New and Improved myLesley Features

Posted on January 18, 2018 by Danielle Powell

The myLesley upgrade brought with it several new and improved features designed to enhance the teaching and learning experience. These features are designed to save you time, improve efficiency and easy of use, provide a much improved mobile experience, improve accessibility of your content and Blackboard functionality, and enhance assessments and grade capabilities.

Discussion Board “Replies to Me”
A new count and filter identifies unread replies to your Discussion Board posts, allowing you to quickly and easily keep up with large Discussion forums.

Drag and Drop Files
Easily drag and drop files from your computer to the hot spot in the Attach Files area to upload them. Students can also drag and drop files to upload their assignments.

Collaborate Ultra Available in Groups
You now have the ability to allow Collaborate Ultra webinar sessions to Groups pages. If allowed, students can meet online, share content and use the whiteboard, as well as record their online meetings. For more information see Group Tools or Blackboard Collaborate Ultra: Getting Started.

Improved Mobile Device Navigation
The new myLesley theme includes navigation improvements for both the system and course menus. When you access myLesley on your mobile device, the navigation appears a hamburger menu (three horizontal lines) for persistent access from screen to screen. Within a course, the menu opens and closes more easily with fixed location action.

More Responsive Blogs and Journals
Blogs and Journals have been better optimized for use on mobile devices. Posts and comments will render on smaller devices and options for filtering posts or navigating groups or users will appear below currently viewed posts.

New Inline Grading Tool
The new inline grading tool, New Box View, is now available in myLesley. This streamlined grading tool accepts more file types. For more information see Grading myLesley Assignments or view the tutorial video below.

More Efficient Grade Center Cleanup
You can now easily clean up your Grade Center, including bulk deleting grade columns. Manual and calculated columns are removed completely, and columns associated with gradable items are cleared of attempt and grade data but remain in the Grade Center.

Before deleting columns, check very carefully that it’s the right column. Deleted grade columns cannot be recovered. For more information see Organize Grade Data.

Submission Receipts
Once you submit an assignment, the Review Submission History page appears with information about your submitted assignment and a success message with a confirmation number. For assignments with multiple attempts, you receive a different number for each submission. You will also receive an email with your confirmation number and details each time you submit coursework.

Improved Grading with Rubrics
When grading with rubrics, the instructor can save feedback and the content will remain saved when changing the rubric view from in-line to full screen. For more information on rubrics see myLesley Rubrics.

Missing Coursework Reminders
You can now send email reminders to your students directly from Grade Center columns to remind them about missing coursework.

Why Can’t I Change the Color of my Course Menu?

Posted on January 17, 2018 by Danielle Powell

I used to be able to change the colors on my course menu, but now it’s not working. What happened?

In short, the recent myLesley upgrade introduced a new theme, or look and feel. The new theme does not allow instructors to change the course menu background color or text color.

Why the change?

The new theme brought many improvements, including increased speed, the ability to adapt to your screen/device, and improved bug fixes. Unfortunately, the downside of these improvements is that the ability to change the colors in your course menu has been lost. We had conversations with members of TL Tech and it was decided that the benefit of an improved user experience outweighed the few features that were lost.

What can I do?

While you may no longer customize the color of your course menu. You may, however, add different colored menu buttons. To add menu buttons, navigate to your course Control Panel, select Customization, and select Teaching Style.

Scroll down to Select Menu Style. Click Text for the default black background with white text. Or click Buttons to create colored menu buttons.

Click Button Library to expand the button library. For Button Type you may select pattern, solid, or striped. For Button Shape you may select rounded corners, rectangular, or rounded ends. Select the button color and style you want and click Submit at the bottom of the page to save your changes.

Please note that the menu text color will remain white. As a best practice, we recommend that you select a button color that has a good contrast with the white text for readability and accessibility.

If your menu item has a lot of text and rolls onto a second line, your second line of text will not be visible in the button. Instead, your text will appear in the black space below your button. See the “Reading and Additional Resources” menu item in the screenshot below.

