Re-post from the TRU Digital Detox

Seems a bit lazy, but I thought this was definitely worth the re-post (or re-blog, whatever you call it – let’s call it sharing!)

In this week’s Digital Detox post (if you don’t know about the Digital Detox, check it out), Dr. Brenna Clarke Grey talks about e-proctoring in a post aptly called E-proctoring Sucks, So Why Won’t It Go Away?

The thing I appreciate the most about her post is her comment that while she does think cheating is a problem, she thinks “it’s largely a structural problem, not an individual one,” which I completely agree with.  Automatically assuming students are going to cheat online and forcing them into invasive proctoring solutions is not addressing the larger issue(s) – we need to examine why students cheat (and yes, there are many, many reasons) and think about our institutional role in pushing them there.

So, I encourage you to check out Dr. Clarke Grey’s post, and join in on the discussion!

Digital Detox #3: E-proctoring Sucks, So Why Won’t It Go Away?

eLearning Drop-ins for Winter 2021

A new year has begun, and what?  January is almost over??  Time to set up our new term’s eLearning Drop-ins!

The eLearning team will be offering scheduled drop-in sessions for faculty needing support with D2L, Collaborate, Kaltura, Assessments, and Final Grades. Come to the sessions with your questions, curiosities, and dilemmas and we will be happy to help you with them. These sessions are not formal workshops; instead, sessions will respond to the needs of those who participate. No registration is needed.

You can join the sessions through the Collaborate link on the navigation bar in the D2L On-Demand Training course.  If you have any questions about these sessions or how to access them, email eLearning@camosun.ca.

Tuesday, February 2, 10:00-11:00 am, eLearning Questions, Curiosities & Dilemmas

Thursday, February 11, 2:00-3:00 pm – eLearning Questions, Curiosities & Dilemmas

Thursday, February 18, 2:00-3:00 pm – eLearning Questions, Curiosities & Dilemmas

Tuesday, February 23, 10:00-11:00 am – eLearning Questions, Curiosities & Dilemmas

Thursday, March 4, 10:00-11:00 am – eLearning Questions, Curiosities & Dilemmas

Wednesday, March 10, 2:00-3:00 pm – eLearning Questions, Curiosities & Dilemmas

Thursday, March 18,  2:00-3:00 pm – eLearning Questions, Curiosities & Dilemmas

Tuesday, March 23, 10:00-11:00 am – eLearning Questions, Curiosities & Dilemmas

Thursday, April 1, 2:00-3:00 pm – eLearning Questions, Curiosities & Dilemmas

Tuesday, April 6, 2:00-3:00 pm – eLearning Questions, Curiosities & Dilemmas

Tuesday, April 13, 10:-00-11:00 am – Final Exam Set Up

Thursday, April 15, 2:-00-3:00 pm – eLearning Questions and Curiosities

Tuesday, April 20, 11:-00 am -12:00 pm – Calculating and Releasing Final Marks

Thursday, April 22, 10:-00-11:00 am – Calculating and Releasing Final Marks

Tuesday, April 27, 10:-00-11:00 am – Calculating and Releasing Final Marks

Reporting Collaborate Issues (Chrome Freezing, etc.)

If Camosun College faculty are having a problem during a session in Collaborate, either in Chrome or Firefox, please do the following from within the session, while the issue is happening (or immediately after logging back in, in the case of Chrome freezing).

First:

Immediately after you encounter your issue (during your Collaborate session if possible,) click Report an Issue to outline your problem directly to Collaborate.  This will give Collaborate all the info about the session including exact time of the issue, right down to connection speed and servers involved.

Second:

Then, after your Collaborate session, email the session name and time, along with an outline of the issue, to elearning@camosun.ca and we can escalate it, if need be, with a formal support ticket. We want everyone who is having the Chrome freezing issue in particular to report it in the moment. It is best to define the issue in the little text box so they know the exact issue. This way Collaborate will be aware of exactly how often certain issues are happening and hopefully find solutions.

