Getting Digital Ready – March’s staff development offer

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This month we have a range of bookable staff development sessions on offer, from getting started with Learning Edge to implementing breakout rooms successfully.

Spotlighted sessions

Making “Groupwork” Work: Facilitating effective groupwork online

Making “Groupwork” Work: Facilitating effective groupwork online

This session will explore techniques, tips and strategies to effectively facilitate groupwork online, with a specific focus on integrating breakout rooms in Blackboard Collaborate and utilising tools such as the whiteboard, Padlet, Vevox and more. Not only will we consider how to set up/use breakout rooms effectively, but how we can use them with a purpose, for example, to work intensely on focused tasks, establish closer connections via discussion/activities and build momentum for discussion back in the main room.

Monday 15th March (12pm-1:30pm)
Thursday 15th April (1pm-2:30pm)

Email digitech@edgehill.ac.uk to book on.

Build Accessible

Build Accessible

Build Accessible: Making Documents Accessible
– Wednesday 17th March (1pm-2pm)
– Thursday 22nd April (12pm-1pm)
– Wednesday 2nd June (1pm-2pm)

Build Accessible: Importance of accessible formats and accessibility software (Blackboard Ally)
– Friday 19th March (12pm-12:30pm)
– Friday 9th April (12pm-12:30pm)
– Friday 7th May (12pm-12:30pm)

Email digitech@edgehill.ac.uk to book on.

Take a look at March’s bookable staff development sessions below. Please email digitech@edgehill.ac.uk to book on.

Thursday 4th March (12pm-1pm)
OneDrive: Making online collaboration and sharing easy

Thursday 4th March  (1pm-1:30pm)
Using the Blackboard Journal and Blog Tools

Thursday 11th March (12pm-1pm)
PowerPoint’s Zoom feature for Assessments, Poster Presentations and Interaction

Monday 15th March (12pm-1:30pm)
Making “Groupwork” Work: Facilitating effective groupwork online

Wednesday 17th March (1pm-2pm)
Build Accessible: Making Documents Accessible

Thursday 18th March (12pm-1pm)
Introduction to Learning Edge for Staff

Thursday 18th March (12:30pm-1:30pm)
OBS (Open Broadcast Studio): Adding new possibilities to your presentations

Friday 19th March (11am-12pm)
Microsoft Teams (Part 2)

Friday 19th March (12pm-12:30pm)
Build Accessible: Importance of accessible formats and accessibility software (Blackboard Ally)

Tuesday 23rd March (12pm-1pm)
Setting up Turnitin Submission Dropboxes 

Thursday 25th March (12pm-1pm)
Blackboard Collaborate

Tuesday 30th March (2pm-3pm)
Using Padlet to Facilitate Discussion and Interaction with Students

Wednesday 31st March (1pm-2pm)
Are we YouTubers?: Using Flipgrid and Microsoft Stream as video-blogging tools for students

To find out more information visit Getting Digital Ready for the session blurbs. To book onto any of the above sessions email digitech@edgehill.ac.uk.

Pre-recorded Sessions

If you can not attend a live session or want to work through a session at your own pace, we have pre-recorded a range of sessions. These pre-recorded sessions can be found on LTDs Training and Consultation page – https://go.edgehill.ac.uk/display/ls/Training+and+Consultation

Training and Consultation

LinkedIn Learning

Another valuable online resource for staff development is LinkedIn Learning. LinkedIn Learning is an online learning platform which contains a wide variety of courses on topics including business, management, design, photography, IT, marketing, media and much more.

As part of the My Staff Development offer, within each of the pathways you will find a range of LinkedIn Learning courses we have recommended. These pathways have further been divided into Build, Develop and Enhance.

Screenshot of the LinkedIn Learning courses available underneath the 'Resources' section. Shows three pathways - build, develop and enhance.
Screenshot of the LinkedIn Learning courses available underneath the ‘Resources’ section.

You can access LinkedIn Learning via the LinkedIn Learning home page or using the LinkedIn Learning iOS app or Android app.

Online Staff Development Toolkits

We understand the importance of moving teaching and learning online, so in response to staff needs and seeking to enhance digital skills, we have developed online toolkits.