Can I add a banner to my course?
Definitely! You can easily add a course banner to, at a glance, differentiate between your courses. The banner will appear at the top of your course’s landing page (ex Announcements) and allows you to add a pop of color or personality to your course such as the fall leaves in our image below.

To add a banner image, navigate to your course Control Panel, select Customization, and select Teaching Style.

Scroll down to Select Banner and click Browse My Computer to upload an image. Please note that Blackboard recommends using an image that is approximately 480 x 80 pixels for your banner image. You my create or edit an existing image using a photo editor, such as Pixlr Editor.

Once you have uploaded your image, click Submit at the bottom of the page to save your changes. The banner image will then appear on the course’s landing page.

12 Days of Learning from Decembers Past

Posted on December 22, 2017 by Danielle Powell

Oops … We’ve been busy preparing for the Blackboard upgrade and lost track of time.

This time of year we like to provide you with a little treat, The 12 Days of Learning, that we have borrowed (er, shamelessly stole) from Hoonuit (formerly Atomic Learning). Unfortunately, this year our time and energy have been focused on the upcoming Blackboard upgrade. So, in lieu of new content, here is a recap of 12 Days of Learning from Decembers past.

Have a wonderful winter break and we’ll see you again in January!

2016

2015

Atomic Learning is now Hoonuit!

Posted on August 31, 2017 by Danielle Powell

You have eLearning resources at your finger tips with Hoonuit–formerly known as Atomic Learning. If you had the opportunity to use Atomic Learning before, you know that this online tool provides you with on-demand personalized learning. Hoonuit (pronounced “who knew it”) has evolved beyond software training and now features software and technology training, student resources, instructional strategies, leadership resources, and online teaching/blended learning resources.

What kinds of resources does Hoonuit offer?

Hoonuit features a robust library of eLearning content for faculty, students, and staff including:

Software and Technology Training:

Microsoft Office Products
Collaborating and Sharing Using Office 365
Adobe Creative Suite
Google
And more!

Student Resources:

Preparing for a College Workload
Becoming a Good Note Taker
Strategies for Working in a Group
Avoiding Plagiarism
Successful Time Management
Networking and Internships
And more!

Instructional Strategies:

Questioning Strategies
Assessment of Learning
Writing Effective Learning Outcomes
Digital Video in Class
Universal Design
And more!

Leadership Resources:

FERPA
Successful Time Management
How Do I Grow My PLN?
Leadership Styles
And more!

Online Teaching/Blended Learning:

Creating Engaging Lessons Online
Succeeding in an Online Class
Being an Effective Online Student
Effective Online Discussions
And more!

A l list of some of the available resources may be found here: Hoonuit Higher Education Resource List.

Sounds great! How do I access Hoonuit?

Simply go to http://atomiclearning.com/login/lesley and log in with your myLesley username and password. You may also click on the Hoonuit module on your myLesley Home tab.

VoiceThread Introduces a New HTML5 Version!

Posted on August 8, 2017 by Danielle Powell

Say goodbye to Flash! VoiceThread has introduced a new HTML5 version, which runs in your browser without having to install and enable Flash. The new HTML5 version looks and feels the same as the Flash-based version, but now offers new features suck as adjustable playback speed, streamlined audio/video recording, and increased security.

How do I switch over to the new HTML5 version?

You may switch over to the new HTML5 version at any time. To begin, log in to VoiceThread.

Click on your email address on the top right-hand side of the page to open a menu. Select Display Preferences.

In the Player Version section, select HTML5.

Refresh the page. You will now be upgraded to the new HTML5 version of VoiceThread.

Which web browsers are supported?

Chrome and Firefox are fully supported. Please be sure to use the most up-to-date version of the browser for the best experience.

HTML5 audio and video recording is NOT supported on Safari or Edge browsers at this time. You may use Safari or Edge to view a VoiceThread but you will not be record audio or video until the browsers have been updated to support this feature. Internet Explorer (IE) is not supported.

When is the deadline for moving to the HTML5 version?

You may switch over to the new HTML5 version any time between now and December 31, 2017. After that date, VoiceThread will automatically transition everyone to the new HTML5 version.

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Lesley University eLearning and Instructional Support

Author Archives: Danielle Powell