Another busy week comes to its conclusion.
This is a picture of Bubba, the Manager of Guest Relations at the Villa Ganz in Guadalajara. I met him in 2015. I don’t know why but he just seemed fitting for this post.
I got a course site set up for the Department of Accessible Learning (DALS) to experiment with. Mike added some quizzes. I’ve asked what else they’d like added so they can experiment with assistive tech and just get more used to functionality in Blackboard so they can learn what’s possible and figure out what to ask of instructors when someone needs an accommodation.
Albert and I met to prepare for our Kaltura Studios, and I spent some time testing student submissions in BB from Kaltura. I learned that for a Kaltura quiz, Instructors have to add the quiz under ‘assessments’, not just by adding Kaltura media if they want to create a Grade Center column. Also, students have to select ‘Kaltura submission’ instead of ‘Kaltura media’ as their submission for it to work. That makes sense as it will ‘freeze’ that media on submission so it can’t be altered in My Media. I also found out that short answer quiz questions don’t get counted in the mark – only T/F and M/C. It’s not super intuitive to find the student submissions. In conclusion, Kaltura quizzes are probably not the best tool for ‘serious’ testing but can be really useful for flipped learning.
I played assistant on a Kaltura guided tour with Margaret. There were about 12 people and I think it went well. I’m feeling more confident with Kaltura every day and can now demonstrate two ways to use it – through Blackboard and through Media Spaces. I had a little time in the afternoon for catching up on creating resources and doing the things I told people I would do.
Albert and I got through two more Kaltura Studios where we had participants finding and adding YouTube videos and creating quizzes. We’re now planning a hybridized version of our two studios to customize a studio for Student Services.
Friday was a frustrating day. It started with a failed BlueJeans meeting and a couple of tickets without enough information to be able to work with. The instructor got in to Bluejeans (late) but couldn’t hear or get a working microphone. I tried troubleshooting settings to no avail. She logged out and in, no luck. We tried the phone, the meeting ID didn’t work for her and calling her phone resulted in ‘out of service’ for me. I tried email but still haven’t heard from her. Not much else I can do but I’m concerned and will follow up next week.
I got one of the help desk tickets sorted out with Mike’s help. We determined that they weren’t actually looking for Blackboard help but it took a little back and forth to get there. For the other one, the instructor wants me to check out something in a course, but didn’t tell me which course.. and he has a lot of them in the system. Oh well, next week. I listened in on the marketing town hall. We’re obviously focused on supporting faculty so it was a good reminder that there are forces at work to recruit and to re-assure students that fall will be okay. Different, but not a lesser quality experience.
Even planning and recording screencasts got the better of me and Word formatting was particularly uncooperative. At least I was able to get a handout updated. I’ve got a start on recordings. I’m going to have to insert a few slides to be able to show the things I can’t screen cast. I’ve got it figured out and it should work.
Lots of studios next week with varying attendance. More teaching, more learning. Bubba has his eye on things.