Need to email your students, but not accustomed to using Brightspace? Watch the video below for a how-to on using the Brightspace email tool to easily contact your students, or click here for a step-by-step PDF.
Note: With the retirement of Course Tools, Brightspace email changed on Dec 23rd, 2019. It is no longer be possible to receive email messages in Brightspace. Your message will be sent from your @langara.ca email address and sent to your students’ @mylangara.ca email address. When they respond to the emails you send from your course, the message will go to your Langara email address, and your replies to them will be sent to your students’ MyLangara email address.
Changes coming to Brightspace in the next few weeks:
Brightspace Course Request and TA/Marker Forms: December 18th, 2019
On December 18th, myLangara Classic is being retired, so our Brightspace course request and TA/Marker Request forms are moving. You can find them on the EdTech Sharepoint site (you will need to log in with your Office 365 credentials).
Brightspace Email: December 23rd, 2019
Brightspace email will change on Dec 23rd, 2019. It will no longer be possible to receive email messages in Brightspace. Your message will be sent from your @langara.ca email address and sent to your students’ @mylangara.ca email address. When they respond to the emails you send from your course, the message will go to your Langara email address, and your replies to them will be sent to your students’ MyLangara email address.
On January 2nd, the way you access Brightspace is changing. Instead of your Computer User ID (jdoe), you will log in using your Office 365 email address and password (jdoe@langara.ca), and verify using 2-factor authentication, just as you do now for your @langara.ca email.
This change affects all Langara employees, including TAs or markers (or anyone who needs to log in to Workday for timesheets, income tax receipts, etc.).
You’ve always been told to advise your students to save every quiz question as they finish it, and Save All Responses before submitting. This was to make sure that in-progress quizzes would be saved if a student was interrupted mid-quiz.
As of October 2018, it’s no longer necessary to need to manually save answers when taking a quiz. Quiz responses will now be saved as students complete each question. See below for images showing the old version (with Save button) versus the new, including what it will look like when a question auto-saves.
The old Brightspace quiz question interface, with Save button and disk icon (showing that the question is saved).
Instructor Note: The quiz event log will show whenever a question is automatically saved, including an updated character count for Written Response questions.
Other Updates
No More Save Button
The “Save” and “Save All Responses” buttons at the bottom of a Quiz screen have been removed. The “Go to Submit Quiz” button is now called “Submit Quiz.”
There will still be a submission confirmation screen, after clicking “Submit Quiz,” that prompts students to submit the quiz when they’re ready.
Auto-Save Works Differently for Written Response Questions
If a Written Response question shows the format bar (also known as the HTML Editor), student responses will not be automatically saved as they type. To make sure that the answer is being saved as they work, students must click anywhere outside the text entry field to prompt the “Saving…/Saved” message to appear at the top right.
Other question types, or Written Response questions with the format bar disabled, will auto-save approximately every 30 seconds.
Internet Connection Status Notifications
Brightspace will now display a notification if the student loses their internet connection while taking a quiz.
Students will also see a notification when the connection is restored, at which point Brightspace will automatically save any unsaved answers.
Instructor Note: The quiz log will record when a lost connection is restored.
Question is Still “Saving…”
If a student has answered a question and it seems to be stuck on “Saving…” for a very long time, they should double-check their internet connection. If they seem to be connected, they should continue writing their quiz. Any unsaved answers will be saved when they either move between pages, or go to submit the quiz.
Recommendations for Writing Quizzes
As always, we generally recommend using a wired internet connection, if possible. This greatly reduces the chances of losing an internet connection in the middle of a quiz.
If a student is writing a quiz from a mobile device like a phone or tablet, it’s best to access the quiz from Assessments > Quizzes, rather than from Course Materials > Content. This will provide more room on the screen for quiz questions. If possible, a desktop or laptop computer is best for taking quizzes, as these devices offer the best experience.
Updating Your Course Materials
If you’ve been advising your students to save each question as they go, please update those instructions in your courses to account for these updates. You can also just link to the student support page for these changes, which outline the new auto-save function and other new features now active in Brightspace quizzes. Click here, or access the link below, to see the student update.
Lynda.com (by LinkedIn Learning) is an online library of over 6,000 instructional videos organized in over 2000 courses covering a wide range of business, creative and professional skills. Taught by accomplished teachers and industry experts Lynda.com is a high quality resource for students, faculty and staff looking to develop skills in Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite, project management, social media and many other areas.
EdTech are offering the following sessions in the EdTech Lab and online via Zoom. The sessions will be facilitated by Lindsey Mussack from Lynda.com/LinkedIn.
On Tuesday December 19, 2017, you are going to see a new look and a new name for D2L.
In line with other institutions, we will now be referring to our learning management system (LMS) as Brightspace by D2L. This switch makes sense as D2L is the name of the company based in Kitchener, Ontario, while their LMS is named Brightspace.
In December, along with the name-change, you will notice a new look and feel with a clean and modern layout. New fonts, icons, colours and a simpler navigation design mean that courses will adapt to different screen sizes and look equally good on different devices. This is known as ‘responsive design’ and it will make the user experience more engaging for our students as they will easily be able to access Brightspace from a desktop, laptop, tablet or phone.
Some of the key visual changes include:
– A simplified navigation design that looks equally good on screens of any size;
– A consistent, cleaner and more modern design using new fonts, icons and colours;
– A new ‘My Courses’ widget featuring rich photography in a responsive tile-based layout;
– A new image library with over 3000 images to choose from for your tiles.
