Arizona State University has announced a cure for FMOOWMP (Fear of Meeting One-on-One With My Professor).
Encouraged by ASU’s success, LIT will be researching a cure for FTFFMS (Fear of Technology Failure in Front of My Students). Stay tuned for further developments.
Recently we were notified that the Lynda.com building block in Blackboard had stopped working. The good news is that links in courses created already still work. The bad news is that you can’t use the building block to link to content from your course.
It turns out this is a know issue due to a recent Java update and Lynda.com is working on a fix. We have no delivery date for the new building block and will keep you posted as to the timing of a fix. We have set up the Lynda.com LTI tool but it only links to the Lynda.com site, not directly to specific Lynda content.
The workaround we have until the new building block is released and installed allows instructors to use the Lynda.com LTI to search for content. Then we recommend using the share link function in Lynda to copy the direct link to the content and then create an external weblink to it in your course.
The Lynda.com LTI is found under the Build Content menu in any content area.
Once you set up the LTI link, click on it to access Lynda.com.
Find the video content you want. Locate the share menu and click on the option to copy the link to share the video or share the course (series of videos).
Next create a Web link in your Blackboard course and use the URL you just copied.
The url, will provide direct access to either the specific video or to the Lynda.com course you selected. Users will be prompted to login with Wentworth credentials as with content added with the building block.
If you use Turnitin as part of your students’ assignment submission process you may have noticed a change in the interface. You can switch back to the old interface to get through grading for this term, however, you will eventually need to use the new interface when Turnitin disables it in July 2017.
First, how to return to the old interface:
When you open a paper in Turnitin, there will be a link on the bottom of the screen to “Return to Turnitin Classic” (outlined in the screenshot below).
All the controls you have used in the Classic interface are available in the new interface, they are accessed from a different location. To make the transition easier, the color coding of the tools is the same. So the blue icons on the right side of the screen link to the GradeMark tools (1 in the screenshot below) and the red icon links to the originality report (2 in the screenshot below). The gear icon (3 below) provides access to the download and submission information tools.
When you click on one of the tool icons, the tool opens on the right side of the screen, and displays and functions the same way the old interface did.
The tools all function the same way as they have in the past, just the way you access them has changed.
Did you know that you can embed a live twitter feed in your Blackboard course? This extends Blackboard functionality to include live chat and could be used for backchannel discussions in face to face classes or to encourage participation and collaboration after hours or in the online classroom.
Twitter is a social media platform that allows users to send (tweet) and read short (under 140 characters) messages. Users do not have to be registered to read other users’ tweets (unless other users’ tweets are specifically restricted to followers). Hashtags (#) are used to group conversations. One can use existing (trending) hashtags to comment on a specific issue (e.g. #BlackLivesMatter) or create new hashtags for a specific purpose. “@username” includes another user in a conversation.
Your live Twitter feed should now appear.
For more information on how to use Twitter in your classroom, please contact LIT@WIT.EDU.
Follow us on Twitter @LIT_at_WIT
LIT is looking for faculty and staff members to try our newly implemented Kaltura Building Block for Blackboard in the Fall 2016 and Spring 2016 semesters. The goal of this pilot is to assess user experience with this tool prior to wider implementation as well as to compare it to other tools currently in use.
The features include:
Use cases may include:
For more information on Kaltura Building Block for Blackboard, see Kaltura Website or contact LIT@WIT.EDU