These toolkits aim to develop your digital skills and provide a greater awareness of the resources, services and support available to you. 

View the toolkits by clicking on the image below. 

Online Staff Development

For more information about staff development opportunities, visit the Getting Digital Ready wiki page, which is part of the collaborative My Staff Development offer.

My Staff Development (Programme 2020/21) Logo

Attendance Scheduling with Qwickly Attendance

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Qwickly Attendance icon

Today, we’re excited to announce that Qwickly attendance session scheduling is now available within all Blackboard courses. This feature has been a widely requested among staff here at Edge Hill University, and now all users have the ability to bulk create scheduled attendance sessions into their online register schedule.

Typically, staff create an attendance session within the moment that they take attendance for a session. This new feature enables staff to schedule attendance sessions for an entire semester before classes start, providing staff and students with:

  • A clear roadmap of all sessions throughout the semester
  • Assistance to all staff in identifying sessions where attendance may have been forgotten
  • The ability for instructors to mark a student excused far in advance, providing clear insight for other staff members of any known absence.

To schedule an Attendance session, staff must go to the bottom of the Attendance setting menu within Qwickly Attendance. Here they can input the start and end date for their courses (or the first and last date of the semester), as well as the days of the week when they meet. Once an Attendance session has been scheduled, it will appear in the Attendance Record and will be immediately available for an instructor to use to track attendance. For further insight please view the video link below, or head over to the Qwickly Section on the Learning Services Wiki.

If you would like any further information about Qwickly Attendance or other learning technologies, please contact your Learning Technologist via Ask LTD

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Mark Wilcock
Learning Technologist

Build Accessible-Student Use of Alternative Formats

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In Jan 2019 EHU acquired a new technology called Blackboard Ally to help improve the accessibility of content within Blackboard, in line with UK legislation.   

Ally not only provides staff with an accessibility score and guidance on files uploaded to Blackboard but also provides the files in alternative formats. 

Alternative formats provide greater opportunities for everyone to access the information they need in the way they need or want it. With alternative formats all students can meet the same learning objectives using resources that are built to target the needs of the individual student.  For example, students have converted lecture slides to audio, listening to them during their commute and to help them revise.   

In the past the advice was to upload your materials to Blackboard as PDF’s to aid viewing on mobile devices. Since then, technology has moved on and advice has changed.  It is easier and quicker to upload an accessible document in its original format, such as a Word document or PowerPoint. In its orginal format, students can then choose to download a version of the document that’s right for their own learning style through Ally Alternative formats. 

We are often asked if students are using this feature? Yes they are!  

Our students are now accessing the resources that you upload to Blackboard in a variety of formats, between Sept 2020-Jan 2021 there has been a total of 19,600 downloads across 1,952 courses.

A chart showing the distribution by alternative format type between sept 20 and Jan 21.
Distribution by Alternative Format type Sept 20-Jan21

The two most popular alternative formats that students have accessed is ePub and Tagged PDF:

Ally alternative formats are automatically generated from the original source document and this is why it is so important (as well as a legal requirement) to make the content you upload accessible.  See our wiki pages for help & support with creating accessible content. 

We have also scheduled a range of sessions that focus on accessibility:

Build Accessible: Making Documents Accessible
– Wednesday 17th March (1pm-2pm)
– Thursday 22nd April (12pm-1pm)
– Wednesday 2nd June (1pm-2pm)

Build Accessible: Importance of accessible formats and accessibility software (Blackboard Ally)
– Friday 19th March (12pm-12:30pm)
– Friday 9th April (12pm-12:30pm)
– Friday 7th May (12pm-12:30pm)

Email digitech@edgehill.ac.uk to book on.

Build Accessible

Build Accessible – Inclusive Content by Design

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Introduction

From 23rd September 2018, it became law for public sector bodies to make the content of their websites and mobile apps more accessible to users under the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018.

This government regulation* is an extension of the Equality Act 2010 and is benchmarked against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 AA (WCAG 2.1 AA Standard). Its purpose is to ensure that public sector websites’ content is accessible for all users and can be used with the most common assistive technologies, including screen magnifiers, screen readers and speech recognition tools.

