Brightspace Small Plates – Page 15

Brightspace Tip #354: Pronouns

Janice FlorentOctober 17, 2022December 30, 2022Leave a comment

group of people each with one foot in a circle showing off their colorful socks and shoes

Wednesday, October 19th, is International Pronouns Day. International Pronouns Day is celebrated on the third Wednesday of October and seeks to make respecting, sharing, and educating about personal pronouns commonplace. Referring to people by the pronouns they determine for themselves is basic to human dignity. Being referred to by the wrong pronouns particularly affects transgender and gender nonconforming people. For more information about International Pronouns Day visit pronounsday.org.

ICYMI, read Bart’s “Yes, you should totally tell your students your pronouns” blog post.

Did you know, users now have the option to indicate their pronouns in their Brightspace user profiles? Brightspace user profiles are visible to anyone who shares a course with a particular user, including students, instructors, administrators, etc.

The area under Account Settings, where you can set your pronouns — The area in your Account Settings, where you can set your pronouns

A user profile card with the pronouns displayed

Classlist showing pronouns highlighted to the right of the name of a learner — Pronouns display in the 'Last Name, First Name' column of Classlist, to the right of the user's name, in parentheses. User name text is blue, pronoun text is grey.

Celebrate International Pronouns Day by entering your pronouns into Brightspace and invite your students to do the same.

If you are looking for a good pronoun primer on inclusive teaching, check out this Gender Diversity and Pronouns resource from the University of Michigan.

Also, check out name.pn if you or your students are looking for an easy way to share how you would like people to use your name. You can create a URL that links to information to help users get your preferred pronouns, title, and the pronunciation of your name correct.

Follow these steps to do it.

To enter your pronouns:

From your Personal Menu click on Account Settings.
Check the Allow others to see my pronouns box.
Click on the Use different pronouns radio button and enter your pronouns.
Click on Save and Close.

Want more information?

Navigate Brightspace Learning Environment - Account Settings – Learner (video)

View all the Brightspace training recaps
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Continuous Delivery release notes
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.

Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.

Image Credit: "Footwear" by Julie Falk is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Brightspace Tip #353: Grade Book – Preview Learner Grades

Janice FlorentOctober 16, 2022

The instructor’s view of grades is not the same as the learner's view of grades. Did you know you can get a preview of what a learner sees when they view their grades in your course?

To verify what a learner sees when they view their grades, an instructor can Preview the learner's grades.

Follow these steps to do it.

To Preview a learner's grades you should:

On the NavBar, click Grades.
On the Enter Grades page, select "Preview" from the contextual menu associated with a learner name from the table. The Grades will appear in a new pop-up window.

NOTE: If you are meeting with a student and want to hide the grades of the other students, you should use the Grade Book Search to do so.

Want more information?

Preview Learner Grades
Brightspace Tip #351: Grade Book
Brightspace Tip #211: Grade Book – Search
Understanding the Grades Tool

Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.

Image credit: "preview key" by jflorent is licensed under CC BY 4.0 and is a derivative of "Education Keyboard Button" by GotCredit used under CC BY 2.0

Brightspace Tip #352: Respondus Monitor – Show Your Work

Janice FlorentOctober 12, 2022October 12, 2022Leave a comment

pencil, eraser, and graph paper with hand written math problems

One of the top requests from math and science faculty using Respondus LockDown Browser / Respondus Monitor is a way for students to show their work at the end of an online exam. This feature is now available!

The "Show Your Work" feature allows students to upload hi-resolution images of worksheets they've prepared during their exam. If this setting is enabled by the instructor, the student will be given the opportunity to upload photos of their work immediately after they submit their exam.

Respondus Monitor: Show Your Work Feature [2:11]

Want More Information

Using the "Show Your Work" feature in Respondus Monitor
Brightspace Tip #200: Respondus LockDown Browser / Respondus Monitor

Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.

Image credit: image by Dx21 from Pixabay

Brightspace Tip #351: Grade Book

Janice FlorentOctober 11, 2022December 22, 2022Leave a comment

The Brightspace Grades Tool is useful for providing students with up-to-date information about their current standing in the course. For instructors, it’s useful for assigning and keeping track of student grades. Students can view grade entries and monitor their progress throughout the course.

As an instructor, you can determine how to set up your Grade Book to best reflect your approach to evaluation, including the grading system and grade scheme that is most appropriate for your course. You can select how grades display to learners, how they update in the Grade Book, and how you want to deal with ungraded items. You can create grade items for projects, assignments, discussions, quizzes, etc. to include in your Grade Book, and even associate them with other tools (e.g. Assignments, Quizzes, Discussions).

Follow these steps to do it.

Listed below are links to how-to documents to help you to use the Grades Tool:

Want more information?

Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.

Photo Credit: Grade book by David Mulder | CC BY-SA 2.0

Brightspace Tip #350: Quick Eval

Janice FlorentOctober 6, 2022October 6, 2022Leave a comment

Do you want to see the coursework that needs to be graded all on one page in Brightspace? The Quick Eval tool can help.

Quick Eval is a tool that allows evaluators to see a list of unevaluated learner submissions from all their courses. Submissions from Assignments, Discussions, and Quizzes are displayed in one location to improve efficiency when locating work that requires evaluation and providing feedback to learners.

Evaluators can sort, filter, and search submissions to prioritize their evaluation work. Sorting can be done using the first or last name of the learner, Activity Name, Course Name, and Submission date. Filtering can be done using one or more of the following categories: Activity Name, Course Name, and Submission Date. Clicking on a user’s name opens an evaluation screen directly from the Quick Eval list where the evaluator can complete their assessment. The search function in Quick Eval allows evaluators to locate submissions for evaluation by searching for a specific user, assignment, quiz, discussion topic, or course.

When learner submissions are evaluated and published, they no longer show up in the Quick Eval list. An empty Quick Eval list gives educators confidence that no learner submissions are pending evaluation.

Quick Eval Widget

Did you know that Quick Eval can be added to your course homepage as a widget? The Quick Eval widget displays a list of up to six activities with submissions to evaluate. The activities are sorted by due date, with the earliest date first. The icon indicator in the widget shows the type of activity (assignment, discussion, or quiz), and the number of unevaluated submissions for each activity.

Activities dismissed in the Quick Eval tool are not displayed by the Quick Eval widget.

The Quick Eval widget on course homepage displaying no submissions needing evaluation

The Quick Eval widget on the Organization homepage displaying unevaluated activities from multiple courses

If you interested in customizing your course homepage with widgets, here are some blog posts with information that explains how to do it:

Follow these steps to do it.

To access the Quick Eval page:

On the NavBar, click Activities, then click Quick Eval.
All ungraded submissions will be displayed. You can sort submissions by first and last name, activity name, course, or submission date. You can also filter results.
Click the learner's name to evaluate the submission.
To return to Quick Eval page, click Back to Quick Eval.
As you complete and publish evaluations they will no longer appear in Quick Eval.

Want more information?

About Quick Eval
Grade Submissions Using Quick Eval (video)
Evaluating Activities Using Quick Eval

Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.

Brightspace Tip #349: Assignments

Janice FlorentOctober 5, 2022October 5, 2022Leave a comment

There were some changes with the New Assignment Creation Experience that has led to a few questions about creating assignments. I’m writing this blog post to address those questions.

When you create an Assignment with the new Assignment Creation Experience, the default when you enter points in the “Grade Out Of” field is that the “In Grade Book” option will be automatically selected.

The “In Grade Book” option will automatically create a grade item (column) in the Grade Book. The grade item is created with the same name as the Assignment.

Example showing the “In Grade Book” option when points are entered.

If you setup your Grade Book before creating the Assignment and you already have a grade item (column) for the Assignment in your Grade Book, you would associate the Assignment to the grade item by using the "Edit or Link to Existing" option and then navigate to the grade item in your Grade Book that you want to associate the Assignment with.

Example showing the “Edit or Link to Existing” option in the drop-down list.

Example showing the option to “Link to an existing grade item” with the grade item selected.

If you DO NOT want the system to create a column for the Assignment in your Grade Book, then you should select the "Not in Grade Book" option.

Example showing the “Not in Grade Book” option in the drop-down list.

The drop-down menu also allows you to reset the Assignment to ungraded, if necessary.

NOTE: Even though the new Assignment Creation Experience can automatically create a grade item (column) in your Grade Book, we still suggest you setup your Grade Book first and when you create your Assignments then choose the option to “Edit or Link to Existing” grade item in your Grade Book and navigate to the grade item that you want to associate the Assignment with.

Choosing to automatically create grade items in your Grade Book may present a problem when viewing your Grade Book from the Enter Grades tab. If you find the extra wide column headings that are created because of a long assignment name to be problematic, then you can edit the grade items and enter a shorter name for them. You can edit the grade items one at a time or edit them in bulk.

Example showing a grade item being edited to enter a short name for it.

You can edit grade items in bulk from the Manage Grades tab. First, select the grade items you want to edit and then click Bulk Edit.

Example showing grade items being selected for a bulk edit.

Example showing short names entered for grade items on the bulk edit items and categories page.

You will see the short names when you view your Grade Book from the Enter Grades tab.

Want more information?

Brightspace Tip #329: Simplify Assignment Collection

Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.

