Photo credit: www.brightspace.com
As promised, we are giving the highlights from the Brightspace Minnesota Connection conference two weeks ago. You can find the links to presentations, photos, and videos from various breakout sessions here. Topics varied from D2L Brightspace tools and pedagogical applications, to flipped classrooms, widgets, accessibility, and many more! Enjoy!
Instructors,
Our dear librarians have developed beautiful widgets that you can just add to your course page on D2L. It is very easy to find it: on the library homepage, under Find a Research Guide> By Subject/Topic choose Widgets for D2L Brightspace from the drop down list. You can see it on the screenshot below:
Then, they give you a wide range of samples to choose from, depending on the course you teach. Further there are several documents that further explain how to add a widget you choose, and the embedded codes for specific widgets. The widgets give direct access to databases.
You can access the step by step description of how to add a widget to your D2L course here.
Big thanks to Cindy Gruwell and Melissa Prescott for developing this and making it available for our faculty and students.
Minnesota has a statewide subscription to the internationally recognized quality assurance process Quality Matters. What is more, MOQI (Minnesota Online Quality Initiative) has put every effort to promote and help with this process throughout the MnSCU system.
This process is completely voluntary, yet we like to show how it can benefit both face-to-face and online classes. Even if you do not want your course reviewed, just getting familiar with the QM rubric or having an internal review could benefit you. In this video, you can hear the answers to most frequently asked questions about the course review process from a MSU Mankato faculty member.
More stories can be found on the MOQI webpage here.
National Center on Disability and Access to Education (© NCDAE) has developed a list of resources that can help with accessibility. If you wonder how to make your documents more accessible, you can find tips for Word, PDF, PowerPoint, and Excel files. You can also find some resources on Adobe and Web content issues. They are on the NCDAE website, and they call them Cheatsheets.
Click here to access these great accessibility resources.
Implementing Universal and Inclusive Design for Online Learning
This webinar discussed how the principles of universal and inclusive design can be applied to the online learning environment, with a particular focus on the accessibility of course content and materials.Here you can find the Recorded webinar of Implementing Universal and Inclusive Design for Online Learning, which includes closed captions and a searchable interactive transcript, as well as the slide deck.
10 Tips for Creating Accessible Online Course Content
With recent lawsuits in higher education and updates to Section 508 on the horizon, it is more important than ever that online learning content be made accessible to students with disabilities. In this webinar, Janet Sylvia, Web Accessibility Group Leader and Web Accessibility Trainer, will provided 10 tips for making your online course material accessible. Here you can find the Recorded webinar of 10 Tips for Creating Accessible Online Course Content, which includes closed captions and a searchable interactive transcript, as well as the slide deck and handout.
Also, see additional free recorded webinars on various topics, including accessibility, captioning, and universal design.
Here is another useful tip for instructors on how to get the statistics on their quiz questions.
Q: What statistics are available for quiz questions in a D2L Brightspace course?
A: Learn about quiz statistics and common questions at FAQ #1601.
Below is a brief overview in tables taken from the MnSCU D2L Brightspace Service Desk:
Statistics by Question Type and Question Collection:
Are statistics available for:
| Question Type | Average Grade | Standard Deviation | Discrimination Index | Point Biserial |
| T/F | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes* |
| M/C | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes* |
| M/S | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Matching | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Ordering | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| LA | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| SA | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| MSA | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| FIB | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| 2+2 | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| x10 | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
* Note: There can only be one answer worth 100%; all other answers must be worth 0%.
Are statistics available for questions:
| Question Condition | Average Grade | Standard Deviation | Discrimination Index | Point Biserial |
| In Random Section** | No | No | No | No |
| In Folder Section | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| In Root section | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Has Randomized Responses | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
* Note: any questions that are contained in a Random folder DO NOT produce item analysis statistics.
By Holly Evers
Assessment and Accreditation Coordinator
What did you do on your summer vacation? Ask around and you will find that there was a buzz of Tk20 activity going on behind the scenes, while you were away this summer!
A large delegation of campus users presented at the Tk20 User Conference. A group from the Meta-assessment Faculty Learning Community talked about meta-assessment (the assessment of assessment) in TK20. There is an underutilized area of the system built specifically to provide feedback on assessment plans. SCSU and the Meta-assessment FLC are pioneering its use.
A second group from School of Health and Human Services presented on how to adapt Tk20 for use outside of Education. Much of the system was built for the specific needs of education and its rigorous accreditation, but other areas of study undergo just as much scrutiny from external agencies. SHHS explained to this national audience how they are adapting and using areas of the Tk20 system like Field Experience, Applications, and Surveys to fulfill the needs of their own accrediting bodies.
Finally, there is a plethora of TK20 training opportunities coming up this fall. The School of Education is doing a brown bag lunch series. I will be doing drop in sessions and formal system training. The School of Health and Human Services will be doing more Lunch and Learn sessions. Be on the lookout for announcements with dates, times and locations!
And as always: let us know if you would like additional information about the Tk20 system. We are here to serve!
Attention instructors!
Please refer your students to their D2L/Brightspace home page that will show the academic support services for them or Tutoring Services/Options.
This leads our students to the listing of all SCSU on-campus tutoring services and Smarthinking.
Smarthinking is a 24/7 online and on-demand tutoring service, available at no charge to all enrolled students (each student is assigned 15 hours per semester by default). They can use Smarthinking to schedule live tutoring appointments, participate in drop-in live sessions, ask questions, or submit writing assignments for feedback.
Students are able to access the Smarthinking website via a link on their D2L/Brightspace main page.
Finally, just below this new resource, remind them that there is a list of free self-registration offerings as well as student help documents and student overview videos for navigating D2L.
Attention instructors!
A quick way to find really short and concise videos on any feature of your D2L Brightspace course can be found here.
If you are interested in a specific feature, you can quickly search (e.g. discussions, dropbox, calendar, assessment, quizzes, chat, classlist, etc.).
Also, when you log in to your D2L, in the right upper corner you will have a box named “Instructor Help” which has the link as well.
Here is a neat infographic about how digital badges work. For some reason, I thought these badges I kept hearing about were more complicated than this. But no. They really are this simple. I even have one myself. I clicked a button after completing a MOOC last week, and it was magically added to my LinkedIn account. Pretty cool.
Watch this webinar recording by the Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning (COERLL) at the University of Texas, Austin if you would like to learn more about how one can create and issue badges.
