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by Janice Florent

Word clouds allow you to visually display text data. Word clouds are also referred to as a text clouds or tag clouds. Word clouds are popular for text analysis because they make it easy to spot word frequencies. The more frequent the word is used, the larger and bolder it is displayed.

When it comes to finding the deeper meaning in a text passage, a word cloud is a simple application that you might have seen as a cute bit of fluff rather than a useful academic tool.

Word clouds are being used in education to sort through important ideas and concepts quickly. A glance at a word cloud is an easy way to preview a passage, or to analyze text. So what does this mean for your courses? Joseph Kern's article, "Word Clouds in Education: Turn a toy into a tool," lists some interesting ways word clouds can be used for readings and assignments.

The Grade Center is more than just a way to record students' grades. It's a dynamic and interactive tool, allowing instructors to record data, calculate grades, and monitor student progress. In addition to being able to record grades, instructors can track student work and share private comments and feedback with students throughout the semester.

image showing Grade Center

The Grade Center is integrated with gradable items such as tests, assignments, discussion boards, blogs, journals, wikis, and ungraded items, such as surveys and self-assessments. Instructors can create Grade Center columns for activities and/or requirements done outside of Blackboard, such as exams given on paper, oral presentations, and participation.

Students also benefit when their instructor uses the Grade Center. Students have the opportunity to adjust their approach to learning to improve their performance when they see their grades and instructor feedback.

Follow these steps to do it.

Listed below are links to previous Bb tips on using the Grade Center:

Want more information?

Working with the Grade Center
Explore Blackboard’s On Demand Learning Center.
Check out help for instructors at help.blackboard.com.
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.

Personal Viewpoints Panel

Quick, what does RTX RFP stand for? That's right, it's the Rising Tide 10 Request for Proposals.

CONTACT: Rising Tide Programming Committee [email]
WHO: Rising Tide NOLA
WHAT: Rising Tide X: Conference on Civic Activism & New Media
WHEN: 10 Years Post Deluge |Saturday, August 29, 2015
WHERE: University Center | Xavier University of Louisiana

REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS

Rising Tide NOLA, Inc. presents RISING TIDE X, the 10th annual civic activism & new media conference centered on the recovery and future of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. We invite you to be a part of it.

It has been ten years since Hurricane Katrina and the Failure of the Levees.  In that decade, we have endured other hurricanes & evacuations, the worst oil spill in US History, and a disappearing coast. There's been an ongoing reorganization of public schools, Department of Justice consent decrees with police forces and prisons while violent crime continues to be a problem, a former governor running for Congress, a current governor running for President, one former mayor reporting to prison. There's been rapid gentrification and unequal recovery, massive investment in tourism, selective enforcement of rules governing live music, and new hospitals we may not have the money to operate. At the same time, people interact with their communities, government, and news in dramatic new ways. From a daily paper to personal blogs to online newsfeeds to snappy Twitter commentary, we occupy a very different space from a decade ago in both physical and informational senses.  Each of those years, Rising Tide has hosted a conference to explore that space from outside the official narrative of What's Going On, to give voice to those left behind in the wake of the New Orleans Miracles, to remind folks that you can't advertise oil off the beach with a PR campaign, and to point out any number of places We Are (Still) Not OK.

At Rising Tide, we want to put that off-script, unofficial, read-between-the-lines story front and center. We invite you to be a part of it. We do so with this request for proposals for programming, panels, and presentations. 

PROPOSAL FORMAT

Proposals should include the following:

  • a brief description of the topic you wish to address
  • a list of participants/presenters describing their relationship to or expertise on the topic
  • how the programming will be presented to the audience
  • how the audience will be involved in the presentation through questions, participation, discussion, etc.

Please email brief (2 page max) proposals in plain text, word documents, or PDF attachments to programming@risingtidenola.com.

PROPOSALS WILL BE ACCEPTED THROUGH May 1, 2015.

PROGRAMMING SUGGESTIONS

Rising Tide encourages:

  • Focus on civic activism - making changes in the community
  • Collaboration between organizations to add multiple and diverse perspectives
  • Using social, alternative, or new media to share information, empower communities, and/or organize activism

Programming at Rising Tide is subject to broadcast via webcasts or social media tools.

While programming is free to address political topics, Rising Tide maintains a strict non-partisan forum, current elected officials and campaigning candidates for political offices are discouraged from participating in programming.

