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Published on Leave a comment on Bb Tip #181: Grade Center – Extra Credit

extra credit

Instructors can setup the Grade Center to calculate extra credit points. Adding an extra credit column to the Grade Center works well if you use total points to calculate grades. The information to add an extra credit column in this Blackboard tip will NOT work if you weight grades.

Follow these steps to do it.

To create an extra credit column:

  1. In the Control Panel, click on [Grade Center] and then select [Full Grade Center].
  2. Click on [Create Column].
  3. On the Create Grade Column page, enter a name for the column (e.g., Extra Credit).
  4. Select [Score] from the Primary Display menu.
  5. Enter 0 for Points Possible.
  6. Select the [Yes] radio button for Include this Column in Grade Center Calculations.
  7. Click [Submit].

NOTE: The method described above does not work with weighted grades because weighted grades are based on a 100% total. Generally, if extra credit is available in class with a weighted grade total, the extra credit must be manually calculated.

Want more information?

Extra Credit Columns
Explore Blackboard’s On Demand Learning Center
Try these Blackboard How-To documents
Visit the Blackboard FAQs for additional blackboard information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

Published on Leave a comment on Conversation #58: Marcia Chatelain on Connecting with Students

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Marcia ChatelainA conversation with Marcia Chatelain of Georgetown University on connecting with students.

Dr. Marcia Chatelain, previously on the faculty of the University of Oklahoma's Joe C. and Carole Kerr McClendon Honors College, researches a wide array of issues in African-American history. Dr. Chatelain writes and teaches about African-American migration, women's and girls' history, and race and food. Dr. Chatelain has served on the boards of the Girl Scouts of Western Oklahoma and the University of Missouri's Student Affairs division. Dr. Chatelain is a member of the British Council's Transatlantic Network 2020, a 2000 Harry S. Truman Scholar, an alumna and honoree of the Sue Shear Institute for Women in Public Life, and a 2011 German Marshall Fund of the U.S. Fellow. In 2012, Dr. Chatelain was awarded an American Association of University Women Postdoctoral Fellowship (declined) and a Ford Foundation Diversity Postdoctoral Fellowship. Her second book, which examines the relationship between communities of color and fast food, has received grants from the Duke University Libraries and the Frances E. Summersell Center for the Study of the South at the University of Alabama. In 2014, Dr. Chatelain created #fergusonsyllabus to encourage educators to discuss the national crisis in Ferguson, Missouri. Dr. Chatelain hosts Office Hours: A Podcast (available on I Tunes) in which she talks to students about the things most important to them.

Links for this episode:

...continue reading "Conversation #58: Marcia Chatelain on Connecting with Students"

Published on Leave a comment on Make Teaching Online Less Stressful

zen stones

The demands of teaching an online course doesn’t have to leave you feeling overwhelmed. In an eLearning Industry article, Dr. Liz Hardy suggested a few easy steps to help replace the feeling of constant pressure with a calmer, zen-like mindset that will make teaching online easier and more enjoyable. Dr. Hardy’s suggestions are:

Define “urgent”. As you look through your To Do list, determine which items need your immediate attention and which items can be taken care of further down on the list.

Explain your standard time frames. Set expectations for your students so they know what your communications and assignment turnaround policies are.

Come out of the tunnel. When you’ve spent a long time on a task, take a moment to step away from the task at hand. This can help to rejuvenate and recharge you.

Create a sense of achievement. Your morale gets a boost when you can check items off your To Do list. These time management strategies may be able to help.

Revisit your positive feedback. Revisit compliments and positive comments that you’ve received to help lift your spirits.

For more information, read Dr. Hardy’s article Zen and the Art of Teaching Online.

Photo Credit: Zen Stones | CC0

Published on Leave a comment on Conversation #57: Kim Vaz-Deville on Core Curriculum Enhancement

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Kim Marie Vaz, Ph.D., LPCA conversation with Kim Vaz-Deville of Xavier's College of Arts & Sciences on enhancing the core curriculum.

Kim Marie Vaz, Ph.D., LPC, received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Tulane University and her doctorate in educational psychology from Indiana University in Bloomington. Currently, she is a professor of education and associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Xavier University of Louisiana. She is the author of The ‘Baby Dolls’: Breaking the Race and Gender Barriers of the New Orleans Mardi Gras Tradition published by Louisiana State University Press in 2013.

...continue reading "Conversation #57: Kim Vaz-Deville on Core Curriculum Enhancement"

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Published on 1 Comment on Voice Typing in Google Docs

view of typewriter keys on a manual typewriter

Are you slow at typing? Try dictating using Google’s voice typing.

Voice typing is a feature that is available in Google Docs. Voice typing is available in more than 40 languages. Although the results of the voice dictation is not 100% accurate, it can be a quick and easy way to start a rough draft.

To get started with voice typing, you need Google Chrome web browser and a functioning microphone connected to your computer. Login to your Google account and open an existing Google Doc or start a new one. In the ‘Tools’ menu, select ‘Voice typing’. A small pop-up window will appear to the left of your document with a dark microphone icon inside it. Click on the microphone icon. Once the microphone icon turns red you can start speaking. When you are done dictating, click the microphone icon again to turn off the voice typing service.

Google Docs Voice Typing

If you would like to learn more about the commands you can use with voice typing, refer to this Type with your voice help document or simply say “Voice commands help” when you are voice typing.

Photo credit: Typewriter keys | CC0

Published on Leave a comment on Team-teaching Means Team-grading

By J. Todd

One of the challenges of team-teaching is the grading. Grading is always a problem, as far as many of us are concerned, but it creates unique issues when more than one faculty member is teaching the class. When you look at the literature about better practices for team-teaching, always included is the very strong advice that grading practices and grading responsibilities be clearly agreed upon and established early on — before the class ever meets. Blackboard has made this challenge more manageable with their new Delegated Grading option. ...continue reading "Team-teaching Means Team-grading"

Published on Leave a comment on Conversation #56: Ross Louis on the Monument Crisis

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Ross LouisA conversation with Ross Louis of Xavier's Communication Studies department on service learning.

Ross Louis joined the Communication Studies program at Xavier in 2003 and teaches courses from a performance studies perspective. He is the co-founder of the Performance Studies Laboratory at Xavier University of Louisiana. Recent projects include This Other World (a site-specific performance of Richard Wright’s haiku) and “Performing Presence in the Haiku Moment” (forthcoming in Text and Performance Quarterly).

...continue reading "Conversation #56: Ross Louis on the Monument Crisis"

Published on Leave a comment on Conversation #55: Sustainability at Xavier

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Follow the ArrowA change from our ordinary conversational format, this episode features a montage of commentary recorded in the spring of 2015 under the auspices of Dr. Megan Osterbur. We asked two questions: What does sustainability means to you? What can Xavier do to be more sustainable? Answers come mainly from students and staff. The closing thought comes from Dr. Kimberly Chandler.

...continue reading "Conversation #55: Sustainability at Xavier"

Published on Leave a comment on Bb Tip #179: Discussion Board Access Denied Error

keep calm it's a known issue

After our recent Blackboard system upgrade, instructors began to receive an "Access Denied" error message when attempting to access an unavailable discussion board forum. If an instructor choses the option to make the discussion board unavailable and/or once the display until date/time has past, the instructor will receive an “Access Denied” error message when attempting to access the discussion board.

This is a known issue and will be corrected with the next Blackboard system upgrade. Upgrades to our Blackboard system are normally done between semesters because the system has to be taken down to do the upgrade. Our next upgrade is scheduled to happen in between the spring and summer semesters.

In the meantime, you can use the following workaround if you use discussion boards AND set them up with availability restrictions. The assumption for applying date/time restrictions is that after a certain day and time, the instructor does not want the students to have access to the discussion board. If this your goal, then the workaround to add a link to the discussion board forum and set the availability restrictions on the link should work for you.

Note: Locking discussion threads will let students read posts once the date restriction has past but not be able to submit new posts. The assumption for locking discussion threads is that the discussion board is setup so that students cannot create new threads. The instructor creates the forum and the threads and then students reply to the threads. If you think this may be an option for you, read my blog post for more information on how to lock discussion threads.

Follow these steps to do it.

To add a link to a discussion board forum in a content area:

  1. Turn Edit Mode ON.
  2. Access the content area that you want to add the discussion board forum link to.
  3. On the menu bar, roll your mouse over [Tools] then click on [Discussion Board].
  4. Click on the “Select a Discussion Board Forum” radio button and then select the discussion board forum from the list.
  5. Click [Next].
  6. Enter assignment instructions and select your availability options for the link.
  7. Click [Submit].

Note: The steps above set restrictions on the link to the discussion board forum, not the discussion board forum itself. The discussion board forum that you are linking to should be made available with no date/time restrictions. Therefore, you must remove the availability restrictions from the discussion board forum in order for this workaround to work. The restrictions set in the forum link will determine when students see the link to the discussion board forum. It also determines whether they see the discussion board forum when they access the discussions tool.

Want more information?

Add Discussion Board Forum Link to Content Area (PDF)
Lock Discussion Threads
Explore Blackboard’s On Demand Learning Center
Try these Blackboard How-To documents
Visit the Blackboard FAQs for additional blackboard information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.