Thanks!

Reminder of where to get help with D2L, Collaborate, and Kaltura at Camosun

Well, it’s a new year, and we are one week into the first term of 2021.  Time for a reminder of where you can get help at Camosun College with all your D2L, Collaborate, Kaltura, and online teaching and learning questions.

First stop, contact eLearning@camosun.ca.  They can help you if you have technical issues with the tools we support.  And they can also forward your questions to an instructional designer in eLearning if your questions require a more detailed meeting.   Note that we will be adding workshops (for Winter and Spring) and drop-in sessions for Winter to our CETL calendar in the next week or two, so stay tuned for more information about these virtual offerings.

Next stop, check out all our eLearning tutorials.  We have a wide range of documents covering D2L, Collaborate, Kaltura, as well as pages dedicated to faculty support for teaching online, and student support for learning online.  Just a reminder, that if you are fairly new to any of our tools, we recommend booking an appointment with and instructional designer to get the basics down (as well as those hidden tips and tricks) and then using the tutorials as refreshers and reminders.

And finally, want to talk more about your course and teaching online?  Contact eLearning@camosun.ca to book an appointment with an instructional designer who will be happy (and thrilled) to talk to you about your course and how best to support your students!

 

Grading Assignments Using Rubrics in D2L

Starting to use Rubrics in D2L?  This tutorial is for faculty who have previous experience using the Assignments tool in D2L, and will walk through attaching a Rubric, grading using a Rubric, and showing you what students see as well. NOTE: Make sure you have created your rubric(s) in the Rubrics tool first!

Steps for Attaching Rubrics to Assignments

  1. Go to the Assignments tool in your course.
  2. Click the down arrow next to the title of the Assignment you wish attach a Rubric to, and select Edit Folder.Select Edit Folder
  3. In the Edit Folder area, scroll down to the Evaluation and Feedback area, then click Add Rubric (NOTE: we advise creating your Rubrics in the Rubrics tool first, then attaching them to other tools).Click Add Rubric
  4. In the Select Rubric pop-up, select the Rubric you wish to attach, and click Add Selected.Select Rubric and click Add Selected
  5. Your Rubric will now appear under the Add Rubric Finish editing your Assignment, and then click Save and Close.Click Save and Close

Steps for Grading Assignments Using Attached Rubrics

  1. Go to the Assignments tool in your course.
  2. Click on the title of the Assignment you wish to see submissions for.Click the Assignment title
  3. Click the Evaluate link for the student you wish to assess.Click Evaluate
  4. Click the Rubric link under Evaluation and Feedback.Click the Rubric link
  5. In the Rubric’s pop-up, click the cells for the feedback you wish to leave (checkmarks will appear indicating you have selected those cells), click Add Feedback for any criteria you wish to add custom feedback for, then click Close.Select cells and add feedback, then click Close.
  6. For Points rubrics, the rubric will then automatically generate a grade for the Assignment. Click Publish or Save Draft, and move on to the next student’s assignment.Click Publish or Save Draft

What Students See when Viewing Rubrics in Assignments before Grading

  1. Go to the Assignments tool in your course.
  2. Click on the title of the Assignment.Click the Assignment title
  3. Click Show Rubrics to open the Rubric.Click Show Rubrics
  4. The Rubric will then appear for students to review.Rubric appears for review

What Students See when Viewing Rubrics in Assignments after Grading

  1. Go to the Assignments tool in your course.
  2. Click link under Feedback in the Evaluation Status column (here the link is Unread).Click the feedback link
  3. The Rubric will open and students can review their feedback, then click Done.Review feedback and click Done

Things to Remember

Only Points and Percentages rubrics will adjust the score in an Assignment. Text only rubrics will only generate text-based feedback, and you will have to add a score manually in the Submissions area if the Assignment has a grade.

