Five Easy Ways to Create a Better Grade Center in Bb Learn

One of the challenges faculty face is keeping up with grading and entering grades into the grade book. It certainly helps to have a grade book that is organized, easily managed, and calculates student grades correctly. This article details five effective, yet easy ways to manage the grade center. Included in the article are tips on how to rearrange the columns in the Grade Center, how to place columns into categories, how to lock the students’ running average into an optimal position in the grade center, how to hide irrelevant columns, and how to colorize grade center cells.

For the full explanation to complete these processes, please read the entire story in our Bb Learn Knowledge Base.

If you would like in-person help, the TLP lab is open Monday – Friday, 9am – 5pm for walk-ins. Consultants are also available to meet with those who have deeper questions.

Read the entire article here.

How to Create A Total Points Column in the Grade Center

One of the essential elements of the Blackboard Learn Grade Center is the column that keeps a running total of points accumulated throughout the semester by students. An easy way to calculate this grade is to use categories in the calculation for a Total Points column. No formulas are needed and the total points will calculate automatically and correctly at any point during the semester.

The process is fairly easy and can be built within a matter of minutes. Please read this article if you would like to be able to easily calculate grades and share them with students to keep them apprised of their progress.

If you would like more help with your Grade Center please stop in to TLP, Monday through Friday, from 9 – 5. You can also call 530-898-6167 and speak to one of our lab staff or schedule an appointment with a consultant.

Read the entire article

CALS – Chico’s Affordable Learning Solutions

In case you missed the presentation on CALS, Chico’s Affordable Learning Solutions, the presentation has been archived on TLP’s YouTube channel. This presentation provides information on innovative ways to help save students money by utilizing open source materials in your courses. Watch any one of the segments below, or watch the full presentation, http://youtu.be/oACm7NdXY-A.

Part One: Laura Sederberg of the Technology and Learning Program, gives general information about HEOA (Higher Education Opportunity Act).

Part Two: Linda Riggins of the AS Bookstore about ordering textbooks.

Part Three: James Tyler from Meriam Library about faculty resources.

Part Four: Marc Langston from Meriam Library about eBrary.

Part Five: James Tyler about open/free resources.

Education In the Virtual World Second Life

Textbooks of Tomorrow

Click the image to enlarge:

Via: OnlineEducation.net

Grademark & Peermark Webinars

PeerMark Best Practices
Want to conduct student peer reviews effectively and efficiently? Learn how to use PeerMark to distribute papers to review, collect useful reviewer feedback, encourage student participation, and achieve cognitive benefits of peer review.

Date: Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Time: 1 PM PDT (US)
Click Here to Register >>

GradeMark Best Practices
Tired of lugging stacks of papers all over town and scribbling illegible feedback in the margins for hours on end? We’ll discuss best practices for using GradeMark to provide more meaningful feedback in less time and track class progress and problem areas.

Date: Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Time: 1 PM PDT (US)
Click Here to Register >>

Bb Learn August Updates

The Chico State’s transition to the Blackboard Learn learning management system (LMS) picked up momentum in August as the pilot group of faculty began creating courses in Bb Learn and presenting course materials to students. To kick off the pilot, these faculty attended the newly crafted, Transition to Bb Learn workshop and worked with TLP consultants to decide if migrating a course to Learn was worthwhile or if the course should begin from scratch. Most of them decided to start fresh, while three faculty decided to try out the new migration process to bring Vista content into the new system.

To further advance the transition, the TLP Empowerment Lab (Meriam LibraryRm 003, in the basement), is offering training sessions for all faculty throughout September and into October. In the 90-minute sessions, titled Transition to Bb Learn, TLP trainers will provide participants with basic information necessary to start building a course in Bb Learn, guide them through the process of planning, creating, and organizing the course menu and content area, and explain the migration process from Vista to Bb Learn.

Bb Learn Training Materials lead, Claudine Franquet said, “The 90-minute Transition workshops are mandatory for those wishing to begin using Bb Learn in their Spring 2011 courses. After training, participants are given their own Bb Learn prep areas where they can migrate or create content and adapt course materials for future release to students.” Claudine added that, “The list of upcoming training dates is available on the TLP homepage at http://www.csuchico.edu/tlp, where instructors can enroll in workshops.”

Scott Kodai, Manager, Distributed Learning Technologies and Classroom Technology Services, said, “Now that the pilot is officially underway, we’re looking for feedback from faculty and students. We’ve already discovered several (relatively minor) bugs. We’ve investigated and replicated some of those issues and opened support cases with Blackboard. Recently we’ve received five patches for those various cases (and a few we hadn’t discovered yet!). We’ve installed those patches on our staging server and, once testing has been completed, we’ll be installing them on the production system during our September 15th maintenance window (from 6:00am to 8:00am). ”

Kodai added that, “Overall, the new system has been performing very well. Some early faculty feedback is that it’s much quicker than Vista and the new interface makes it easier to accomplish some tasks.” “We’ve also been busy designing and building the self-service application for Learn and tweaking the migration process to make it easier for faculty. Our next big project is to build a test environment in preparation for the next Learn service pack, which is due out sometime in October. This test environment will also help our networking staff configure our new high performance load balancers to work properly with Learn, and let us test some processes for managing future Learn upgrades with minimal downtime.”