CONFERENCE BACKGROUND

Rising Tide attendance has averaged more than 100 attendees, media, and volunteer staff annually. Conference content live streamed on the web averages over 1000 unique viewers during each event, with archives on our website.

Last year's conference featured a keynote address from education activist Andre Perry, and hosted programming on Lost New Orleans History, the Young Leadership Council (YLC), civic engagement to fix the Treme Center, and religion in Post-Katrina New Orleans . Past speakers have included Lt. General Russel Honore, U.S. Army (ret.), acclaimed local writer Lolis Eric Elie, professor of history Lawrence Powell, Treme and The Wire creator David Simon, geographer Richard Campanella, journalist Mac McClelland, entertainer Harry Shearer, and authors David Zirin, John Barry, Christopher Cooper, and Robert Block. Previous panelists and a description of programming history can be viewed on the Rising Tide website.

More information is available at the Rising Tide website: www.risingtidenola.com; at the Rising Tide blog: www.risingtideblog.blogspot.com; on the Rising Tide Facebook page; and the organization can be followed on Twitter @RisingTide.

Rising Tide NOLA, Inc. is a non-profit organization formed by New Orleans bloggers in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the failure of the federally built levees. After the disaster, the internet became a vital connection among dispersed New Orleanians, former New Orleanians, and friends of the city and the Gulf Coast region. A number of new blogs were created, and combined with those that were already online, an online community with a shared interest in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast developed. In the summer of 2006, to mark the anniversary of the flood, the bloggers of New Orleans organized the first Rising Tide Conference, taking their shared interest in technology, the arts, the internet and social media and turning advocacy in the city into action.

Photo credit: Personal Viewpoints Panel by Maitri, on Flickr

by Janice Florent

Faculty readiness to teach online and student readiness to take online courses are key to success in online education. In a Campus Technology article, Paul Beaudoin writes,

Teaching in the blended or online learning environment is not a direct transfer of the traditional face-to-face class. The challenges of online learning often require a different set of skills that may not come easily to brick-and-mortar instructors.

Paul suggests six things instructors can do to be better online teachers. They are:

  1. Maximize your digital savvy
  2. Be an active and engaged participant
  3. Reinvent your wheel
  4. Include your learners in the learning process
  5. Reassess assessment
  6. Realize it's okay to fail

To find out more about his suggestions for being a better online teacher, read Paul's article "6 Ways to Be a Better Online Teacher."

by Karen Nichols

Are your students like some of mine in that they often wait until the last minute to post their discussion board assignments? When that happens, you have more grading to do all at once plus the opportunity for a really great discussion is missed because students are merely trying to complete an assignment before the deadline rather than practice engaged learning.

Tony Birch gives two ideas to help maintain a continuous flow of discussion posts in his article "How to Encourage Continuously Interactive Online Discussions" published in eLearning Industry earlier this year.  In his article, he recommends two techniques to improve the flow of discussion posts.

First, he suggests instilling a sense of social purpose for posting in the discussions.  Your objectives for each discussion should be clear to the students--they should understand why they are being asked to discuss a topic.  They should also be made to realize that their participation (or lack thereof) directly influences the success of the discussion and learning experience.  The students should take ownership of the discussions. To assist them in achieving this requires fairly quick feedback from the instructors which includes suggestions like, "Student X posted an interesting viewpoint on this topic.  Why don't you have a look and discuss your take on it?"  So, rather than giving the general direction of "respond to at least two of your classmates' posts", you are helping to direct students to certain posts.  In that way you can match up some students according to different criteria--a weaker one with a stronger student, two students with similar or different ideas, etc.  This type of feedback can also ensure that everyone has received some response to their post and no one is left out of the discussion.

Another way to discourage last minute or all-at-once posting is to reward students who post early and/or throughout the given time for the discussion board.  The author suggests adding Timeliness into your grading rubric.  Here is the one he uses for a week-long discussion:

Timeliness All posts are after Friday or all posts on a single day First post no later than Wednesday; other posts prior to end of week Posts early: First post no later than Wednesday; at least one other post Friday or before; posts on several days of the week
0 pts 1 pts 2 pts

The author notes that the total number of points is 13 so adding these 2 points affects the grade by 15%.  Explain to the students that they can potentially raise their grade by 15% just by posting on time.  The difference of a whole letter grade can be a significant incentive.

Well, what do you think of these two ideas?  Can they work for you with your discussion boards?  Are you using other techniques with success?  If so, please share!