It is particularly important to be aware that content that is published after 23rd September 2019 must meet these guidelines and any video or audio content published after 23rd September 2020 must include captions and transcripts.

This short blog contains information on the resources that are available to you to enable you to make your content compliant.

*Further information can be found at the end of this blog article – See ‘Further Reading’.

The Learning Design Exemplar – Quick and simple support material created for you

To enable and support staff in their use of learning technologies, the LTD Team have developed The Learning Design Exemplar – A quick and easy-to-use information resource located within each staff members’ Learning Edge (Blackboard) course list.

We’re pleased to also announce a brand-new section – ‘Inclusive by Design’ – in response to working towards achieving accessibility requirements to benefit our students.

This section has been created to serve as a quick resource to guide you through the various techniques, tools and functions that can be used to create accessible content.

Remember: Think “Build Accessible“.

In less than 15 minutes of video guides, this section covers the following topics for making your content compliant:

These techniques and tools can be used to evaluate and improve existing course material accessibility for your students and further material is included to review topics in greater detail.

It’s quick and simple to find:

Simply search for “Learning Design Exemplar” within your course list on Learning Edge (Blackboard) and the course will display in your results:

And that’s not all…

Have you wondered how to go about using breakout groups in your Collaborate sessions but don’t know where to start?

Are you unsure about that particular setting for your Turnitin Submission Dropbox?

Do you need to know how to quickly add captions to your Collaborate session recordings?

It’s all in the Learning Design Exemplar!

Each section provides information and bite-size video guides for the most commonly used learning technologies ranging from Blackboard and Collaborate to Panopto and other tools:

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The Learning Design Exemplar – We strongly encourage you to take a look when you can!

Further Support

Be sure to check out the Staff Accessibility Toolkit and LTD Wiki pages for further support and information resources around making your content accessible.

As always, please contact the LTD Team for any further advice and guidance: ltdsupport@edgehill.ac.uk

Further Reading

The accessibility of content within the government regulations is benchmarked against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 AA (WCAG 2.1 AA Standard) and the content’s ability to be used with the most common assistive technologies, including screen magnifiers, screen readers and speech recognition tools.

Published on the UK Government webpages this standard follows four design principles for published content – It must be perceivable, operable, understandable and robust.

Online Learning Loading …

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Before we break for Christmas, take a look at three new sessions that are available for staff to book onto. These sessions specifically focus on moving your teaching online and incorporating some new technologies.

Upcoming Staff Development Sessions. How to use Wakelet in the Classroom OneNote: Creating Digital Escape Rooms Are we YouTubers?: Using Flipgrid and Microsoft Stream as video-blogging tools for students

To book onto any of the below sessions please email digitech@edgehill.ac.uk

How to use Wakelet in the Classroom

Wakelet is a content curation platform that allows staff and students to save links, share videos, social media posts and images. With Wakelet you can organise your content into private or public spaces and collections, allowing for easy distribution and collaboration. This session aims to provide staff with an introduction to Wakelet, including how to get started, create collections and curate different media types.

  • Wednesday 9th December (1pm-2pm)

OneNote: Creating Digital Escape Rooms

Escape rooms are highly engaging and experiential team/individual events that are designed to put your creative problem-solving skills to the test. In the digital age it is important that remote teams and students are still provided with these fun opportunities. Can you breakout of this virtual escape room?

OneNote, part of Office 365, is a note-taking program that allows you to get organised in online notebooks. You can divide it into sections, add pages and then insert text, images, videos, tables and more.

But OneNote is much more than just an online notebook and can be used creatively to design engaging and interactive materials for students. This session aims to demonstrate how you can use OneNote to create digital escape room challenges.

  •  Tuesday 15th December (1pm-2pm)

Are we YouTubers?: Using Flipgrid and Microsoft Stream as video-blogging tools for students

YouTube is one of the most popular social media platforms, with nearly 2 billion users. Some recent statistics show that 500 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute and we watch over 1 billion hours of video a day! These numbers are key in showing us that we live in a society consumed by videos and multimedia (not to mention how much time we spend binge-watching on Netflix too).

As a result of COVID-19 the importance of video has surged to the forefront, a key way in allowing us to connect, learn and share ideas. This session aims to consider the impact of online learning and question our use of recording software. How do we record lectures? What methods do we implement to facilitate successful sessions/meetings? How do we make our online sessions and videos engaging?