Brightspace Tip #348: Quizzes – Set Accommodations by Learner for All Quizzes

Janice FlorentSeptember 29, 2022Leave a comment

Did you know a new quiz accommodations feature was introduced in our February 2021 Continuous Delivery Updates? This new feature enables instructors to grant quiz accommodations to learners through the Classlist tool. Instructors can assign accommodations to specific learners that apply across ALL quizzes instead of applying them on a quiz-by-quiz basis. The accommodations option allows the instructor to give the learner more time to complete quizzes at the course level.

The Edit Accommodations option in the Classlist

Once granted, the accommodations apply to all quiz activities in a course for that learner. The additional time can be applied in terms of quiz time multipliers (for example, 1.5 x quiz time) or +minutes (for example, an additional 30 minutes) on every quiz in a course.

Accommodations for Instructors:

An icon appears next to the learner’s name in the Classlist to indicate that the learner has an accommodation.
Instructors can filter the Classlist by Accommodations.
Instructors can also Print or Email a list of users with accommodations by adding the filter to those pages.

Accommodations for learners:

An icon appears next to learners’ own names in the Classlist to indicate they have an accommodation. To view accommodation details, learners can click My Accommodations from their learner context menu.
When commencing a quiz, the accommodation icon appears next to a learner’s quiz time to indicate that their accommodation has been applied. If a learner’s time accommodation has been overridden by a quiz-specific special access, this icon does not appear.

Classlist page highlighting the Learner has Accommodations icon

Example of accommodations reflected in the quiz's time allowed. — Learners can see accommodations reflected in the time allowed when taking quiz

Quiz-specific special access can overwrite an accommodation for any user on a quiz-by-quiz basis. When you overwrite an accommodation and then click Save, a warning describing the impact of overwriting the accommodation appears. Accommodations set for learners in Classlist are displayed in the Special Access for the quiz.

Accommodations indicator in Special Access — An example of how Accommodations set for a learner in Classlist will show up in the Special Access for a quiz

Want more information?

Set Up Brightspace Accommodations by Learner for All Quizzes
Brightspace Tip #207: Quizzes – Special Access
Grant Special Access to Users for a Quiz (video)
Resources for the Quizzes Tool
Brightspace Tip #254: Tests and Quizzes
Best Practices: The Quiz Tool
Quizzes FAQ

Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.

Brightspace Tip #347: September Continuous Delivery Updates

Janice FlorentSeptember 23, 2022Leave a comment

D2L (the company that owns Brightspace) uses Continuous Delivery to update our Brightspace system. The Continuous Delivery model gives us regular monthly updates allowing for incremental and easily integrated changes with no downtime required for our Brightspace system.

Our Continuous Delivery update occurs on the 4th Thursday of each month. D2L provides release notes to help users stay up-to-date with the changes.

Here are a few updates in the September 2022/20.22.9 release that were added to our system this month:

1) Quizzes – Reduce test anxiety by creating quizzes without time limits

With this release, instructors have the option to create quizzes with no time limit. The No Time Limit option is now the default Timing setting for new quizzes.

Previously, instructors who wished to create quizzes with no time limit had to use the Recommended Time Limit option, which was selected by default and set to 120 minutes. This led to confusion for learners because the recommended time limit displayed on the quiz itself.

Instructors can create quizzes with no time limit in the Restrictions tab, under Timing, select No Time Limit.

Learners who take a quiz with no time limit now see No time limit under Time Allowed on the Quiz Summary page and Est. Length: No Time Limit on the quiz itself.

This feature implements the following PIE items:

D4998 (Quiz: "No Time Limit" option)
D3582 (Hide the quiz timing information (Est Length) in the student UI when there is no Enforced Time limit)
D4441 (No Time Limit Enforced Reinstated for Quizzes)

Instructor view of the New Quiz page with the new default No Time Limit option selected — Instructor view of the New Quiz page with the new default **No Time Limit** option selected

Learner view of a quiz attempt in progress before this update, displaying the recommended time limit

Learner view of a quiz attempt in progress after this update, with no recommended time limit displayed

2) Release Conditions – Choose the last date of enrollment in the current org unit

To help users with more flexibility around course design, the release condition Date of enrollment in current org unit now includes the following options:

Use first enrollment date
Use last enrollment date

The Release Conditions menu with the choice of the date of enrollment in the current org unit highlighted

This feature can also be used to set an Intelligent Agent; e.g., for learners who have been enrolled more than once in the course, you can decide if the agent applies based on the first time or the last time they were enrolled.

Intelligent Agent with enrollment date used

Previously the release condition for Classlist Date of enrollment in current org unit was based on users’ first enrollment into the org unit.