Re-Introduction to the Open Edtech Collaborative (OpenETC)

Today I am beginning a series of posts about the Open EdTech Collaborative (OpenETC). I’ve posted about OpenETC before, but as people settle into what is turning into a new realm for teaching and learning at post-secondary institutions in B.C. (not just pandemic panic, but the realization that teaching and learning online is viable and worth the investment in time, training, and resources) you should know that the OpenETC offers services and tools that can help you enhance your courses, as well as open them to the world. So, in this first post, I am going to re-introduce you to the OpenETC.

To lift the excellent description from their main site, the OpenETC is “a community of educators, technologists, and designers sharing their expertise to foster and support open infrastructure for the BC post-secondary sector. No contracts or agreements are required to join us, just a willingness and ability to actively participate in our collective endeavor to:

  • encourage technological autonomy and provide ways for students, faculty and institutions to own and control their own data.
  • lower the barrier to participation on the open web for BC faculty and students.
  • provide a more sustainable ed tech infrastructure to BC higher education that gives institutions more control over their tools.  Institutions are currently at the mercy of vendor pricing, upgrade cycles, and exit strategies.  This puts institutions at a certain degree of risk when there are changes to any of the variables beyond their control.  Open-source approaches reduce the risk to institutions in this regard.
  • assist BC faculty in evaluating and making informed pedagogical decisions around open-source teaching and learning applications.”

If you are associated with a post secondary institution in BC (faculty, staff, student), you can sign up for an Open ETC account and try out the tools they support, like WordPress, Sandstorm (a collection of open source applications) or Mattermost (an open-source messaging platform), which are hosted on BC servers, and thus FIPPA compliant. Make sure to review their Code of Conduct and Terms of Use (collaboratively created by the OpenETC community) before joining, and if you would like to become a more active member of the OpenETC community, you can join their Mattermost channel.

I’ll be talking more about their tools, as well as about the folks and institutions that support them, in subsequent posts. And just so you know, this blog, as well as our Camosun Tutorials site, is on the OpenETC WordPress instance!

If you work at Camosun College and want to know more about OpenETC and its tools (in particular, WordPress as we are beginning to point faculty to the OpenETC WordPress instance for their blogs and websites), contact Emily Schudel, instructional designer, eLearning (as well as an institutional lead for OpenETC) (schudele@camosun.ca).

Allow Students to Retake Incorrect Questions Only in a Quiz

There is a new setting available in Quizzes, which allows you to set an additional attempt on a quiz to only show students the questions they answered incorrectly in the previous attempt. New Attempt feature in Quizzes (to only do incorrect answers). And cautions (about grade export and conditions).

When this setting is selected, learners who attempt a quiz more than once can only answer questions that were incorrect on the previous attempt.  You will find this setting under the Assessment tab when editing a quiz, and here is what this setting looks like:

Retake Incorrect Questions Only setting

Some things to note:

First, if you are sending the grade from the quiz to the Grades tool, choosing First Attempt will ensure that the grade does not change when a student completed a second (or third, etc.) attempt. If you choose Highest Attempt, the system will add the grades from the first and second attempt (etc.) together, for example if the student received 2/5 on the first attempt, and answered 2 more questions correctly on the second attempt, they will receive 4/5 in the gradebook. If you choose Average of all Attempts, each subsequent attempt will mean a new average will be generated, for example if the student received 2/5 on the first attempt, then answered 1 more question correct on the second attempt, their grade in the Grades tool will change from 2/5 to 2.5/5.

Second, if you conditionally release other activities to a Quiz grade, that condition will be dependent on how you have set the grading for the attempts. So, if a student gets 2/5 on their first attempt, and the First Attempt is set as the overall grade for that quiz (whether or not it is sent to the Grades), and if a release condition is set for completion of that quiz with a mark greater than 60%, this student will never be able meet that condition, even if they eventually get a 4/5 on a subsequent attempt.

