myLesley Blogs, Journals & Wikis, Oh My!

Posted on August 26, 2014 by Kris McElroy

Did you know that myLesley has its own built-in set of blogs, journals and wikis? They’ve been around for a while, but with the latest myLesley update now is a great time to take another look.

What’s so great about Blackboard blogs and wikis?

Faculty who have already switched over to these built-in tools have found them to be far easier to use and set up. This is especially true if you create individual blogs for your students. Now there’s no need to manually set up a separate blog for each student. Just create your blog, click a single button (Individual to All Students) and Blackboard will automatically take care of the rest. Note: If you select the Course option all of the students will post their entries to a shared single blog.

Blackboard blogs, journals and wikis have the same text editor as the discussion board so your students do not need to learn a new tool. Adding images and media is far more straightforward and obvious and because theses tools are native to the Blackboard environment, they have access to all the Blackboard tools. This includes the ability to easily add and/or record video with Video Everywhere, recording audio with Voice Authoring and integration with the Grade Center.

What you need to know?

All Blackboard blogs, journals and wikis are private to your course and can only be accessed and viewed while you and your students are logged into myLesley. This set-up fully complies with FERPA regulations. This privacy feature also means that you cannot copy blog or wiki content to another course.

If you have created a template for a wiki assignment, we recommend that you set it up in another course, such as a development shell or your myspace (aka Faculty Demo Student Account). You can then manually copy and paste the pages of the wiki into your new course. You could also create a Word document with the structure of each page and save it with your other course resources. This may seem a little more cumbersome than simply copying the wiki from course to course, but it’s easier than having to delete all the pages and student comments from last semester’s wiki assignments in order to start with a clean template.

Where to find out more info?

Please review the support pages below for more info on how to set up the tools, create and edit content, and grade student work.

Blackboard Wikis
Blackboard Blogs and Journals

What to Look Forward to in Blackboard for Fall 2014

Posted on August 25, 2014 by Kris McElroy

On August 26, 2014, myLesley will be upgraded to the latest version of Blackboard (Blackboard Learn 9.1 April 2014). This scheduled myLesley upgrade will resolve known issues and include several new features and enhancements that are especially useful for faculty. They include:

Student Preview – Quickly View Your Course as a Student
Toggling the new Student Preview button provides instructors with the capability to see and experience their myLesley courses exactly as their class does. While in Student Preview mode, instructors can perform the following student activities: submit assignments, take tests, create blog posts, create journal and wiki entries and view traditional student only tools, such as My Grades. For more information, review the Details or watch the Overview Video below.

SafeAssign
SafeAssign, the tool that reviews assignment submissions for plagiarism, is now integrated as an option right in the Assignments tool and also includes a suite of new reporting features. For more information, review these Details.

Atomic Learning
Atomic Learning is a free service available to all Lesley students and faculty. Atomic Learning features hundreds of self-paced video tutorials on popular software tools and online resources. You can now add these tutorials directly to your myLesley course for students to review without needing to login to a different site. See our Atomic Learning tutorial for more information.

Achievements Tool
The Achievements tool allows instructors to define criteria for issuing rewards to students in the form of both Badges and Certificates. Students can see which rewards they’ve earned and what’s required of them to receive additional rewards, providing insight into learning progression toward defined competencies. For more information, review the Details or watch the Overview Video below.

Anonymous Grading
Instructors can hide student names from submitted assignments for anonymous grading. Review the Details for more information.

Simple Ways to Save Time Using myLesley

Posted on February 5, 2014 by Kris McElroy

It’s a busy and rapidly changing world. You need tools to help you keep the chaos under control and make sure you have time for the important things. Below are a few ways myLesley can help you simplify some of the course administration tasks, leaving you more time for teaching.

Send Email

Looking up email addresses and setting up contact groups for your students can take a lot of time. Stop doing it! Email your students directly from your myLesley course using the Send Email tool. Email the entire class, groups of students, or select individual students. A copy of the message will be sent to your email address for future reference.

Are you better at speaking than typing? Try Voice Email instead.

Many faculty find they can provide more information in the same amount of time by recording their message.

Announcements

The Announcements tool is a great way to share time sensitive information to the entire class.

Use Announcements to kick off a new week, wrap up content and remind students about upcoming due dates. It’s a great way to summarize discussions and highlight key points for feedback to the whole class. Do you need to clarify information and clear up confusion that multiple students are having? Don’t send 15 emails. Send one announcement.

Announcements are visible on the home page of the myLesley course, but check ‘Send a copy of this announcement’ to also send an email to everyone. This will provide students two opportunities to receive important course information.