This feature implements the following PIE items:

D6684 (Reset IA schedule run dates upon reenrollment)
D8405 (Allow Intelligent Agents to check days based off the latest enrollment date, not the first)

If you are interested in getting more information about these and all the September Continuous Delivery updates, refer to the Brightspace Platform September 2022/20.22.9 Release Notes.

Additionally, refer to the Brightspace Release Notes for Continuous Delivery Releases, for details about current, past, and to preview upcoming continuous delivery updates.

Want more information?

View current, past, and preview upcoming Continuous Delivery release notes
View all the Brightspace training recaps
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
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.

Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.

Image credit: image by geralt from Pixabay

Brightspace Tip #346: Simplify Grading and Giving Feedback

Janice FlorentSeptember 11, 2022Leave a comment

hands of a male student on keyboard with another person's hand with finger pointing at screen

Giving students timely, useful feedback can greatly enhance learning and improve student achievement. ICYMI, read my Give Students Feedback That Helps Them Learn blog post for information on providing better feedback.

Are you looking for ways to simplify grading and for providing feedback on assignment submissions? These Brightspace tools can help:

Annotations Tool

The Annotations tool allows instructors to provide feedback directly in submitted assignments. Feedback can be provided as text highlighting, freehand drawing, text annotation, and note annotation.

The use of a stylus is not required when using the Annotations tool. However, it could help to speed up the process of marking up the assignment submissions.

For more information, refer to this how to use the Annotations tool blog post.

NOTE: The Assignment Grader app allows instructors to make annotations on assignments. The Assignment Grader app is no longer available for download to new users. Existing users may continue to use the app if they have it installed on their device, but no further updates or support will be made available by D2L and the app is scheduled to be removed from app stores. As an alternative mobile grading option, D2L recommends using the Quick Eval tool.

Rubrics

Rubrics allow instructors to establish set criteria for grading assignments. Using the rubrics click-and-score simplicity saves time when grading. With a rubric you can provide consistent evaluation and contextual feedback to students. You can add additional personal feedback to each criterion, expanding on why you chose that level and what additional work would be required to improve on it.

For more information, refer to this using interactive rubrics in Brightspace blog post.

Video Notes

Audio and video feedback can provide richer and more detailed feedback than may be possible through written comments. Visual or audio feedback also provides a more personal way of giving feedback. You have the option to provide audio and/or video feedback in Brightspace. Use Video Notes to provide short, video-based feedback, comments, or instructions.

Here are a couple of blog posts with more information:

Quick Eval

Quick Eval allows evaluators to see a list of unevaluated learner submissions from all their courses. Submissions from Assignments, Discussions, and Quizzes are displayed in one location to improve efficiency when locating work that requires evaluation and providing feedback to learners.

For more information, refer to this blog post on using Quick Eval.

The Orange Room

Have you visited The Orange Room (Brightspace Educator Share Showcase)? The Orange Room is a community where educators can learn from each other about efficient and innovative ways to use Brightspace. Several of your colleagues shared tips and suggestions already. Here are two contributions that may be of interest to you:

Want more information?

Brightspace Tip #329: Simplify Assignment Collection
Brightspace Tip #143: Annotate Assignment Submissions
Brightspace Tip #204: Interactive Rubrics
Brightspace Tip #299: Video Notes
Brightspace Tip #320: Video Notes – Closed Captions
Brightspace Tip #120: Quick Eval

Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.

Photo credit: photo by #WOCinTech Chat is licensed under CC BY 2.0

ICYMI: Engagement Strategies for Online Discussions in Brightspace

Janice FlorentSeptember 8, 2022Leave a comment

Engagement Strategies for Online Discussions in Brightspace [49:09]

Thanks to those of you who attended last week's Engagement Strategies for Online Discussions in Brightspace workshop. The workshop, the eleventh in our #LEX Advanced series, helps you to build on the skills you learned in the #LearnEverywhereXULA course. The focus of this workshop was to show you how you can take advantage of Brightspace's discussion tool to help you facilitate meaningful online discussions and build community in your courses.

In case you missed last week’s training session or if you attended the training session and want to recap what was covered, a copy of the workshop recording and resources referenced in the workshop are available. You can find the workshop recording and other resources in support of the workshop on the CAT+FD wiki.

Additionally, if you did not get the opportunity to earn a digital badge for participating in the workshop, it's not too late to earn that badge. We have a corresponding “Online Discussions” module in the #LearnEverywhereXULA (#LEX) course that you can complete to earn a digital badge for this topic. The badge will count towards your #LEX Advanced certification.

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Quick Eval Widget

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1) Quizzes – Reduce test anxiety by creating quizzes without time limits

2) Release Conditions – Choose the last date of enrollment in the current org unit

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The Orange Room

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