This session will specifically refer to and demonstrate two key platforms that are powerful video tools – Flipgrid and Microsoft Stream.

  • Wednesday 16th December (1pm-2pm)

LTD Q&A Sessions

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In response to supporting staff with digital technologies and staff development, we have developed a new initiative called LTD Q&A.

LTD Q&A. An informal q&a drop-in session aimed at supporting staff with digital technologies and staff development. Come along to ask a question, engage in discussion and share best practice.

These informal Q&A drop-in sessions are aimed at supporting staff with digital teaching and learning tools, digital technologies and staff development. For example, come along and ask us a question about Blackboard Collaborate, Microsoft Teams, PowerPoint, Vevox, Padlet, Turnitin and more …

These drop-ins are a great opportunity to ask a question in a supportive environment, engage in discussion and share best practice with your colleagues.

To find out more information about the drop-ins and the upcoming dates/times visit the Connect, Chat & Collaborate pathway, which is part of the My Staff Development offer.

Of course, if you need any further support with digital technologies, either contact your Faculty Learning Technologist or contact the LTD Team on ltdsupport@edgehill.ac.uk

We don’t need no stinkin’ badges! Do we???

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Image of boy scout wearing a sash covered in badges

Today I’m going to discuss badges, and nope, not the ones which are worn and collected by boy or girl Scouts, I’m talking about the digital type, though it would be wise to point out that digital badges are actually somewhat modelled after this type of Scout badging system.

Similar to a physical badge, which signifies the completion of a task or an acquired skill level, digital badges can be used to visually display a wide variety of skills and competencies online. Digital badges also take principles from video game design as they can be used as a reward for completion of a task or a means to unlock additional tasks (that must be completed in sequential order).

So, now that we know a little more about what digital badges are, why would we want to use them in higher education? Well, there has been a significant amount of research over the past ten years. With interest in how digital badges expand online student motivation, engagement, tracking, and an overall sense of achievement and recognition. Throw all of this in the mix and then add a pinch of the current world climate and we have a fairly strong basis to enhance our virtual learning environment (VLE) with the use of digital badges.

As an institution, we utilise Blackboard as our VLE, which means every member of staff has the option to incorporate digital badges into their courses. Although one major detail that I need to make clear is that Blackboard’s offering of digital badges is officially referred to as ‘Blackboard Achievements’ – that’s probably really important to point out.

So, whenever you hear the term digital badges and blackboard – all you need to remember is the ‘Blackboard Achievements’ tool.

So “how do they work”?

Firstly, with the Blackboard Achievement tool, you can designate a multitude of different criteria for issuing digital badges to students directly from each of your courses. Essentially the achievements tool allows you to create and then define any “triggers” or actions that students must complete in their course to be awarded a badge of your design. Some of the common activities that can be used as “triggers” are:

  • Having students use the “Mark as Reviewed” feature for any content or learning module
  • Obtaining a specific grade on an assignment or test
  • Posting to the discussion board, a blog, wiki, etc…
  • Having a high level of attendance within an online register

As well as giving students a rewards-driven incentive to learning. Digital badges in Blackboard also improves the use of the ‘Performance Dashboard’ tool, which gives staff more detail into online student engagement and tracking.

When badges are created and used within a course, it will enable students to see which badges they have earned and what is required to receive additional recognition. Here all students can gain insight into the following:

  • Developing a rewards-driven incentive for learning
  • Using the badges as a framework, to encourage them to explore and participate more
  • Give more understanding into learning progression to defined competencies so they can see what they need to do to achieve more

For more information about using Blackboard Achievements please use the following videos and resources:

Video: What are Achievements

Video: Student Introduction to Achievements

Video: Creating Achievements

Video: Tracking and measuring engagement

Video: Performance Dashboard Overview

Video: Retention Center overview

If you would like any further information about Digital Badges or other learning technologies, please contact your Learning Technologist via Ask LTD

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Mark Wilcock
Learning Technologist

New and Improved Content Editor for Blackboard

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Arriving with a *※BANG※* 5th November!