Even though Brightspace will look different to you and your students after December 19, your workflows will remain the same. Tools such as Assignments, Quizzes, Discussion Forums will work the way you expect them to.
If you have any questions about the upcoming changes, please contact your EdTech team: edtech@langara.ca
All faculty and students now have access to MediaSpace (by Kaltura), a YouTube-like video portal that lets you create, upload and share video and audio. Amongst other things, you can use MediaSpace to create video lectures, curate playlists of existing content from YouTube, or provide an online space for students to upload coursework or video/audio assignments.
By default all content you upload to MediaSpace is private and can only be viewed by you. You can choose to share content with others, or make it public. Video and audio files are stored in the cloud on secure servers at UBC and content can easily be embedded in Brightspace or iWeb/Courseweb.
We know that our students expect us to provide them with an inclusive, engaging and accessible learning environment in order to maximize their chances of academic success. MediaSpace is an important piece of the puzzle in that respect. The platform enables instructors to easily incorporate video in face-to-face classroom teaching, or in a mixed-mode or fully online course. We are excited about new features such as interactive quizzing and closed captioning, and look forward to working with you to make the most of MediaSpace in your teaching.
MediaSpace can be accessed by all Langara staff and students at https://mediaspace.langara.ca You will need to login using your Langara Computer User ID and Password in order to upload content to your MyMedia (your personal MediaSpace library of video/audio content).
To learn more about MediaSpace and how you and your students can use it, come along to our Information Session on Wednesday September 27, 12:30-13:30 in L342.
Langara has purchased a campus-wide license for Turnitin to support faculty in teaching research and writing skills to their students while also encouraging academic integrity. Turnitin is a similarity checker which allows students and faculty to check assignments for matches in Turnitin’s database of papers, articles, and websites.
All Langara faculty have access to Turnitin through their Brightspace courses.
We hope that Turnitin will be used as an instructional tool to help students understand the College’s expectations for academic integrity and to practice their skills in summarizing, paraphrasing, quoting and citing their sources appropriately.
While Turnitin is a useful tool, it cannot detect all forms of plagiarism. However, if used in well-designed assignments and learning activities, Turnitin can play a valuable role in educating our students and emphasizing the importance of academic integrity.
Register for an information session: Turnitin Brown Bag Sept.14, 2017 1:00-1:45 pm
More sessions will be scheduled throughout the fall semester.
Thanks to members of the Langara School of Management, EdTech, and IT for piloting, implementing and administering this new tool.
Screencasting involves the use of software to record the screen of your computer (or mobile device) while you narrate over the recording. It is an effective way to offer multiple representations of information (images, text, video, audio etc.) in order to widen access to learning. Making a screencast is relatively easy and requires technology that most of us have access to. The completed file can easily be shared via learning platforms such as Kaltura, Brightspace or iWeb. They are great fun to create and you can invest as much or as little time as you want to produce either a professional quality screencast or one that may not be quite as slick but is perfectly acceptable for teaching and learning.
Ed Tech can support your efforts whether you are a first-timer or seasoned screencaster. We run regular workshops (the next one is on Tuesday May 30th – sign up here), we have produced a Little Guide to Screencasting and we can provide you with one-to-one support and advice on the best software and microphones to use, the planning process and how to share your screencast with your students. Some great resources that cover screencasting in education are available, my personal favourite being Kathy Schrock’s Guide to Screencasting and Screen Recording in the Classroom.
Screencasting is a great way to make learning more fun, engaging and accessible. Whether you want to create a mini-lecture, demonstrate how a piece of software works or give assignment feedback, you are helping to ensure your students learn from a variety of presentation methods which will be beneficial to their learning. And why not tap into your students’ creativity by getting them to create a screencast as part of their coursework?
Back in December twenty-four hardy souls braved the snow and ice to attend Ed Tech’s Instructor Gathering, one of our best turnouts yet. The broad theme of the event was tech tools and practices that benefit learning and each session proved a valuable mix of knowledge sharing and practical tips.
Pressbooks is free online publishing software derived from Wordpress that you can use to create open educational content. While primarily a tool for creating open textbooks Pressbooks can be used for other purposes such as authoring support documentation, course guides or supplementary course materials in D2L/Brightspace or iWeb.
One of the advantages of Pressbooks is that it is very easy to use and it can output accessible content in a wide range of file formats. These include ePub (iBooks, Nook, Kobo etc.), PDF (for print/digital distribution), Mobi (Kindle) and the Open Document format. This means that students can easily read content on their mobile devices and there is an option for a web version of every book for reading in a browser.
The process of creating the book is straightforward and Pressbooks includes a number of templates to give your finished content a professional look. You can import from Microsoft Word or WordPress and the wizard-like interface includes colour-coded placeholders for things like learning objectives, exercises and key take-aways. As well as text you can easily add images, audio and embed video from sites like YouTube.
Pressbooks makes it easy to collaboratively author your content with colleagues, although only one person can work on a book at any one time. You can release the book under different licenses ranging from all rights reserved to public domain. BCcampus recommend using a CC BY (attribution) license if you would like to support open and accessible content and enable others to adapt your book.
To get started using Pressbooks Langara Faculty can sign up for an account using their Langara email address (note: must be in the format @langara.bc.ca). BCcampus will be hosting a training webinar on using Pressbooks on Tuesday January 24, 10 am. For more information on using Pressbooks talk to Julian Prior (Ed Tech) or Lindsay Tripp (Copyright Librarian).