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by Bart Everson

Embrace Keyboard Shortcuts

Everyone know that I am a hug(e) advocate of keyboard shortcuts. They are easy to learn and will give your productivity a boost. If you really enjoy sitting in front of your computer, and want to spend more time doing that every day while getting less done, then by all means ignore them — but the rest of us will want to memorize our keyboard shortcuts.

Everyone also knows that I do not use PowerPoint, have never used it, and generally avoid Microsoft products as if I was afflicted with a life-threatening allergy.

So that's why you've never heard me talk about keyboard shortcuts for PowerPoint.

Fortunately Scott Schwertly, famed presentation expert, has compiled a list for you. These are keyboard shortcuts you can use when actually presenting with PowerPoint. Extremely handy, if you ever do that. Check it out.

Students are more likely to be successful in a course when they attend regularly and keep up with their coursework. Instructors can use Blackboard to help students stay on track.

Review Status, Performance Dashboard, and the Retention Center are features in Blackboard that collectively enable instructors to access student progress.

Review Status allows instructors to give students the ability to mark an item as "reviewed." When Review Status is enabled, there are benefits for instructors and students. The instructor can check to see who has reviewed the item, while students can use the feature to keep track of which content they have reviewed. This is especially useful when students review content in a non-linear fashion.

The Performance Dashboard is used to monitor student progress throughout the course and help keep them on track. A summary of access and progress for each student appears in a table format. Instructors can see the last time a student has accessed the course, which items they have reviewed, and how much they are participating in discussion boards.

The Retention Center is a tool that allows instructors to monitor student performance. Instructors can utilize the Retention Center to identify students who are struggling and help them take immediate action for improvement. Instructors can begin using the default rules in the Retention Center immediately—no additional setup is required. However, instructors can edit the default rules and/or set their own criteria or rules to monitor student performance.

Want more information?

Step-by-step instructions for tracking student performance [PDF].
Enabling Review Status
Using the Performance Dashboard
Using the Retention Center
Explore Blackboard’s On Demand Learning Center.
Check out help for instructors at help.blackboard.com.
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.

by Janice Florent

It is hard for students to remain focused and engaged with all the digital distractions out there. This is especially true for students taking online classes.

In a recent Edudemic article, Rony Zarom wrote:

There is no silver bullet for keeping students engaged in the online classroom, there are many simple things educators can do to improve their chances of success.

Rony lists four ways educators can examine their online learning approach for student success. They are:

  • Assess skills early and set goals
  • Give students a variety of ways to learn
  • Prevent the "zone out" effect
  • Establish flex class learning options

If this has piqued your interest, you can read more in his article 4 Ways to Turn Distracted Students into Engaged Learners.

Last week CAT's own Bart Everson gave an invited talk at Xavier's long-running series on Across the Curriculum Thinking.

Watch Social Media, Social Justice on Vimeo

(See our wiki for related resources and credits.)

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The Performance Dashboard gives instructors a "view at a glance" on how students are progressing within the course. Instructors use the information in the Performance Dashboard to monitor student progress and keep students on track.

image showing performance dashboard

Various types of user activity information is available in the Performance Dashboard. The information includes:

  • Last Course Access: The date and time when the user last accessed the course.
  • Days Since Last Course Access: The number of days that has elapsed since the last time the user accessed the course.
  • Review Status: Displays how many items have been reviewed.
  • Adaptive Release: Clicking on the icon opens a new window showing a directory tree overview of the entire course relative to the user, and the access status.
  • Discussion Board: This column lists the number of Discussion Board comments created by the user. Clicking a number link opens the Discussion Board page listing all of the selected user's Discussion Board comments in the course.
  • Customize Retention Center: This column shows the number of triggered rules and the number of total rules that may trigger a warning. For example, 3/5 means the user has triggered three rules out of five. Clicking on the data in this column will display a page showing the Retention Center status for the user.
  • View Grades: This column provides direct links to the full Grade Center.

Follow these steps to do it.

To view the Performance Dashboard, you should:

  1. Goto the [Control Panel] for the course and click on the [Evaluation] link to expand it.
  2. Click on [Performance Dashboard].

To print the Performance Dashboard, you should:

  1. Goto the [Control Panel] for the course and click on the [Evaluation] link to expand it.
  2. Click on [Performance Dashboard].
  3. Click on the printer icon in the right hand corner of the heading.
print preview performance dashboard

Want more information?

Using the Performance Dashboard [webpage] [video].
Explore Blackboard’s On Demand Learning Center.
Check out help for instructors at help.blackboard.com.
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.