Ann Steckel’s Communication Team has begun reconvening to discuss the Official Bb Learn Kick Off event to be held sometime in October. During the event information about Bb Learn and what it means to faculty will be discussed. Opportunities for participants to speak with pilot faculty, TLP consultants and system administrators will be highlighted.
 

Blackboard Learn Faculty Training Information

Have you heard that the Chico campus is moving from the Vista Learning Management System to the Blackboard Learn system? No? Well here is some information to let you know what is coming and help you to better understand how to prepare.

Early Adopter Faculty
Self-selecting faculty will attend workshops during the fall semester of 2011 to obtain information about the new system, how it works, and what is needed to prepare to move to it. (Training will begin in September.) TLP’s goal is to train 50% of the faculty to move during the initial wave. These faculty who are trained during the fall 2011 semester will move all, or at least some of their classes, into Blackboard Learn to teach with in the spring of 2012.

The Second Wave of Faculty
The remainder of the faculty who do not get trained during the fall will be trained during the spring and summer of 2012 and will move all of their classes into Blackboard Learn to teach with in the fall of 2012. At this time the first wave of trained faculty will also have all of their courses moved into Learn for this semester.

Department Training
Initially TLP will supply department-level training to those who request it. The objective is to train these groups as cohorts who can then assist each other in the transition process. Laura Sederberg, TLP Manager, is leading this effort. Please contact her as soon as possible to schedule a department training. She can be reached at lsederberg[@]csuchico.edu or X 4326.

Transition to Learn: The First in the Series
The first workshop that faculty will attend is called Transition to Blackboard Learn. This 90-minute training is mandatory. During the Transition workshop TLP trainers will provide participants with basic information necessary to start building a course in Bb Learn, guide them through the process of planning, creating, and organizing the course menu and content area, and explain the migration process from Vista to Bb Learn.

The objectives of the Transition to Bb Learn are as follows:
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
· develop the course menu, upload files to courses and work with features of the content area.
· decide whether to use the migration application and guide tool, or to build a course from scratch.
· locate support resources and select further training opportunities.
· make informed decisions about transitioning to Bb Learn.

The 60-minute informational portion of this workshop, will be followed by a 30-minute hands-on session where the migration process will be explained. Assistance with migrating courses from Vista to Learn will be available.

Additional Training
After attending the Transition to Learn workshop, faculty may opt to take any of the following workshops at TLP:
– Communication and Group Work
– Presenting Content in Bb Learn
– Assessments and Assignments
– The Gradebook

Online asynchronous tutorials will also become available as resources are created by TLP.

Please keep watching this blog for more information about the campus transition to the new LMS, Bb Learn. For questions or comments, please contact Laura Sederberg at TLP.

CSU, Chico Fall Classes in Second Life

This fall several CSU, Chico faculty will be teaching classes of students in the virtual world of Second Life. Professor Nanette Wylde has already begun taking 17 students in her ARTS 450/451 class, Art in Second Life, into the virtual Chico State campus for orientation and avatar design. Students in her course will learn how to create 3D art pieces as well as how to build displays to showcase real world art. During the semester numerous artists will speak to her students about their craft in such areas as machinima, live music, performance art, TV production, in-world 3D design and running a virtual art gallery.

Professor Cris Guenter , who has been taking her EDCI 675 students into Second Life for several semesters, will continue to expose her groups to the educational implications of virtual world pedagogy. Political Science professor, Michael Coyle, will once again involve his POLS 353 Corrections students in a project that investigates difference, diversity and deviance. Religious studies professors, Sarah Pike and Daniel Viedlinger, are currently considering using the virtual world to involve students in the study of religious ceremonies. Nursing professor, Becky Damazo, is developing an in-world simulation that will allow her students to fulfill some of their community service experiences as well as interact in medical emergency scenarios. Lastly, there is a group of staff who are exploring the possibility of using the campus as a spot for students to meet anonymously to discuss issues of diversity and alternative lifestyles.

For more information about the use of virtual worlds by CSU faculty, students, and staff or to schedule a consultation about the possible use in a CSU, Chico class, please contact Ann Steckel at asteckel[@]csuchico.edu or X6780.

The Second Life landmark for CSU, Chico: http://slurl.com/secondlife/South%20Sea%20Isle/109/55/23

To download the software to access Second Life: http://secondlife.com/support/downloads/

All students, faculty, staff and administration are welcome at the virtual campus. It is open 24 hours a day.

Students Love Tech Infographic

Via: OnlineEducation.net