Best Practices for Integrating Publisher LMSs into Blackboard Learn

It seems every textbook today comes with content available on a publisher's learning management system. This content used to be available for import into Blackboard Learn, but now, they tend to keep the content on their own sites.  While this makes it easier for them to update content, it also makes it harder for faculty who make heavy use of that content to change publishers for their textbook.

Unfortunately, it also makes it harder for students to be successful.  A typical first term freshman at LCCC might take FYE 101, ENG 101, PSY 103, CIS 110, and a math course - five different courses and five different LMSs. FYE 101 and ENG 101 both run primarily on Blackboard Learn, but FYE 101 uses an online textbook accessed through Learn.  PSY 103 uses McGraw-Hill Connect.  CIS 110 Uses MyITLab, and the math courses use MyMathLab - but those two LMSs, even though they are from the same publisher, work differently. That means if you run your course primarily on your LMS, students may need to learn several different ways to take a quiz, submit an assignment or participate in a discussion - all things they can do in Blackboard Learn.

While we assume the millennial and younger generations are digital natives and can easily figure this stuff out, it turns out, that isn't true. Our students are no better than we are in figuring out how to use new technology, despite their seeming immersion in technology 24/7.  So if you aren't comfortable in learning how to use new technology, in actively figuring out how to use technology in the best way possible, chances are your students won't be either.  And if they have to spend too much effort learning HOW to use the LMS, that leaves less time for learning the subject matter.  The more people use the tools in Blackboard, the less technology students need to Learn.

However, some publisher LMSs do things you can't do in Blackboard.  For example, they may have an adaptive testing feature where students answer a series of questions that are tailored based on their responses.  If student misses questions about a specific topic, they get more questions on that topic and fewer on topics they are answering correctly. If the students gets enough questions wrong, the system may recommend a specific section of the textbook to review.  One system I use, Sapling Learning, allows students to submit individual questions as they answer then, get immediate feedback, and retry that question right away. Blackboard doesn't really support either of those features.

When you incorporate LMS resources into Blackboard, make sure you use the tools in Blackboard first, not in the LMS.  For example, if you plan to give a traditional "answer all the questions and submit" quiz, do it Blackboard.  Want to submit a written assignment? Use Blackboard, and you can even use the free plagiarism checker in SafeAssign.  The discussion boards and blogs in Blackboard are very robust, and encourage that all important interaction among students.

It may take a little work to get publishers to give you what you need to use Blackboard, but compare that to what students need to do to learn a new system. You might need convince your publisher to provide you a Blackboard Learn test bank, for example, but if they want your business, they will do it.  You may need to create your own written assignments in Learn, but that just means you can create assessments that measure your course objectives better.  But the key is to make it easier for students to use the technology - and that means using Blackboard, even if it means a little more prep for you.

When you use a publisher LMS for online courses, you need to incorporate it into Blackboard using a single sign-on set up.  This is becoming more critical because of accreditation issues.  We ensure that the person who is completing the work in an online course by assigning students Blackboard Learn user names and initial passwords, and registering them into the correct courses.  If you use a publisher LMS and give students directions to go the the publisher web site and create a user name there, you are circumventing that (admittedly minimal) identity check.  As we explore more robust ways to verify user identity, you won't be able to have them go directly to the publisher web site to do their work - they will need to go through Blackboard.

When you use a single sign-on, students log into Blackboard, and through a link in the course, connect their Blackboard Learn user name to an account on the publisher LMS.  They access all of their LMS course materials through a link in Blackboard Learn.  This helps maintain the integrity of the sign-on process and allows us to verify students identities at least at log in. It also makes it easier for students when they do have more than one course on a publisher LMS - once they link the LMS to their Learn log in, they probably don't need to do it again. Finally, it ensures that your students get to the right course on the LMS; you don't need to worry about sharing the wrong course ID with them.

Here are directions for setting up the single sign-on for the major publishers:

• McGraw-Hill Connect
• Pearson MyLab and Mastering
• Pearson Revel
• Cengage

Other systems may require me to set up a special tool in Blackboard (a LTI), but that is (usually) easy enough to do. If you use a publisher LMS that isn't listed above, just tell your book rep you need to set up a single sign-on, and they will get the information to me.

So the minimum you need to do when using publisher is to set up the single sign-on for students. However, you can do even more to make it easier for students to use the technology.  A couple of years ago, Blackboard conducted a study correlating the number of times students used different tools in Blackboard and their grades in a course.  The best predictor for student success in a course using Blackboard Learn was their use of the My Grades tool; students who checked their grades more often did better in the course.  

If you are familiar with how the My Grades tool works, this makes sense.  When you set up a graded item in Blackboard Learn. a column in the grade center populates automatically.  The item's name, description, and possible points displays in the My Grades too, and if you give that item a due date, that date will display in the My Grades tool. This will allow students to plan their work better, by knowing what item are affect their grade more and when they are due.

You can synchronize the grades from the LMS into the Blackboard Learn My Grades tool.  This gives students one place in which to check their grades. You may say (because some of you have) students can just check their grades in the publisher LMS, but again, don't make them learn a new way when you can use the Blackboard Learn My Grades tool - and while they can check YOUR grades in your publisher LMS, they can't check all of their grades in one place.  Remember, the idea is to make it easy for students to succeed in spite of the technology. (And if we start supporting automatic grade syncing between Blackboard Learn and Datatel, you won't have to manually enter grades at the end of the semester).

