DLE Weekly Update: Hot Topics

Posted on Friday, September 25th, 2020

Brightspace Tips – Answers to Common Questions this past Week

How do I share My Mediasite presentations in my Brightspace courses? You created a presentation and you have it available in My Mediasite, but how do you insert it in Brightspace and make it available to your learners? This article describes the steps you need to know. You will need to use the Insert Stuff tool available under Content (Create a file option), and also available when you create/edit an Announcement.

How to I copy a quiz/exam/assignment between two courses? Use the Course Copy process and, rather then copying everything, use the Select Course Components and choose the Brightspace activity you need to copy over.

Is there any way to start a Zoom classroom with pre-assigned break out rooms? Yes, but ONLY if students have Zoom accounts (through https://zoom.us), and they are logged into their account in order to be assigned to the breakout rooms correctly. Follow this instructions on pre-assigning participants to breakout rooms.
Note: Students must use their Algonquin email address when they create the Zoom Basic accounts.
Here are some recommendations to get your students in the habit of signing into Zoom:

  • Inform students that they will need to create a Zoom account and log into Zoom to access future meetings.
  • Edit upcoming meetings so that Only authenticated users can access them (it’s a checkbox when editing the meeting).
  • Give students an extra 5-10 minutes to get into your next meeting – they will inevitably run into difficulties and some may not have created an account.
  • The main thing is the communication piece. We’d recommend something like this: “To join this session, please see the Getting Started section of this Library guide, to create a free Zoom Basic account using your college email address. Accounts will be used to make group work easier in each session. You will not be able to access future class meetings without a Zoom account.

How do I allow one student an alternate time restriction for a quiz? Use the special access options when you need to provide students with alternate time restrictions, alternate attempt limits, or alternate due dates.

Important! Extending the availability of a quiz, by changing the quiz start/end dates, does not give the student more time. If you have students who need a longer time to complete a quiz, when using one of the Special Access options, make sure you change the amount of time your students are allowed to take (the Recommended Time Limit or the Enforced Time Limit).

Did you know?

Did you know that Brightspace has a Chat tool that allows you and your learners to have a real-time discussion? You can use the Chat tool to brainstorm ideas, hold a question and answer period, have a debate or discussion, or organize a remote study group. As opposed to other collaboration tools, such as Discussions, Chat conversations occur in real-time.
There are two types of chats:

  • Personal chats – visible only to users who you have added to the chat’s participants list. Great for when you need to schedule private conversations.
  • General (course) chats – visible to everyone enrolled in your course. Use one during an online exam, when students need a quick way to ask you questions. As the general chat is visible to the entire class, it may be beneficial in case that the answer needs to be visible to all your students.

Notes:

  • The Chat Tool is available to you from Tools/Course Admin/Chat. Once you create a chat, you link to it from a Content area, by going to Existing Activities/Chat option.
  • A personal chat will be visible to all students, but accessible only to students added as members.
  • If you need to avoid having the link to the personal chat visible in your course, go to Tools/Course Admin/Chat and click on the name of a personal chat. From the browser’s address bar, copy the URL and send it to your student by email, along with the date and time set up for the appointment.

Brightspace Support for Students

Do your students have any issues with their Brightspace courses? Please refer them to the ITS Support Team (5555@algonquincollege.com).


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