What is Google Sites?

What is Google Sites?.

via What is Google Sites?.

New blackboard features and upgrade

This is a reminder about the Blackboard upgrade taking place this weekend. We expect the upgrade to start at 6pm on Friday 26th and be completed in less than 24 hours. However Blackboard should be considered at risk on Sunday 28th, which means it may not be available if additional time is needed.

This will be an update to the Blackboard software to take advantage of new features and fixes. We have a series of articles which will be available on the e-learning at SHU blog this week about these changes. Some of them are already available for reading:

Inline grading

Test item analysis

Improved announcements

Streamlined test question creation / deployment

We know that there are some teaching programmes which will be affected by the downtime and we apologise for any inconvenience this causes. As always, the upgrade team will strive to minimise any downtime

photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/drinksmachine/ under CC licence

 

Artificial intelligence for all

Check out Professor Adrian Hopgood’s Professorial Lecture on Artificial Intelligence for All

This was recorded in 2012

SBS TEL Supported Sessions – Summer 2013

Blackboard Support – setting your site up for 2013/4, including new features

Monday 5th August – 10am

Monday 5th August – 2pm

Tuesday 6th August – 2pm

Wednesday 7th August – 10am

Grade Centre – supported time to set it up

Tuesday 6th August – 10am

Wednesday 7th August – 2pm

Turnitin – for referencing and feedback

Monday 8th July – 10am

Creation and Delivery of electronic feedback – introduction to different methods of producing digital feedback

Thursday 8th August – 10am

An introduction to Google Apps – the different apps available

Friday 19th July – 10am

Social Media and Employability

Friday 9th August – 10am

Using Screencasts in Teaching and Feedback

Tuesday 16th July – 10am

Collaborate, Webinars and online virtual sessions

Friday 9th August – 2pm

Using tablets / mobile devices in the classroom

Coming soon

Please click this link to launch the booking form to register to attend – each session will take up to 1 hour. If you can’t make a session but would like to know when these will be run in the future, please register your interest at the end of the form and I will keep you informed about future dates.

2013 / 14 Blackboard Rollover is complete – what do I need to do?

The process of automatically copying Blackboard sites for the 2013/14 academic year is now complete, and you will be able to access your new sites and start preparing them.

Staff enrolments will be carried across to the new sites. You will need to use the staff enrolment tool in the control panel to add any new staff or unenrol staff who no longer need access.

Content will also be copied forward to the new sites. However some tools such as the Grade Centre, discussion boards and assignments (including Turnitin) must be set up again in the new sites. Tests will need to be redeployed, and although wikis, blogs and groups have been copied they have been cleared of content and users and so will need any content or users adding back in. However, you may prefer to delete the existing groups and set up new ones.

If your site is not there

If, after the email informing you that all sites have been copied, you do not see a copy of a site that you will teach on next year, then you will need to request the copy yourself online. If your module has not been copied, this may mean that the module code has changed – please check this with your course administrator before you request the new site to ensure you use the correct module code.

Getting support

Step-by-step guidance on preparing your sites for the next academic year is available online.

We are running a series of supported time sessions to help support staff with setting up their 2013/14 sites.

Your faculty e-learning contacts are also available to support you in preparing sites for the next year, and may be running faculty- or department-specific sessions as well.

Using Blackboard to deliver a virtual classroom session

Blackboard Collaborate provides staff with a modern, powerful tool to facilitate synchronous (at the same time) learning activities. Its features include sharing audio, webcam video, presentations in a white board, and a chat window which includes a polling feature. It is possible to share your desktop or other applications with students and split students into breakout room groups. Sessions can be recorded to allow playback later by students who miss the session. Staff moderating sessions have control over a variety of options which can be used to manage the classroom environment and create the type of session that is appropriate for their teaching needs.

Blackboard Collaborate can be accessed on or off campus and can be used inside and outside of Blackboard sites. Staff can invite people from outside of the university to participate in Collaborate sessions as well. This can be used to include guest speakers, workplace mentors, and others who do not have university accounts in the sessions. It can be used for teaching and learning purposes, but can also be used for other purposes such as staff development, student support and business needs.

Moderator guides can be viewed here

Participant guides can be viewed here

Please contact s.warwick@shu.ac.uk to arrange for training or if you want some help in using this in your teaching

Blackboard access for external examiners

Through the Administration Undertaken by Academics project (part of the Academic Working Practices programme), some academic staff said they would like their external examiner be able to access their Blackboard site.  For many years it has been possible to request an account which gives an external examiner access to Blackboard, but this does not seem to have been widely known.

In response to this feedback from the project, we have changed our processes to ensure that a Blackboard account is created for every external examiner automatically, thus eliminating the academic staff time needed to request the accounts, and notify staff about the account creation.

Once a new external examiner has been appointed and attended induction, they will receive an email with their login details. The staff member identified as the contact for the external examiner (practice differs in each Faculty) will also be notified that an account was created for that external examiner. Accounts have been created and notifications sent for all existing external examiners already.

By default your external examiner will not have access to your Blackboard site. If you wish them to have access, you will need to enrol them on the appropriate site using the Staff Enrolment Tool, as you would for Sheffield Hallam staff members.

These same account details will be used by the external examiners to access the SharePoint site for moderation of assessment tools and exam papers.

If there are any questions about these external examiner accounts, please contact the external examiner team, Ruth Bartles, Sarah McPherson and Ruth Feather.

Introducing Resource Lists Online

Introducing Resource Lists Online.

via Introducing Resource Lists Online.

Workshops to contribute to the development of a framework to enhance teaching through technology

Workshops to contribute to the development of a framework to enhance teaching through technology.

via Workshops to contribute to the development of a framework to enhance teaching through technology.

Reminder: Blackboard upgrade dates 7-9 June and 12-14 July

This is a repost of information about the Blackboard upgrades this summer

This summer we will have two upgrade periods scheduled for the Blackboard system. Students and staff will not be able to access shuspace and Blackboard sites during the upgrade periods. Please do not schedule teaching and learning activities in Blackboard during these times, such as online submission of assessments or inputting marks into Blackboard.

The first upgrade will be to update the hardware and operating system for Blackboard. This is to improve the performance of Blackboard and will be the weekend of 7-9 June. We expect the upgrade to start at 18:00 on Friday the 7th and last all day on Saturday the 8th. Blackboard should be considered at risk on Sunday the 9th though we anticipate it should be available to staff and students then.

The second upgrade will be an update to the Blackboard software to take advantage of new features and fixes it contains. This upgrade is scheduled for 12-14 July.  We expect the upgrade to start at 18:00 on Friday the 12th and be completed in less than 24 hours.

We know that there are some teaching programmes which will be affected by the downtime and we apologise for any inconvenience this causes. As always, the upgrade team will strive to minimise any downtime.  We hope by advertising these downtimes significantly in advance that activities can be rescheduled to reduce the amount of affected programmes and individuals.