The final recommendation I have is to make use of deep linking when available.  Deep linking creates a link in Blackboard directly to a specific assignment or activity in your publisher LMS. Rather than just add a link to to Connect or Cengage or MyLab or Revel, you can use deep linking to seamless integrate assignments on the publisher LMS with content and assignments in Blackboard Learn - since you are using Learn for what Learn is good for and the publisher LMS for what it is good for.

In this course, in Blackboard I have an item that lists the final exam question, the PPT handout in PDF format, a folder with links to relevant YouTube video, a blog, a critical thinking assignment and a multiple choice quiz, while on Connect, I have a textbook assignment that makes use of Connects ability to allow students multiple attempts where they just need to correct what they got wrong, and an adaptive testing LearnSmart assignment.  However, because I used deep linking, it doesn't matter to students where the assignment resides, because the links to all of the assignments for the week are in one content folder in Learn, and they are in the order in which I want students to complete them.  This makes it easier for students to navigate the course, using the technology to support learning rather than hinder it.

Publishers make it more and more tempting to use their resources exclusively in online courses.  They pre-build assignments for you, curate videos, organize everything by chapter, letting you set up your course on their system with just a click of the button. But isn't that sort of like asking the publisher to teach your course? And if you wouldn't do that in the classroom, why would you do it online?

Publishers are content providers; developing an LMS to provide that content is secondary to their primary function.  Blackboard is NOT a content provider; developing an LMS is their primary function. That's why in Blackboard I can get a single report about the amount of time students spend in a class, but I can't get that easily in Connect.  I can quickly see when a student last accessed Blackboard or email all of the students who haven't completed an assignment by the due date in Blackboard - but I can't do that in Connect.  In fact, there are a lot of useful reports I can access in Blackboard that I can't access in a publisher LMS, reports that help me understand how my students are interacting with my course content. And I can very easily add my own content to Blackboard, like those instructor made videos and written assignments online students value...not so much in Connect.

So as you prepare your courses for this fall, think about how you are using publisher resources in your courses, and are you using them in a way that is easy for you or effective for your students?

Quick and Dirty Videos

In the last couple of days, I did a few videos using different techniques, so in my never-ending quest to get online instructors to use more video in their courses, I thought I would share them here, along with how I created them.

These videos are based on the concept of the micro-lecture, a short video, focused on one topic, and often incorporated into assignments or learning activities. Micro-lectures make use of the research into optimal video length that says instructional videos should be 6-10 minutes in length for most audiences, although there is some research that says millenials are willing to watch longer videos as long as they are content-heavy, engaging, and meet their needs. These videos are shorter than that because they are not incorporated into learning activities; they are just giving the students information, not asking students to interact with the information.

The first I did in about 15 minutes in the morning, after seeing a question in my astronomy course about the super blue blood moon.

I used Spark Video to create this one, and most of the time was spent doing the narration.  All of the images are from the free photo search within Spark (who knew you could find such a variety of images of the full moon). I created and recorded the video on my phone, because its microphone is better than on my laptop, and I did most of it while brewing my morning coffee!

Spark is a free product from Adobe; all you need is a Creative Cloud account. You can get a free CC account, but if you get a paid account, you get some premium features for Spark- and if you are an LCCC faculty member, you can get a paid account for about $10 a YEAR (as opposed to the educator price of $20 a MONTH). I wrote about how to use Spark video about a year and a half ago.  It was one of the first products I learned about when I started taking the Adobe Generation Professional courses a couple of years ago, and it is my go to product for creating short, informative videos.

The second one I also did in about 15 minutes by recording a quick video using my web cam, making a few edits, and uploading the result to YouTube. I do these "Weekly Updates" periodically throughout the semester, maybe 4 or 5 times, just to check in with the students.

I created a title screen using Spark Post, another member of the web and app-based Spark family from Adobe.  I use this layout for most of my extemporaneous videos, so I just need to change the text, and then download the image. Like Video, Post is free to use with a free Creative Cloud account,but you need to have a paid account to be able to remove the Spark branding. Then I added that to the video and added a couple of transitions using Adobe's video editing software, Premiere Pro.

However, you can get the same result on your phone. You can record yourself on your phone, use the Spark Post app to create a title slide, and then use Adobe video editing mobile app, Adobe Premiere Clip to put the two together and even add a music track to your video. You can upload to YouTube through the YouTube mobile app as well.  Once I have it in YouTube, I just need to embed the video into a content item in my course, in this case an announcement. I can even do that from my phone!

The last one I did by narrating a short PowerPoint. Students in my Physical Science class tend to have the same misconception about air resistance and gravity, so I decided it was easier to narrate a video than write the same feedback over and over on their assignment.

This took about an hour to make, because I had to actually create the PowerPoint slides. However, now that it's done, I can use it in future semesters, and I will actually save time overall by just linking to the video to provide feedback to students rather than trying to explain to them what they did wrong.