Third, if you include Written Response questions, they will be marked as 0 and included in future attempts until they are graded manually.

Finally, while this may seem like a good setting for self-assessment quizzes, sometimes it’s better to let students do all the questions multiple times as they may have gotten an answer correct accidently the first time, and this setting will not present that question again.

Questions?  Contact eLearning@camosun.ca to book an appointment with an instructional designer

Rubrics in D2L

I wanted to take a moment to update you on where we are at as we begin to create new tutorials for the Rubrics tool in D2L.

Rubrics in D2L can be attached to Assignments, Discussions, or Grades.  When you integrate a Rubric in D2L, the grade you assign on the Rubric automatically becomes the grade for the assessment it is attached to.

There are 2 kinds of Rubrics you can set up in D2L:  Holistic and Analytic.

  • Holistic – Performance is assessed holistically, LEVELS only, with multiple criteria being assessed at once.  For tasks where it is not easy to evaluate performance on one criterion independently of performance on a different criterion. For example, many writing rubrics are holistic because it is not always easy to disentangle clarity from organization or content from presentation.
  • Analytic – Most rubrics are analytic. An analytic rubric breaks performance into multiple criteria. You assess each criterion separately, resulting in an overall assessment score. For example, an analytic rubric for assessing essays could have separate criterion for spelling, grammar, and expression.

Note that once a Rubric has been attached to something (assignment, discussion, grade item) it can NOT be deleted!

So far, we have finished 3 rubric tutorials (which can also be found on our Tutorials site).  Check them out here as well!

Have questions about rubrics, want to know how to add your own rubrics to D2L, or just need some help?  Contact eLearning@camosun.ca to arrange for a consult with an instructional designer.

BCcampus Events

Just a reminder that BCcampus hosts some amazing online events that are available for post-secondary educators across B.C., and mostly free!

Some sessions to check out:

FLO Zoom sandbox sessions – want to try out some Zoom features in a safe an helpful environment?  These sessions will be for you!

FLO Fridays – fun and inspiration as you explore a variety of online learning activities

Miss a session?  You can review recordings of past sessions, as well as access resources, by clicking on the Past Events Archives button.

Check out the complete list (and registration) at BCcampus Events.

 

Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning Bulletin for January 2021

Happy New Year, and welcome to 2021!

In this bulletin from the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning please find articles, links, and learning opportunities that may be of interest to you. For general information please contact CETL . For information specifically about online teaching, contact eLearning.

Note that registration is restricted to Camosun College employees.

 “Teaching occurs only when learning takes place.”
― from What the best college teachers do by Ken Bain

 eLearning workshops (Registration required)

Welcome to the eLearning Team’s offerings to support the start-up of winter term, providing training related to Camosun’s core educational technologies. Get descriptions and register here.

Workshop dates Times Topics
Monday, January 4 1:00pm- 2:00pm D2L Overview
Tuesday, January 5 10:00am-11:00am Introduction to Blackboard Collaborate Ultra
Tuesday, January 5 1:00pm – 2:00pm D2L Course Set-up
Thursday, January 7 10:00am-11:00am Setting Up Your Gradebook in D2L
Friday, January 8 10:00am-11:00am Increasing Your Proficiency in Blackboard Collaborate

eLearning resources

·         Online learning tips for students Share this with your students at the beginning of term!

·         Privacy considerations for online teaching

·         Guidance for remote instruction

D2L Change Notice

As part of Colleague Renewal, there will be a new integration between D2L and Colleague. The most immediate change will impact some of the communication tools. The roll out will happen in phases, starting in January, then March, then summer. Find out more

Other CETL learning opportunites

 Planning ahead for spring SD 

 Stay tuned for the following online learning opportunities coming in spring 2021:

 Camosun Communities of Practice

 Check out our MS Teams Communities of Practice site. This is a peer-based virtual space for synchronous and asynchronous conversation, connection, resource sharing and more, including channels for: