Tag Archives: assignments

Introducing Bb Annotate!

Posted on by

Later this month we will be upgrading myLesley’s inline grading tool from New Box View to the new and improved Bb Annotate! Bb Annotate will allow you to provide inline grading and feedback to your students’ assignment submissions.

When is the upgrade?

Bb Annotate will be rolling out on Monday, May 25th. There is no expected downtime – myLesley will be up and running the whole time.

What is Bb Annotate? How is this different from the current inline grading tool?

Bb Annotate is more robust than the current inline grading tool, New Box View. Bb Annotate contains many more features, including a sidebar panel, annotation tools (including a highlighter, freehand drawing tools, eraser, image or stamp, text box, shapes, and more) and commenting tools.

For an overview of the available features, watch the Bb Annotate Overview Video.

How will this be different for my students?

Students won’t notice much of a difference. Like the current tool, once you have graded your students’ assignments, they will be able to view, download, and print their annotated files but are not able to add annotations to their submissions. For the best experience, students will need to open their annotated PDFs in a native PDF viewer, such as Adobe Acrobat Reader in order to view annotations.

Which file types are supported?

Like the current inline grading tool, Bb Annotate supports the following file types:

  • Microsoft® Word (DOC, DOCX)
  • Microsoft® PowerPoint®(PPT, PPTX)
  • Microsoft® Excel®(XLS, XLSM, XLSX)
  • OpenOffice® Documents (ODS, ODT, ODP)
  • Digital Images (JPEG, JPG, PNG, TIF, TIFF, TGA, BMP)
  • Medical Images (DICOM, DICM, DCM)
  • PDF
  • PSD
  • RTF
  • TXT
  • WPD

What happens to my students’ old assignments? Do I need to do anything?

You do not need to do anything on your end. All content will be migrated over to Bb Annotate during the upgrade. Your students’ old assignments will be imported over and all of your previous annotations will remain intact.

Does this affect the whole Grade Center?

No. Bb Annotate is only available for student submissions via the Assignments tool. Your Grade Center will not be affected by the upgrade.

How do I learn more?

Online Training

Blackboard is offering free online trainings on May 12th and 14th as part of their ongoing webinar series. Find out more or register for a training: Blackboard Instructor Webinar Training Series.

Documentation

Collect Assignments and Provide Feedback

Posted on by

Collect student assignments and provide feedback online all without cluttering up your inbox.

As you consider your options, check with your students about their access to technology. Do they have access to a computer at home or do they only have a mobile device (tablet or mobile phone)? Do they have fast, reliable internet at home or are they on a slower connection or data plan? This information will help you as you plan for which tools and workflows will work best for your course.

  • Online Discussions: Create and facilitate online discussions using the myLesley Discussion Board. You may use the Discussion Board to replace or enhance classroom discussions in a digital format. The discussion board is also a great tool for peer review. Students can post their work to the discussion and receive feedback from their fellow classmates.
  • Blogs and Journals: Use the myLesley Blogs or Journals tool to have your students create articles or editorial, review their readings or reflect on assignments and progress on coursework. Blogs can be shared with the entire class allowing students to view and comment. Journals are a private space between you and the individual student. It’s a great place for reflection and private feedback from the instructor.
  • Assignments: Use the myLesley Assignment tool to post, collect, and grade papers or other written assignments all within your myLesley course.
  • Presentations: Use VoiceThread to create and collaborate on online presentations. Students can create individual or group presentations to share with class and receive feedback.
  • Tests: Create a test to assess student comprehension. myLesley supports a large number of test formats including multiple choice, essay, short answer, calculated numeric, and more, all which may be taken online. Create a full mid-term exam or a series of smaller knowledge checks to ensure everyone is mastering the content or to discover gaps.

Help and Resources

Online Tutorials 

The IT/eLIS Support Site provides resources and tutorials for all Lesley-supported technology, including myLesley, Kaltura Media, VoiceThread, Collaborate Ultra, Microsoft Teams, and more. Not finding what you’re looking for? Put in a support ticket for more information or to set up a training. 
 
Hoonuit (formerly Atomic Learning) features hundreds of self-paced video tutorials for popular software, online tools, tech integration, and more. Log in to Hoonuit with your myLesley username and password. 

Request a training 

Do you have questions or don’t know where to start? Reach out to eLIS and set up an appointment to learn more. eLIS staff are available to meet with you in person in University Hall, online, or on the phone. 