Again, I wrote about narrating PowerPoint and saving it as a video a couple of years ago using Office 2010.  The process is similar with Office 2016, although it is slightly different with Office 365.  Once I created the video, I uploaded it to YouTube, and I was able to embed it into the assignment feedback when I graded these online labs.

So in about an hour and a half, or a fraction of the time it took me to explain how I did them in this blog, I created three videos for my online courses.  Yes, yes, I know, I can hear it already, "But Karen, you do this all the time, it would take me forever to do any of this!" And you are right, the first few times I did these videos, it took me a long time to do them.  Creativity is hard work. But I kept doing them, and now, a few hundred videos later, I can do them quickly. And my online courses are now more interactive, more engaging, and more effective for my students - and they know there is a teacher teaching their course, not a computer.

Getting Started with Office Mix

To get started with Office Mix, you need an Microsoft Office account.  If you have signed up for the free Microsoft Office software available through LCCC, you can use that account information.  Once you have an Office account, you can download the Mix add-on from the Mix website and follow the directions for installation (you may need IT's help to install on your LCCC office computer).

Mix only works on Windows machines currently, and on PowerPoint 2013 or later.

Mix Options

When you open PowerPoint after installing Mix, you will see a new Mix option on your ribbon. Clicking that option will give you all of the Mix features.

Many of the features available on the Mix tab are already available in PowerPoint, but they are gathered here for ease of use. There include the media options available the Insert tab:

• Video
• Audio
• Screen recording

It also includes the Screenshot image option from the Insert tab.  However, if you want to add any other images, either online or on your computer, you still need to go to the Insert tab.

The new interactive features for Mix are available under the Quizzes Videos Apps icon:

Some of the common interactive features include:

• Quiz Questions
• Multiple Choice
• True False
• Free Response
• Web Page Viewer
• Multiple Response Poll

If you incorporate your Mix into Blackboard Learn and enable grading, the score students receive on the quiz questions determine the grade.

There are also some interesting subject-specific content options I recommend exploring. These include videos and exercises from Khan Academy, along with a number of different simulations and exercises for math and science.

Using an Add-In

The best layout for adding a Mix Add-In in a blank layout with no title or other object on it.  If you want to include anything else on the slide, like an image, graphics, or addition text, you can add that later.

When you select the Quizzes Videos Apps icon, a window pops up from which you choose which app to insert:

Make sure you select the Store option to see all of the available Add-Ins. To insert an Add-In, click the Add button to the right of the tool you want to use. This will insert the Add-In in an object box on the blank slide in your presentation.

If you are not adding any other object to your slide, I recommend sizing the Add-In to the full size of the slide.  This gives you the greatest amount of "real estate" for you question to reduce the need for scrolling; requiring scrolling may mean students miss some potential answers. I also recommend choosing the largest text size you can without scrolling to see the answers. If you are adding something else to the slide, you should do that now, and adjust the size of the Add-In box to be as large as possible.

Multiple Choice Questions

Here are some tips of adding multiple choice questions:

Start by entering your question text.

1. Adjust the text size to the largest possible.
2. Click the light bulb to add a hint for the question.
3. Set the options for the question. 
• If you want to allow students to choose more than one correct answer, select Allow Multiple Choices.
• To present the answer choices in random order, check the Shuffle Answers options.
• If you allow multiple tries, you can limit the number of tries students get before their answer is graded as incorrect.
4. After you enter an answer option, click the check mark to its right to indicate whether or not it is correct.  If the option entry box and the check mark are green, the option is a correct answer.
5. Clicking the chat icon next to any answer choice opens the feedback box for that choice. Feedback is shown for any selection the student makes, after they submit their answer.
6. You can add as many choices as you need.

True False Questions

True False questions are similar to Multiple Choice but with some key differences.  The only option available is to allow one retry; you cannot randomize the choices nor can you change the text of the choices.  If you want a two-choice question other than True False (like Yes No), you should use the Multiple Choice Quiz Add-In.

Free Response Questions

Free response or essay questions allow students to enter anything for their answer.  However, Mix will not assess them for inclusion in a grade for the activity. For a free response question, you can enter a question and a hint only.  You have no other options to set or choices to enter.

Narrating Your Mix

First, a warning...

Everyone hates their own voice when they first hear it.

But you get used to it.  There actually is a psychological reason for this; you normally don't hear your own voice coming from outside of your own head.  However, it is the same voice your students hear in the classroom, so get over it and just keep recording.  Eventually you won't even notice it.

I explained how to narrate PowerPoints, including some tips for a better narration, last year. While the tips still hols true, the narration was for a standard PowerPoint deck and in PowerPoint 2010.  Since Mix need Office 2013 or later to work, those narration steps are no longer accurate.

While you can use the recording available under the Slide Show tab, I recommend using the Slide Recording available on the Mix Tab.

