Tech Tip Tuesday - Discounted Software Through the SU Cloud

Is your home computer ready for an upgrade?  Need a newer version of Windows or Microsoft Office?  Purchasing software through the SU Cloud can be a great option as well as save you a lot of money!

Stevenson has partnered with some companies to package popular software for purchase at a discounted rate for faculty and staff for home and personal use.  

To find out how to take advantage of this great deal view this week's Tech Tip Video.

Tech Tip Tuesday - What Does The Grade Center Look Like To Students?

With our upgraded Blackboard and awesome new inline grading feature there are many more ways to give students feedback on their submitted assignments.

Whatever way you choose to do it, it's important to understand what your students will see when they log in to check their grades.  Their view has also changed with the upgrade.

This video tutorial, by Nadine Edwards, shows you, as the instructor, your options for grading and feedback as well as what your students will see when they log into to their grade center.

If you do find that your students are confused by the view change or aren't seeing what you know you put in for their grades, this video, made by Blackboard, might help.  ***Please feel free to put a link to the Blackboard made student video in an announcement if necessary, DO NOT link to this blog.  This information is also found in their student help tab when they log into Blackboard.

Tech Tip Tuesday - Adding Content To The Discussion Boards (Student Tutorial)

This week's tip focuses on teaching our students how to correctly add content into discussion boards without adding any extra code that could blank out any replies down the road.  This is a very frustrating issue we've been dealing with in the past month or so.  We hope the internet gods come up with a solution soon but in the meantime...

If you plan to share this post with your students please DO NOT share this blog post (this blog is for faculty not students) but just copy the info below into an announcement.

"If this past semester you've seen discussion board replies being 'blanked' out then this tutorial will help you troubleshoot what is happening to prevent it in the future.  We all know how frustrating the discussion boards can be when extra code has been accidentally added in.  This actually isn't a Blackboard issue it's an internet browser issue and more specifically a security issue.  The government has recently cracked down on internet browsers to prevent plagiarism of websites.  Since you, as an online learning student, are trying to create content online this hits us especially hard.

We see this most frequently when students and instructors are replying to an initial discussion board post.  The replies are submitted but then nothing shows up.  It actually isn't the people replying that have 'bad code' but the person that initially started the thread.  The bad part is students can't edit their post to fix it so once the damage has been done it becomes a trickle down effect.

We still require students to use Firefox.  We also would like to require users at this time to use a real internet browser for discussion board posts not a tablet or mobile browser.  Even on Windows 8 make sure you are not using the 'tile mode browser' but the real windows browser until this gets straightened out.  Please view this video tutorial.  It will help you double check your discussion board posts before you submit.  

If you need help please submit a ticket to tech connection."

Tech Tip Tuesday - Inline Grading in Blackboard

One of the features I was most excited about with our Summer 2013 Blackboard update is something called Inline Grading.

This feature takes a lot of those annoying steps out of grading student papers and now allows you to do them all right within Blackboard.  No longer do you have to download their word documents, mark them up, upload them again..etc.etc.etc.  Inline grading now eases the pain a bit.

This week's Tech Tip video tutorial is all about Inline Grading - what is is and how to use it.  I hope you find it helpful and a time saver!

Tech Tip Tuesday - Creating and Troubleshooting Web Links in Blackboard

Often times we like to share outside websites or YouTube videos with our classes to further their understanding of the subject matter.

Whether you are an Internet Explorer, Firefox (you all should be using Firefox with Blackboard!), Chrome or Safari user the new browser security issues and browser updates have altered the way we now need to share links.  Some of our old habits will have to die hard in order to properly make sure our links are working.

This is true when sharing an item that is a web link or if you are adding a website to your instructions or announcements.  View this weeks video tutorial by Nadine Edwards to learn the best ways to go about adding web links.

*The video is a little grainy but you will still be able to follow along.

Tech Tip Tuesday - Discussion Board Tips and Tricks

One of the items that had significant and helpful changes with the summer update of Blackboard is the Discussion Boards.

Nadine Edwards has created a wonderfully detailed video tutorial for this week's Tech Tip Tuesday (I know it's really Wednesday, long day yesterday :) )

In this tutorial she goes through all the features, bells and whistles of the Discussion Board as well as some 'snags' people have run into that have to do with copy and paste.

Tech Tip Tuesday - Communicating with Students When Course is Unavailable

Many instructors wish to communicate a short message with students before the course is made available.  Many think by posting an announcement when a course is unavailable (even when they check the button to email the announcement) that is goes to their students.  This isn't always true.

The best way to communicate to students when the course has not been turned on yet is through the Blackboard email system.  The other great benefit to this is the fact that you can also add an attachment, like the syllabus.

View this weeks video tutorial to learn how to do this.

Note: In your email message do remember to communicate to your students that they will not be able to access the course until such a such date.