• Marking with Marky Mark – Managing the marking period stress free

    Mark avatarYes, it’s that time of year again… Exams are in full flow, the academic year is beginning to come to a close (for students perhaps!) and that means one thing… marking!

    It can be a stressful time for tutors with the (virtual) mountains of papers requiring a critical eye cast over them, for this reason we have put together some hints, tips and reassurances to ease you through the period.

    Downtime

    We don’t schedule any maintenance during the marking period so you should find the systems up 100% during the marking period.  Any issues you experience are likely to be local – meaning that they should be able to be fixed by one of your friendly Learning Technologists (or one of their Learning Services or IT Services colleagues!)

    Exceptions are only made for urgent security updates – these will be done as quickly as possible and at ‘off-peak’ times (3am in the morning anyone!?)

    Errors (when marking)warning cone icon

    You may very occasionally experience problems when marking – usually via Turnitin.  If this is the case, try the following before contacting Learning Technology.

    • Close the window
    • Log out of Blackboard
    • Clear your browser cache
    • Try a different browser
    • If possible try a different PC

    • Try using a Windows machine wherever possible

    Plan B

    It’s important that you have a Plan B, just in case of the worst scenario! (When you have a Plan B you usually don’t need it but when you don’t… well!)

    What will you do if a student or students can’t submit? This may be due to an issue their end or could be some other factor…

    • Will you offer paper submission?
    • Will you offer an extension?
    • Will you allow the to email it and then you submit on their behalf?
    • What time are they due to submit? Is it during office hours so it can be dealt with?

    Notificationsnotification icon

    For your sanity and students’ don’t forget to keep communicating!

    • Do you make use of the Announcements feature in Blackboard?
    • Do you have a communication plan? Is it via email? Word of mouth? a Twitter account? Do your students know what method you use?
    • Do students have notifications switched on in the mobile app? They need to have allowed ‘push’ notifications… this can’t be set for them!

     

    Online Hints and Tips

    Turnitin App

    Do you have an iPad? You can download the papers to mark offline if so.

    Convert Comments to QuickMarks and save them to your library for easy reuse.

    For easy reuse in the assignment you’re grading or in other assignments, you can convert a ‘Bubble Comment’ into a QuickMark. QuickMarks allow you to create your own library of feedback that might be applicable, on multiple occasions, to multiple students, across multiple classes and assignments.

    Drag and Drop QuickMarks Anywhere on the Paper

    You can access a library of feedback by selecting the QuickMark icon from the navigation bar. Use the search box to find a specific QuickMark. Once you’ve selected the QuickMark you’d like to add to the paper, drag it from the panel and drop it onto the relevant part of the paper.

    Highlight Tool

    Use text highlight together with comments in order to clarify to students what comments refer to.

    Taking a break…coffee cup icon

    Please note that when using Turnitin, it will timeout after 1 hour of inactivity. ‘Inactivity’ means not interacting with any part of the Turnitin interface, be aware though, scrolling up and down a student submission does not count as activity! Only actual clicking, typing etc. in Turnitin counts as activity.

    If you need to take a break or will be away from marking for a little while (grabbing that well earned cuppa!), be sure to close the Turnitin window so that the work that you have done is saved.

    As usual, any problems, contact [email protected]

    Mark avatarMark Wilcock
    Learning Technology Development Officer
    Faculty of Education

     

     

    Carol Chatten
    Learning Technology Development Officer
    Faculty of Arts & Science, Medical Education

    Mark

    ,

  • Learning with Lynda.com – Computer Science

    Edge Hill staff and students have free, unlimited access to Lynda.com, which includes thousands of high quality online courses and video tutorials written by industry experts.

    We caught up with two members of staff from the Computer Science department to discuss how they use Lynda.com to enhance their own skills and the learning experience of their students.

    Chris Nicholas is a Computer Science Research Assistant. He has used Lynda.com extensively to improve his knowledge of software development.

    Oladotun Omosebi is a Computer Science Doctoral Tutor. He has used Lynda.com with his students to help them improve their skills in using various software.

    Learn more about Lynda.com through our Lynda web-pages and explore the wide range of content for yourself.

    Heather

  • Time for Students to Lead Online?

    Wall ClockStaff, and students alike have deliberated long and hard over when, where, and how they can work more collaboratively, either in taught sessions, while engaging in a group activity, or during activities that require distance participation.

    Look no further, Learning Services has the right solution for you, in the Blackboard Collaborate Ultra tool.

    There is greater emphasis these days on giving students the space, time and flexibility to work collaboratively, on joint projects and away from the constraints and rigidity of the conventional classroom environment.

    All Learning Edge course templates include a link to Blackboard Collaborate ‘Ultra’, within the course menu (Note that Faculty or Department Administrators must add this course menu template) to merged courses.Blackboard Collaborate Logo

    In earlier versions of Blackboard Collaborate, you’ll remember Tutors were given the role of Moderator; everyone else was given the Participant role. The Moderator is the person responsible for the room (usually the tutor), and is required to conduct sessions, and control Participant (usually the student) privileges and the availability of tools.

    In the Ultra version, however, although the Tutor has overall control as Moderator, there are a couple of new roles the Moderator can use including; Presenter and Captioner. To encourage effective student online collaboration, we recommend setting up sessions, and applying the Presenter role for all students.

    Captioner can be applied to any user. They are given an area to type what is being said, so that those with a hearing impairment can participate and join in with the conversation.

    The Presenter role is designed to allow participants/students to use the whiteboard tools and present without giving them full moderator privileges.

    Presenters can upload, share, edit, and stop sharing content. Presenters are able to share their screens and upload images or PowerPoint files, they cannot modify another users’ permissions the way a moderator can.  This is a useful role, as all students are given the same, high level of user access, but can’t accidentally exclude another member from the project group activity.

    Guides to help you:

    If you want to discuss this and other users of Collaborate further, as always contact the Learning Technology Development Team via ext.7754, [email protected] or Ask LTD knowledge base.

    Martin Baxter

     

     

    Martin Baxter
    Learning Technology Development Officer

    Martin

    ,

Categories

Latest Posts