Here are the important parts of the Mix slide recording screen:

1. Camera and Microphone: Select your camera and microphone.  I recommend using a headset microphone for the best audio quality.  You can choose to include a thumbnail of yourself on your slide, or a full screen image, but I recommend doing this only on an intro slide, if at all.  To do it well, you need to remember to look at the camera, not your slide or your keyboard, and there are enough other things to do while narrating to make that challenging.
2. Notes: You can toggle your notes on and off here.  One advantage of the Mix slide recording over the traditional PowerPoint slideshow recording is you can view all of your notes at once.  With the Slideshow recording I described in the earlier blog, you need to scroll through your notes to see them all.  Although these notes appear on your slide as you record, they are not part of the final recording.
3. Ink: You can draw on your slide using the Ink tools while you narrate.  While you can use your mouse to Ink your recording, it is easier to do with a stylus on a touch screen tablet or 2-in-1 or using a graphics pad.
4. Recording: Click the red circle to begin your recording. While recording a pause button will appear that will allow you to pause your recording and continue on at the same point.  The stop button ends and saves your recording.
5. Navigation: On a slide with multiple animations, you can move through the animations using the star button. Again, this is an advantage of using the Mix slide recording over the Slideshow recording where you don't have that same visual reference to animations on your slide. You can also move on to the next slide to continue your recording, but I recommend recording one slide at a time so you can use the recording tools to review and trim your recording.
6. Recording Tools: Once you have completed recording your slide and clicked the stop button, you can preview your recording to see if you are satisfied with it.  If not you can rerecord it. Using the Edit Recording button, you can delete that recording or trim it, editing off any pause you may have at the beginning or the end of the slide.  Since PowerPoint saves each recording for a slide on that slide, recording one slide at a time this way will help ensure that you don't talk over the transition from one slide to the next.

The screen looks slightly different while you are narrating your slide.

Instead of a record button, you now have pause and stop. You still have your navigation buttons, but you will not be able to move to the next slide until move through all your animations.  The camera and microphone controls are no longer visible, and all your Ink options are no in a single column.  The red dashed box outlines the area of the screen that is recorded, so if you do Ink your slide while recording, be sure to keep your annotations within that boundary.

Publishing

To share your completed Mix, you need to publish it to the Office Mix web site, which you can do in such a way that only you and your students will see it.  You can also save your mix as a video, which is useful for students who want to review your Mix on their mobile devices, without completing the activities.

Just click the Upload to Office Mix tab and follow the steps from there.  You are prompted to sign into your Office Mix account, and then you have the option of uploading an new Mix or updating an existing one.  To allow your students to view your Mix as a video on their phone or tablet, without the ability to answer questions, check the option to create a video; you can also download this video as an MP4 for other uses.  Please note that creating the video takes about as long as the Mix is itself at a minimum - a 20 minute Mix will take at least 20 minutes to create a video and upload the video and Mix.

 After you upload your Mix, you can view it online.  I strongly recommend that you take the time to test your audio on your narration, verify that your questions work correctly, both for right and wrong answers, and that any embedded media like videos or web pages you use work.  If not, you can make the change in your Mix in PowerPoint and reupload, updating your existing Mix.

At this point, you want to change the options on your Mix to make it available to your students.

In order to allow students to access your Mix through Blackboard Learn or via a web link, choose the Unlisted option.  This will also prevent anyone else from seeing your Mix.  You also have the option to make it available for others to use under a Creative Commons license and to allow comments.  I have not used those options yet, because I am still modifying my Mixes, but in the interest of promoting Open Education Resources, I will use that option shortly.

Finally, Mix offers very useful analytics. Slide analytics include the average amount of time spent on each slide compared to its recorded duration. For question slides, you can see how many students attempted the question, how long it took them on average to answer the question, and what percentage of students answered the question correctly.

Visitor analytics gives you information about how much of the Mix each student completed, how well they did on the questions, and how long they spent completing the Mix, including watching the video and answering questions. As you can see in this example, although the Mix is about 14 minutes long, most students were taking closer to 20 minutes to complete the Mix, including answering the questions. That is another reason why you should try to keep your narrations as short as possible.

Finally, you can look at the analytics by exercise.  This tells you exactly how each student answered each question, with correct answers in green and incorrect answers in red.  That helps you quickly scan the results and see which questions students are getting wrong the most often. That information can point you to certain improvements you might make, either in the wording of a question or in the explanation of a concept.

I hope this has shown how Mix is a very valuable tool in providing interactive instruction to your students and to gather information on how you can improve your course materials.  If you try one new thing this summer for the next academic year, make it Office Mix.

Creating a Course Introduction Video

A great way to get your course off on the right foot is to produce a course introduction video. New tools from Adobe and others make it as easy or as complex a process as you want it to be.  From a simple course overview to a detailed demonstration to an integrated learning activity, there are many ways you can produce a video introduction to your course.

Why a video? How many YouTube videos have you watched this week? Cooking or craft videos on Facebook? Instagram videos? We are a visual society, so let's make use of that in our online classes.  A course introduction video is a simple way to get started.

Producing your own video also personalizes your online course.  In the classroom, students see you, but in an online course, particularly one that relies heavily on auto-graded publisher content, students can lose sight of the fact that there is an instructor. Producing a course introduction video is a good way for you to remind them that you are there to help, even virtually.

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Course Overview Video

A course overview video is a short, 2-3 minute video that tells the students what to expect in the course.  You should include content like the following:

• Content overview
• Description of course activities
• When work is due
• How to get started

Here is a course overview video I did with Adobe Spark Video.

Spark Video is a simple, free way to take still images, combine them with icons and text, add your narration, and quickly produce a simple video introduction to your course. In addition to the web site, you can use the Spark Video app on your phone, and upload your finished video to YouTube. I explain how to use Spark Video in this blog post, or you can take a self-paced workshop from Adobe.

In this video, I combined public domain images with screen captures from Blackboard Learn to show students what to expect in my course.  I include a link to this YouTube video as an announcement available on the first day of the class.

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Course Tour Video

If you are feeling a little more adventurous, you can do a video tour of your course.  A video tour is more specific than an overview and involves using screen recording software. You use the student preview feature in Learn to go through your course as a students, and explain what they need to do to complete the course.  This is particularly useful for courses with different types of assignments or that use publisher web sites for some work and Learn for other work.

Course tours will be longer than course introductions, because you are giving more specific, detailed information.  They should still be no longer than the 5-7 minute range to increase the likelihood that students will watch the entire video.  But remember, this is just a tour; you want to give details on WHAT to do to complete the course, not HOW to do it.  You can create demonstration videos for that.

Here is my Course Tour for PSY 102:

For this video, I used Screencast-o-matic. This site has a free version, where you are limited to videos no longer than 15-minutes (if you are making videos that long, you need to shorten them) with a watermark, or a paid version with no time limit and no watermark.  I opted for the paid version at $10 a year, because I do a lot of screencasting and I wanted to not have the watermark, but the free version is good if you are only doing a few.

After I made the screencast, I saved it to my computer, and then edited it with Adobe Premiere Pro. I was able to cut out unneeded parts and add titles and overlays. Again, we have this for free on campus, but you can get a low-cost subscription license through the college for all of the Adobe Creative Cloud products for use at home.  Adobe offers many courses to learn how to use their software; I've taken several, and that's how I learned to use Premiere Pro. Here are a couple of courses you can take to Learn about Premiere Pro:

• Digital Literacy Course (25 hours; starts 1/6/2017)
• Skill Builder: Digital Video for Education (10 hours; start 2/20/2017
• Premiere Pro Workshop (self-paced)

You could also use Adobe Premiere Clip on your phone or tablet.  Clip is a simple video editor that allows you to cut out unneeded part and add title frames to your video.  However, you cannot add overlays.

Here's a nice introduction to Adobe Premiere Clip:

Finally, if you just want to edit out the unneeded part, you can use YouTube's video editing features.  I explain how to do that in this blog post.

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Course Demonstration Video

While Blackboard provides a lot of good videos for students to learn how to use Learn, they are pretty general in nature.  Sometimes students benefit from more specific information about how to complete assignments in your course.  You can use screencasting to tell them how to use the Blackboard Learn tool to complete the specific assignment.  Here is a video where I tell students how to complete their weekly In the News blog:

This is much more specific to their assignment in my course than the Blackboard video about the Blog tool.  I also created videos about how to comment on other blog postings, how the blogs are graded, how to take their weekly quizzes, and how to submit critical thinking assignments. I put links to these videos in my Getting Started area in my course, as you can see from my Course Tour video.

You can create these the same way you create a course tour, but they should be shorter in length, no more than 4-5 minutes.  You are teaching student how to do one thing, and one thing only.  Keeping the video short increases the chances of them watching the whole video and going back to rewatch it if they need to.

Three short videos are better than one long one.  In the case of my blog tutorials, I did one on how to submit the blog, one on how to comment on other blogs, and one on the rubric I use to grade them.  If strudents just need to find out how to comment on other blogs or have a question about grading, it is easier for them to find that information directly, rather than trying to fast-forwar through a 10-minute video that covers things they don't need to know right away.

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Course Introduction Learning Activity

If you want to increase the likelihood of your students watching your videos, try incorporating them into a learning activity.  You could just add a short quiz in Learn about the content of the video, or use Office Mix to integrate your video into a narrated PowerPoint with embedded questions.  Office Mix is a free add-on to PowerPoint that helps you create more interactive presentations. Although Mix is very easy to use, the Office Mix site has some very good tutorials to learn to details.

Here is my Mix I created using the Course tour video for PSY 102

By watching these videos and completing the learning activity students will have a much better understanding of what is required of them to complete my course.  Although it does take some time to produce these videos (it took me about a day to make all of my videos and to create my Mix), you can use them over and over.  In fact, I can use many of these videos from one course to another, and once I've done one course tour, to second and third become easier.

I hope you'll consider adding an introductory video to your courses, whether it is a simple overview, a more in depth tour, or a full blown learning activity.  Any one of these will help your learners understand how to complete your courses successfully, ensuring that their grades reflect their understanding of the content of the course, not the mechanics of learning online.

5 Ways to Improve Student Engagement

If you google "ways to engage online students," you'll come up with all sorts of lists.  Well, here's another list, of five things I have tried and from which I have seen positive results over the years.

Most people think of communication as just email and discussions, but there are more options than that. These are ways you can engage different channels of communication, including audio and visual, with individual students or the entire class.

Announcements

I make the Announcements tool in Blackboard the Course Home Page.  I can "pre-post" announcements that become available automatically as each week in the course starts, but I also post announcements about things students need to know right away.  This makes the home page dynamic instead of static, and so students see something new at least once a week when they log on to their course.