Create a Course Repository

Even if don’t teach online, having course content in myLesley can be incredibly helpful. Placing your syllabus, links to readings, and assignment information online allows students to easily find information when it’s needed, 24 hours a day/7 days a week. Clear organization and instructions translates to less frustration and confusion for students and fewer clarification emails for you.

Performance Dashboard

The Performance Dashboard provides a quick overall view of student activity in the course. The dashboard lists all the students and how long it has been since they last accessed the course. It is a quick way to identify students you may need to reach out to.

The dashboard also shows students’ discussion board activity. Click on the number in the ‘Discussion Board’ column to access details on an individual student’s posts.

These are just a few easy to apply tips for using myLesley as a time-saving tool. Check out our Faculty Instructional Technology Resources to learn more about myLesley’s features.

New Blackboard Feature – “Video Everywhere”

Posted on January 14, 2014 by elisadmin

Now it’s easier than ever to put YOU in your course.

Want a quick and easy way to record and embed a short video introduction of yourself in your course?
Looking for a simple way to provide video feedback for your students?
Thinking about a way to record and post a short video demo?
Hoping to repurpose a video from your YouTube channel and add it right into your course in seconds?

You can do all of those things right in Blackboard with Video Everywhere!

Video Everywhere is a new feature in Blackboard that lets you record with your computer’s webcam, upload the video right to your YouTube account, and embed it into your course – all at the same time and all without leaving the Blackboard environment. If you already have a video in your YouTube channel that you’d like to quickly insert in your course, you can use Video Everywhere for that too!

Got a computer, a webcam, a Google account, and a YouTube Channel? You’re good to go!

Getting Started
When you choose to add an item to your course, you’ll find the “Video Everywhere” icon in the Content Editor. It looks like a small webcam:

You can find the icon located in the lower left-hand corner of the content editor:

When the “Record” window opens, just sign into your Google/YouTube account (you’ll need to create a Google account if you don’t have one already and you’ll need a YouTube channel if you don’t have one yet.).

Note that the default is the Record screen but you can choose the Browse tab to insert a video you already have in your YouTube channel.

Once you sign in, you’ll be walked through the process to easily Record, Upload and Insert your video right into your course. Just grant access when asked along the way.

Once it’s in your YouTube channel, the video will be available to insert in any of your other courses using Video Everywhere’s Browse option from within each course.

That’s all there is to it!

A word about privacy: Please be aware that any video recorded with Video Everywhere will go directly to your YouTube account and have a default privacy status of “unlisted”. This means that it can only be viewed by those who have the URL for the video, and it won’t come up in a search, but the status is NOT “private”. More information about this is available on Blackboard’s Video Everywhere Support site (see link below).

For More Information
You can find a step-by-step guide to using Video Everywhere here: Blackboard’s Video Everywhere Support Page, including information about privacy issues and making videos accessible.

You can also view Blackboard’s quick video introduction.

For more help with this new feature, contact elis@lesley.edu.

myLesley Update for Spring 2014

Posted on January 10, 2014 by Kris McElroy

Happy New Year and welcome back from the break. We are excited to announce that as of January 3rd, 2014, myLesley will be updated to include a couple of enhancements: the profile feature and a new “look and feel,” which will enable viewing the discussion board in tree view again. You will find detailed information about these enhancements below.

New Profiles
You can now create a profile in myLesley to share with your classmates and instructors. Your profile will allow you to post a photo of yourself, and provide a little information about yourself, such as what you are studying. Profile photos can be viewed next to your posts on the discussion board, allowing you to better connect with your classmates and colleagues. You also will be allowed to choose how you want your name to display in your profile.

Learn how to create your profile at http://tinyurl.com/qjxhdjm.

Return of the Discussion Board Tree View
If you have missed the Tree View on the Discussion Board, the new “look and feel” of Blackboard allows us to get that back. You can once again choose to view discussion forums in list or tree view depending on your preference.

New Icons
The new “look and feel” of myLesley also includes a few new icons:

The new Logout button looks like a power icon seen on many digital devices.

View and edit your Profile.

Posts from multiple courses.

View the Calendar.

When editing content, the chevron menu icon no longer exists. In the new, cleaner look, you will not see edit icons until you hover your mouse over the item of content you wish to edit. Once you move your cursor to the item you would like to edit, all the edit options will appear. The old chevron edit icon has been replaced with a simple down arrow.

Please remember that if you hover your mouse over any icon you don’t recognize, a text popup will identify it for you.

For more information on how to use myLesley, please refer to our Faculty Instructional Resources site.

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