An updated, easier-to-use, more powerful Content Editor will be available from 5th November within Learning Edge (Blackboard).

The Content Editor, if the term doesn’t sound familiar, can be found in many places across Blackboard such as when you create an item, folder or blank page or when formatting text in a discussion board, wiki, journal or blog. You may also use it when sending emails or announcements out.

There are many new, improved features and it has also been updated to work better when using a small screen such as on a smartphone or tablet. Help with making your text and content more accessible has also been built in and is easy to check.

Let’s take a look at some of the improvements and new features:

Plus Button

The plus button is where you add external materials into your content. This may be files from your computer or from the Content Collection, Panopto Videos, Images or even resources from a cloud service such as OneDrive or Google Drive.

The Content Editor is more accessible due to higher contrast icons and menus, and the removal of pop-ups improves the experience for screen reader users. A new accessibility checker helps authors make content more accessible while they’re creating content.

Accessibility
Code Snippet

Authors can now share formatted computer code snippets using the Display Computer Code button – great for Computer Science staff and students!

Copying and Pasting content from websites, Word and Excel is massively improved. You can now easily remove extra HTML but retain basic formatting.

Cut, Copy, Paste
Preview

And to check everything is looking how it should, use the Preview button to take a peek at the finished thing.

Hyperlinks: If you copy and paste or type a full hyperlink (for a webpage) into the new content editor, it automatically converts it into a clickable box with the webpage title and details! Of course, if you just want the text you can still just type the text and create the hyperlink in the usual way.

The best thing is that if you copy and paste a link from YouTube for example straight into the text area it will automatically convert it to a playable video window! It couldn’t be easier!

Inserting a YouTube video couldn’t be easier!

More details about the changes can be found in the following documents:

Of course, if you need any further support with using the new Content Editor tool, either contact your Faculty Learning Technologist or contact the LTD Team on ltdsupport@edgehill.ac.uk

Discover Effective Time-saving Resources with Qwickly Course Tools for Blackboard

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This month, we’re pleased to announce the return of Qwickly+ to our Blackboard environment. For all previous users of the tool, you’ll be happy to hear that you can now post announcements and content to multiple courses again. However, we all know technology tends to shift and adapt over time. In this case, you can expect some excellent improvements to the latest version (details below). One major change worth mentioning is the title of the tool. From this point onwards, Qwickly+ is now known as Qwickly Course Tools.

To find Qwickly Course Tools, head down to the ‘Tools’ section on the Blackboard home page menu then select ‘Qwickly Tools’.

Qwickly Tools is now located within the Tools section of Blackboard

Qwickly Course Tools empowers users to post announcements, documents, weblinks, cloud files and Blackboard calendar sessions in one central location within Blackboard. This also gives users the ability to post the same item or announcement to multiple courses at one time, providing all users with time-saving resources by simplifying tasks that need to be done repetitively in each course.

Post Announcements*:
Notify Blackboard users from all of your courses with important information e.g. cancellations or schedule updates.

Distribute Learning Content:
Share any resources and content to single or multiple courses within one click.

Create Blackboard Calendar Events:
Inform students of events that cascade across multiple courses like office hours, scheduled Collaborate or study sessions.

Cloud Documents:
Add content directly to multiple courses straight from cloud storage repositories (OneDrive, Google Drive and DropBox).

*Note: Announcements posted using Qwickly Course Tools will be stripped of any formatting – paragraph breaks, bold, italics, etc.

To learn more about how each tool works, please use the Qwickly guide HERE.

If you would like any further information about Qwickly Course Tools or other learning technologies, please contact your Learning Technologist via Ask LTD

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Mark Wilcock
Learning Technologist

Get ready for Blackboard Ultra Base Navigation – Video Tours

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From 14th September Blackboard will use the new front page navigation, known as Ultra Base Navigation. The videos below provide an overview of the main changes and new menus you will see from either the staff or student point of view. Please take a little time to familiarise yourself with these quick overviews which are on average a minute long!

When you first login to the new style navigation, you will see a welcome message to scroll through and then you will be taken to the Courses list which will always be the first page when you log in. The first video below explains how you can filter and favourite courses….

Staff Quick Video Guides

Student Quick Video Guides