Video Updates

Using my cell phone, YouTube, and a custom thumbnail, I post video updates periodically in each of my courses.  I use these to clarify a problem several students had, provide some positive reinforcement for a job well done - or for just making it through another week - or draw attention to something interesting I read or saw that week related to the class.  These are useful for when I need to spend a little more time explaining something than I can spend in a paragraph or two in a written announcement.  I usually post them as announcements, but I could also post them as items in the next weeks learning activities.

Audio Feedback

If you have an iPad or other tablet device, you can use the BB Grader app to grade Assignments.  While you can give the usual written feedback on those, you can also give audio feedback for each student. (You can also do video feedback, but considering what I look like when I'm grading on the weekend, I'll stick to audio). It might be easier to just tell them how to improve their work instead of trying to write it.

For now, you can only grade Assignments with BB Grader.  You can't grade tests, discussions, blogs, or any other tool you use and to which you assign a grade, but improvements to that app are in the works.  If you use Assignments in Learn, though, this is a useful tool to give individual and timely feedback to students and keep them engaged in their learning.

Making course content relevant to students increases engagement, because they can see real-world value for what they are learning.  If you can provide application to their future job or to their life, they will be more likely to engage in their learning.

Current News Announcements

Since I teach astronomy and psychology, I follow a number of Twitter or Facebook accounts the post current news articles in the field.  When I find an article that is relevant to the course content, I will post a link to it as an announcement.  Sometimes it will be just an interesting article about a general topic in the course, but once in a while, I find something relevant to what they are learning that week.  For example, the week my astronomy student were learning about the Earth-Moon system, a link to a new theory (or a revised theory, really) about the formation of the Moon came across my Twitter feed.  Since I have a learning activity that includes an explanation of the low energy impact theory, I posted this article to give them the most current information. That shows them that what they are learning about is what is currently being researched by astronomers.

Weekly Discussions

The Discussion tool in Learn has changed, so I've added weekly discussions back into my redesign of my Descriptive Astronomy class (I will add them back into the Psychology course next year). Again, with discussions, I can pick a current topic, direct students to come information about the topic, and have them discuss the issues around the topic.

In this case, they were learning about telescopes. One important point was that a larger aperture means a larger light gathering ability, which means being able to see more distant objects.  A 30-meter telescope, larger than any currently in use, is planned for Hawaii's Mauna Kea site. However, construction was halted by protests from native Hawaiians who claimed it was being built on sacred lands. This was fodder for a great discussion about balancing science and religion, with students adding links to article they found on the topic.

In the News Blog

I have used this assignment for a few years now, and I have actually gotten more positive comments from students on this assignment than on any other one I use.  Each week, I give students a topic relevant to the course content for the week, and they need to find a news article about the topic.  I give them acceptable sites, and they have a specific format for their blog.  They must also read and comment on at least two blog postings from their classmates.  This assignment allows them to pick an article relevant to their interests, and shows them how what they are learning in class can be applied to the "real world;" it is not just some stuff in a textbook.

A student in my physical science class told me she liked that class, because I had them do things.  They may have been silly things like wadding up a piece of paper and dropping it along with a book or putting a blown-up balloon in the freezer, but they had to actually do something to apply what they were learning.  "Multiple choice questions are boring," she said.

Simulations

I use a lot of simulations in my online courses from virtual labs in Descriptive Astronomy to Application Activities in Psychology of the Person and the Workplace.  I also use them to create narrated videos to explain certain concepts in the courses.

Video-based Critical Thinking Activities

I try to find  videos that apply what students learn in class.  That might be a video interview with a schizophrenic or a funny YouTube like this one where a student demonstates using classical conditioning to train his roommate to flinch at the sound of the easy button.

After watching the videos, students must answer questions related to the content in which they apply what they are learning that week.  These are higher level essay or shart answer questions that reguire them to think about what they are learning and how it applies to what they are watching. In addition to giving them visual learning opportunities, these test those all import higher order objectives.

Office Mix

I am a Mixoholic.  I need to do an entire blog on the wonder of Mix.  Mix is an add-on to Powerpoint 2013 or above that allows you to incorporate a variety of content sources into one PowerPOitn deck, add in questions to immediately quiz students on their understanding, AND incorporate it into Blackboard, so their scores on the questions go right into your Blackboard Grade Center.

For examples, I did a Mix about how telescopes work.  I could very easily add images from NASA, a clip from a YouTube explaining the purpose of telescopes, my own narration explaining how different types of telescopes work, animations explaining special types of telescopes - all interspersed with questions to test student understanding of concepts.  Students can also go back through the Mix to review anything they didn't understand, and when they are done, turn in their work for credit.

We are always willing to tell students what they are doing wrong, but how often do we tell them what they are doing right? Educational psychologists will tell you reinforcement is always more effective than punishment, so if you want to encourage appropriate behavior in your courses (like getting work done on time or exhibiting more effort than just the minimum) try positive reinforcement.