Updates to the myLesley Inline Grading Tool

Posted on by

New Box View, the inline grading tool for myLesley, has released two new updates: the ability for faculty and students to download the annotated PDFs and the ability for faculty to annotate Excel files (.xls, .xlsx).

To download an annotated PDF, located the graded assignment in the Grade Center (faculty) or the My Grades area (students).

When viewing the graded assignment, go to the right-hand column and click on the chevron next to the submission file.

Screen Shot of submission download options

This will bring up two options. Select Download Original File to download a copy of the original submission (no markups) or select Download Annotated PDF to download a copy of the marked up paper.

Screen Shot of submission download options

Please note that you may need to open the PDF in a PDF reader, such as Acrobat Reader, in order to view the comments.

For more information on grading assignments in myLesley, see Grading myLesley Assignments.

Have questions? Want to set up a training? Email elis@lesley.edu.

Updates to Inline Grading in myLesley (New Box View)

Posted on by

In January 2018, New Box View became the new inline grading tool for grading Assignments in Blackboard. Since its launch Blackboard has been working with Box to continue to add features and improve performance.

Point and Highlight Annotations
To view point-based annotations and highlight-based annotations you only need to hover your mouse over the indicator. Previously, to view comments on point-based annotations you hovered the mouse over the annotation, whereas to view highlight-based annotations you clicked on the highlight. This was causing confusion since the annotations were accessed differently. This new update streamlines the process and eliminates the confusion.

Sticky Annotation Mode
In order to make it easier to add multiple annotations of the same type, New Box View now features a “sticky” mode, which will allow you to quickly and easily add multiple annotations without having to select the annotation type each time.

Coming Soon: Drawing Annotations
New Box View will soon allow you to add freehand drawings and annotations to submitted documents.

Edit 3/28/18: Drawing annotations are now available.

Coming Soon: Downloading Documents with Annotations
Currently, faculty and students are unable to download annotated documents. Blackboard recognizes the significance and importance of this functionality and are working to incorporate this feature. They are hoping to implement this feature in early June when they release version Q2 2018.

Feature Roadmap
Below is the New Box View Feature Roadmap, which details completed updates, updates in development, and updates being designed.
New Box View feature roadmap

More Information
For more information on these improved features, please see Inline Grading and New Box View Update: February 2018.

Edit 3/28/18: See the latest information  at Inline Grading and New Box View Update: March 2018.

For more information on grading in myLesley, including step-by-step instructions, please see Grading myLesley Assignments.

The Journey to Expert Performance: Authentic eLearning Assignments

Posted on by

How can we best support learners in their ability to apply knowledge and skills to complex situations? Moving away from abstract, decontextualized learning that leads to inert knowledge is difficult to transfer to problem-solving situations. A key element that can move learners to a higher level of expertise is a cognitively authentic task. Collaboratively working on complex, authentic tasks can be a key to students’ successful transfer of knowledge and skills to real world contexts.

Cognitive Apprenticeship

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Collins, Brown and Newman (1989) suggested an extension of the traditional apprenticeship model of learning through what they termed the “Cognitive Apprenticeship”. They claimed that traditional apprenticeships have three elements cognitively important for a model of learning:

  1. Leaners have access to models of expertise-in-use against which to refine their understanding of complex skills.
  2. Apprentices often have several masters and have access to a variety of models of expertise leading to an understanding that there may be different ways to carry out a task, and that no one individual embodies all knowledge and expertise.
  3. Learners have the opportunity to observe other learners with varying degrees of skill (p.456)

Authentic e-Learning

authentic task visual

More recently, Herrington, Reeves, and Oliver (2010) have developed a framework based on the idea of cognitive apprenticeship. The elements of the framework can be used as a set of criteria for designing learning experiences:

  1. Provide authentic contexts that reflect the way the knowledge will be used in real life
  2. Provide authentic tasks
  3. Provide access to expert performances and the modeling of processes
  4. Provide multiple roles and perspectives
  5. Support collaborative construction of knowledge
  6. Promote reflection to enable abstractions to be formed
  7. Promote articulation to enable tacit knowledge to be made explicit
  8. Provide coaching and scaffolding by the teacher at critical times
  9. Provide for authentic assessment of learning within the tasks

Authentic learning is very well suited to online learning, but while students may be familiar with technologies of participatory culture, they need guidance in working on collaborative online teams and coaching at critical times during problem-solving.

If you are interested in creating an authentic online or blended task for your online, hybrid or face-to-face teaching, please feel free to contact elis@lesley.edu. Our design staff has expertise in the creation of collaborative online learning and have presented at national conferences on the topic.