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Category: Brightspace Small Plates

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 Brightspace Tip #25: Continuous Delivery Updates

D2L (the company that owns Brightspace) uses Continuous Delivery to update our Brightspace system. The Continuous Delivery model is different from the previous update model we had with Blackboard. We used a system of “Big Bang releases” (large updates released once or twice a year) with Blackboard.

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 February 2018/10.7.10 Continuous Delivery release that were added to our system:

1) HTML Editor – Advanced Image Editing

The HTML Editor has been updated to include expanded image editing capabilities. Users can now edit images in place (including flipping, rotating, and adjusting brightness, sharpness, and color), edit the image description, and edit the size of the image.

Advanced image editing screen in the HTML Editor
Example of Advanced image editing screen in the HTML Editor

2) Question Library – New Question Import Workflows

This feature adds new ways for instructors to search the Question Library when adding questions to a quiz. Using a slide in panel featuring the questions in a tree structure enables easy navigation of questions to be added to quizzes. The ability to sort questions by their source collection, question type, points value, and question text has also been added.

Browse Question Library Import window
Example of the Browse Question Library Import window

3) Quizzes - Due dates available

To improve the consistency of dates across tools in Brightspace, due dates are available for quizzes. This allows instructors to better communicate when quizzes are due, and better identify when a learner submits a quiz late. This change impacts when quizzes are marked as late. A quiz is now considered late if it is submitted after the due date is reached. Previously, ‘late’ referred to attempts submitted after the time limit of an ‘enforced time limit’ quiz was exceeded. Quizzes submitted after the due date are labeled ‘submitted late’. Quizzes submitted after the time limit is reached are now labeled as ‘exceeded time limit’.

If you are interested in getting more information about these and all the February Continuous Delivery updates, refer to the Brightspace Platform February 2018/10.7.10 Release Notes.

Additonally, refer to the Brightspace Release Notes for Continuous Delivery Releases, for details about all continuous delivery updates.

Want more information?

Continuous Delivery release notes
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 #24: Grade Book – Search

Have you ever met with a student and wanted to review that student’s grades with him or her, but couldn’t because the Grade Book shows the grades of all the other students? This isn't a problem in Brightspace. You can use the Grade Book search to temporarily hide the grades of all the other students and only show the grades for a single student.

Follow these steps to do it.

To display one row in the Grade Book:

  1. On the NavBar, click Grades.
  2. On the Enter Grades page, enter the first and last name of the desired student in the Search For field and then click on search icon.
  3. When done, you should only see the selected student.

Note: If you have more than one student with the same name, you can enter the 900 # of the desired student in the Search For field. Ultimately, your search results should yield the row with the desired student's record.

Manage Grades tab with Search For field identified

To display all rows in the Grade Book:

  1. On the Enter Grades page, click on the Clear Search link.

Manage Grades tab with Clear Search link identified

Want more information?

Grades Tool training recap
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.

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Published on 1 Comment on Brightspace Tip #23: Grades Tool Training Recap

keep calm and let's recap

This week’s "Using the Grades Tool" training focused on setting up and working with your Grade Book in Brightspace.

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:

Our Brightspace training continues next month. The next training session will focus on how using gamification can engage and motivate your students. Participants will learn how they can gamify their Brightspace courses. 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 #22: Known Issues

keep calm it's a known issue

We created this Brightspace Known Issues page to provide you with information about known Brightspace issues and resolutions. Reviewing the Brightspace known issues page will inform you of known issues with the Brightspace system and their workarounds. This known issues page will be updated as issues are identified.

Want more information?

Brightspace Help Resources
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 #21: Checklists and Self-Assessments Training Recap

keep calm and let's recap

Our "Checklists and Self-Assessments Training" on February 8th was designed to provide faculty with information on how to use the Checklists and Self-Assessments Tools in Brightspace.

in case you missed it

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

Our Brightspace training continues next month. The next training session will focus on setting up your Grade Book in Brightspace. Please visit our events page for workshop details and to RSVP for upcoming Brightspace training sessions.

Want more information?

Brightspace Help Resources
View all the Brightspace training recaps
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 #20: 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.

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #19: Google Apps Integration

G Suite Apps

Xavier provides all faculty, staff, and students with a G Suite for Education (formerly Google Apps for Education) account, which includes Mail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms.

With the Google Apps integration into Brightspace, you can upload files from your Google Drive into Brightspace. Google Drive is a service for storing, syncing and sharing files.

Before you can take advantage of the Google Apps integration, you must authorize Brightspace to access your XULA Google account. The authorization will link your Google and Brightspace accounts so that you can upload files from your Google Drive into Brightspace.

Follow these steps to do it.

To enable Google Apps integration:

  1. Login to your Brightspace account.
  2. Scroll to the bottom of the main landing page and locate the Google Apps widget.
  3. Click on the Link to your Google Apps account and follow the prompts.

link to Google Apps

To upload a file from your Google Drive into Brightspace:

  1. Click on the Upload/Create button and then choose the Upload Files option.
  2. From the Add a File window choose Google Drive and follow the prompts.

Upload/Create button

Upload/Create button

Want more information?

Getting Started with Google Apps
Google Apps integration
Adding Google documents to Brightspace
Add a Google document to Brightspace
Brightspace training recaps
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 #18: Customize Your Course Homepage

The first page students see when they enter your course leaves a lasting impression. Use this first look to orient students and convey important information.

course homepage
Example of a Brightspace Course Homepage

Instructors can personalize their course with a banner image. A course banner is an image that appears in the My Courses widget and at the top of the course homepage.

Instructors can use Replace Strings to personalize Brightspace. Replace strings allow instructors to customize course content and communications in Brightspace by incorporating the intended learner's personalized information, such as their name, automatically.

Instructors also have the option to customize their Brightspace Course Homepage Layout to suit their needs. Brightspace course Homepage Layouts are frames (panels) that contain Widgets. Widgets are sections of content that provide information and links to tools, courses, and personal settings. Widgets are placed within the frames in the Homepage Layout. Both the course Homepage Layout and the Widgets are customizable.

Want more information?

Change Course Image
Change the Name of Your Course
Using Replace Strings (pdf)
Homepages and Widgets
Design a Course Homepage with Widgets (pdf)
Place Twitter Feed in Custom Widget (pdf) (updated 1/7/2018)
Brightspace training recaps
Brightspace Migration FAQs
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.