Positive Feedback

One of the advantages of using written assignments, blogs, and discussions instead of just objective quizzes is I can see more of the work students are doing.  I can see where they've made a special effort or gone the extra mile.  I can reward that by giving them positive feedback in addition to a grade.  For example, on this blog, I told the student why I thought the article he found was unysyally interesting and why.  That increases the likelihood that he will continue to extend that extra effort in the future.  Students are also required to post a question they still have after reading the article they use for their blog, and I use the feedback to answer the best questions.  Again, this not only increase teacher-student interaction, but it increases the likelihood that students will ask thoughtful questions, if they know I will make the effort to answer them.

Achievements

Blackboard has a great feature called achievements.  Achievements are like badges that you can award for achieving certain goals in a course.  I set an achievement for every week that the student earns (and it becomes visible to them) after they have completed all of the work for that week.  It does not need to be graded; they just need to have an attempt recorded in the gradebook.  It's a good visual reminder to students for whether they still have additional work to do or not.  If they see the achievement, they're done, but if not, they need to do something else.

I also use the achievement for bonus points.  Again, as positive reinforcement, I award bonus points for completing work on time rather than deducting points for work that is late.  Students are more likely to work harder to earn something than to avoid losing something - reinforcement is always more effective than punishment.

Progress Emails

In the past, I have always sent out emails periodically reminding students what work they are missing and when the date by which they need to make the work up.  Lately I have also started to send out emails telling students who have completed all the work and who are doing well in the course.  These are just quick notes to let them know they are doing a good job and to keep up the good work! Again, we always seem to worry about the ones who aren't doing well that we don't make the effort to reinforce the ones who are.  That little message two-to three times a semester might be just enough to keep them motivated.

When students see you in a classroom every week, they get a feel for who you are.  They may be more likely to ask for questions or for help. But when you are behind a computer screen, you are anonymous, and it is more difficult for them to remember there is someone there to help them.

"Selfie Videos"

I do these little videos of just me talking. That's it, nothing fancy.  I'll do them on my cell phone or using the webcam on my laptop, upload them to YouTube, add a custom thumbnail, and post them as announcements.  These are usually the video updates mentioned above, but I might also do a video about something I read or heard relevant to the class.  They key point, though, is that they put a face to the person teaching the course.  They get to see me and hear me, just like they would in a classroom.

When I've mentioned these to people, their first reaction is generally, "I hate how I look/sound in recordings!" You don't really look any different in the front of a classroom; you just aren't used to seeing yourself or hearing yourself so it seems odd at first.  However, the more of these you do, the more comfortable you become, and the more your students will understand they aren't alone in the course.  This will increase the likelihood of them seeking ehlp when they need it.

Personal Information

You don't have to reveal every intimate detail of your life, but adding a little tidbit about yourself once in a while humanizes the computer-based learning experience.  In this case, a student mentioned being a Dr. Who fan in their introductory discussion.  I replied by mentioning the "Tardis" hat (Dr. Who travels around in the Tardis, a blue British police box) I knitted for my nephew's wife.  I've also had my cats make appearances in my selfie videos, or I've talked about how nice the weather is. Nothing major, but it does form a little bond between me and my online students.

Progress Emails

I send out emails to students periodically to give them an idea of how they are doign in the course.  Generally I try to send them after the first week, after the thrid week, right before the midterm, and before the final withdrawal date.

These emails outline exactly what work the student is missing, if any, what work they need to do better on (if they aren't commenting on blogs for example, or if they aren't submitting their assignments correctly).  I will tell them when they need to get the work submitted, or ask them if they need some extra help.  Again, it is just another way to make that person connection with students and let them know they have someone they can turn to for extra help.

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Those are just a few ways I try to increase student engagement in my online courses.  I didn't start doing these all at once, but I developed them over the years, along with others, and kept the ones that worked and changed the ones that didn't.  I hope you give one or two of these a try yourself.

The Nuts and Bolts of Narration: Narrating PowerPoints, Part 2

Now that you have your engaging, active PowerPoint, you are ready to actually narrate your PowerPoint and save it as a video you can use in your online course.  Well, almost...I do have a few more pointers for you.

Tips for an Engaging Narration

OK, maybe not that animated...and I don't mean just visually.  Make sure when you record your narration you put some animation in your voice as well.  You should sound just a little bit goofy. It will take some getting used to, but remember that anything that changes catches someone's attention. That applies to changing the inflection of your voice as well as motion in your video. Some people suggest that you speak slower than normal, but I find that sounds forced, and you tend to lose the inflection you need to sound animated.

I do recommend writing a script, at least until you get used to recording your voice.  You can put the script in the notes area of your PowerPoint slide and print out the notes to use while you narrate.  Rehearse once or twice to get comfortable with using a script and to make any last minute changes, as well as to check your animations in PowerPoint.

While computers often have microphones built in, I recommend using a separate USB mike or even a microphone/headphones head set.  You will get better sound quality that way, since the mike will be the correct distance for good sound quality, and it will be better able to filter out extraneous noises. Speaking of extraneous noises, if your mouse has a wheel on it, use that to transition your animations and slide changes.  Using the spacebar on your keyboard or even clicking the left mouse button can make an audible click on your narration.

