Copies of Courses
View all the Brightspace training recaps
Brightspace Known Issues
Continuous Delivery Updates
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

Photo Credit: Classroom/Learning/Lecture | CC0

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #27: Gamify Your Courses Training Recap

keep calm and let's recap

This week’s "Get Your Game On: Gamify Your Brightspace Courses" training focused on how using gamification can engage and motivate students. This training session also covered how instructors can selectively release content to students using release conditions.

in case you missed it

In case you missed this week’s training session or if you attended the training session and want to recap what was covered, you can review these resources:

  • Homework that was to be completed before the workshop
    • Gamification Learning Challenge*

*NOTE: The Gamification Learning Challenge and the hands-on workshop activities are available. If you are interested in getting access to the challenge and activities you must be enrolled in the Brightspace Instructor Training Course. Xavier faculty who are not enrolled in this course can email Janice Florent and ask to be enrolled in the course.

To access the challenge and workshop activities, Xavier faculty should:

  1. Login to Brightspace
  2. Select the Brightspace Instructor Training course
  3. In the NavBar, click on Content
  4. In the Table of Contents, click on Workshop Hands-on Activities and then
  5. Click on Gamification Workshop. (You will find the activities in this module.)

Our Brightspace training will continue next fall. Please visit our events page for workshop details and to RSVP for upcoming Brightspace training sessions.

Want more information?

View all the Brightspace training recaps
Brightspace Known Issues
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #26: Grade Book – Release Final Grades

Unlike other grade items and categories in the Grade Book, final grades are not available to students by default. Final grades must be released. When setting up the Grade Book, the instructor can choose to automatically release final grades so that the students can see their final grade throughout the semester. If you did not choose to enable the automatic release of final grades when setting up your Grade Book, you will have to manually release final grades in order for students to see their final grade.

Additionally, you can selectively release final grades for some students now and release the final grades for other students later. For example, you can release the final grades for graduating seniors on one date and release the final grades for everyone else on a later date.

Follow these steps to do it.

Watch this video for instructions on how to release final grades:

Want more information?

Release Final Grades
Final Grades FAQs
Grades FAQs
View all the Brightspace training recaps
Brightspace Known Issues
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

Published on Leave a comment on Drive Away?

Drive Logo

If you've been using Google Drive (and who isn't?) you may have been notified that the Google Drive application is going away. To clarify, the Google Drive service will continue, but the Google Drive desktop app (that little piece of software that syncs your local files with the cloud) is being discontinued.

Xavier users have reported that Google is urging them to switch to a new app, Drive File Stream. However, there is another app, also made my Google, which fills much the same function: Backup & Sync.

What to do?

Google is pushing Drive Stream as the solution for organizations, while marketing Backup & Sync to individuals. However, both currently work on Xavier campus. Fortunately, there is a handy comparison of the features offered by these two products, so you can make your own decision.

Compare Backup and Sync & Drive File Stream

Take your pick and make the switch. But don't delay! Support for the old app officially ended last month.

Published on Leave a comment on Chinese New Year comes to Xavier

On February 25, students in the Freshman Seminar class of Ms. Shu Peng participated in a Chinese New Year celebration as part of their service-learning project to explore the theme of global leadership. The event, hosted by the Confucius Institute along with the Metairie Business District, provided students an opportunity to observe and critique the internal leadership and organization involved in putting on such an event. They also were assigned to interview students, parents, and other participants to promote cross-cultural awareness. And for some fun and cross-cultural experience of their own, students got to dance two huge dragons to start the event.

The event attracted nearly 1000 people, despite heavy rain at the start, and featured short speeches by Drs. Verret and McCall of Xavier, Jefferson Parrish President Mike Yenni, and Education Counselor Long Jie, from the Consulate General of the People's Republic of China in Houston. Students were fully engaged in the service, rotating through six work stations throughout the day, and their formal reflective writing is about the event from the perspective of an organizer.

In addition to teaching the Freshman Seminar, Ms. Peng works as Assistant Director of the Confucius Institute at Xavier. This unique office, part of a non-profit organization affiliated with the Chinese Ministry of Education, has a mission to teach and promote Chinese language and culture around the globe. Founded in 2012, Xavier's Confucius Institute was awarded the Institute of the Year in 2016, out of over 500 Institutes worldwide. Ms. Peng's engagement with the Freshman Seminar program demonstrates the degree to which the institute is represented in the teaching faculty. And her unique expertise (she holds an M.S. in Communications from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, an M.A. in applied linguistics from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and an B.A in English from Xiangtan University) offers Xavier students a unique, global perspective on cultural awareness.

Ms. Peng (pictured here at left) hopes to make the Chinese New Year event an annual event, in order to serve the Xavier and New Orleans communities. Engaging first-year students as leaders and organizers in this event offers them valuable experience to reflect on, in order to achieve outcomes of civic engagement.