One thing you should know is PowerPoint records each narration for each slide separately, so you can't talk over the transition from one slide to another. You can talk over animations within slides, but not when you move from one slide to the next.  If you do, you will hear a break in your narration as you move from slide to slide.  To prevent that, stop talking before you transition to the next slide, pause just long enough to know you paused, and then move to the next slide.  You'll avoid any loss of words that way.

Narrating in PowerPoint 2010

Now you're ready to narrate.  This is the easy part!

Everything you need to create your narration is located on the Slide Show tab.  Let's go over the important things to know on this tab.

The first is the Record Slide Show button.  That button actually has a top and a bottom to it.  If you click on the top half (the stopwatch icon), your narration will automatically start from the first slide in your slide show.  That's useful when you are doing your first recording for that PPT, just click and go.  The bottom half (the words Record Slide Show) brings up an option to start from either the first slide or from the current slide.  You will want to use that when (and I mean when, not if...trust me), you goober up your recording and you need to start over on a given slide. Rather than start over from the beginning, you can just start on the slide you choked on.  You also use the bottom half when you have completed your entire recording and you decide you want to change the recording on just one slide.  Maybe it sounded fine as you were recording it, but when you play it back, you realize you left something out or there was some extra background noise on one slide.  Using Record from current slide lets you record that one slide without changing the narration or timings of any other slides. Either way, make sure that Play Narrations, Use Timings, and Show Media Controls are all checked on.

The Record Slide Show pop-up window will appear. Again, make sure the Slide and animation timings and narrations and laser pointer options are both checked on.  Take a deep breath, and click Start Recording.


Your PowerPoint will automatically go into Slide Show mode, and the Recording controls will appear in the upper left window (you only see them while you are recording; they don't appear in your final version). The first arrow is the record arrow; you only need that if you pause your recording and you want to start it again.  You can use the next button to pause your recording to take a break without actually exiting the recording process; pressing the play arrow will start it again.

There are two timers on the Recording controls.  The one on the left is the timer for the slide you are currently narrating, while the timer on the right is the overall length of the narration up to that point. These will help you keep to Tip #2 from Part 1 of Narrating PowerPoints, Keep It Short. Remember your overall narration should be less than 10 minutes; the narration for any one slide should be less than one minute - closer to 30 seconds would be better. If you stick to one point per slide though, it isn't hard to keep it short.

Note: Why 30 seconds? Because that's the duration of short term memory.  If you go much longer that that, your viewers will have forgotten what you said at the beginning of the slide by the time you get to the end!

Use your mouse (wheel or left mouse button) to move through you animations and transitions from slide to slide.  Remember to pause very briefly at the end of one slide before moving on to the next one to avoid cutting off your narrations. If you don't make any mistakes, you can keep narrating until you get to the end, and PowerPoint will automatically end your SlideShow and return you to the Slide Sorter view in PowerPoint (note that this can take several seconds once your done, since it is saving all of your narrations).

What do you do if you make a mistake?  You have a few options:

1. You can press ESC to exit the recording completely and go back to the Slide Sorter view (again, this might take several seconds to happen; as long as the timers have stopped increasing your recording has stopped). You can start your recording over from the slide you stopped on.
2. You can soldier on and come back later to re-record the slide you made a mistake on.
3. You can click the Reset button, which is between the two timers on the recordings controls.  That pauses the recording, and resets the slide to the start of its animations.  Just click Resume recording, and start narrating that slide over. 

The first couple of times you narrate, you might be more comfortable with the first option.  It gives you a minute to catch your breath, get a drink of water, and regroup.  The more confident you get, you'll want to try option 2, but eventually you will be able to use option 3 like a pro.

You can preview your narrated slide show by clicking on either the From Beginning or From Current Slide button on the Start Slide Show panel.  Make sure you go through your entire narration and make a note of any slides you want to re-record.  When you are done previewing your narration, go back to you Normal PowerPoint view.

To re-record one slide or a series of slides, make sure the first slide you want to record is selected and appears in the large center area of you PowerPoint window.  Click on the bottom half of the Record Slide Show button (the words, not the picture), and then select Start Recording from the current slide.  If you want to record just one slide, click the ESC button when you are done recording without advancing to the next slide.  If you are doing a series, just advance through them like you did with the original recording, and press ESC when you're done.  Just remember it takes a few seconds for PowerPoint to get you back to the slide sorter view.

Saving as a Video

Once you're happy with your recording, you are ready to save it as a video. Click the file tab, and then Save and Send. Choose Create Video and make sure Use Recorded Timings and Narrations is selected. Then click the Create Video button.

The Save As window appears, where you can change the name of video (it defaults to the name of the PPT file) and pick the save location.  The only video format PowerPoint will save as is Windows Media Video (WMV) so you can't change the file type. When you have that all set, click the Save button.

Again, it may take awhile for PowerPoint to start the video conversion process, but once it does, you will see this message at the bottom of the your PowerPoint window.

It can take several minutes for PowerPoint to convert and save your video; the longer your narration, the longer this process takes.

Once you have the WMV file, I recommend that you upload it to YouTube to share it with your students, either in PowerPoint or in the classroom.  While there are other ways you could play a WMV file, putting it in YouTube is the easiewst way to make sure it is available when and where you and your student need it.  Check out my YouTube post for more information on how to do that.