Oldie but goodie – scrollbars missing in Blackboard

Let’s set the stage:

You are in your Blackboard grade center in your course.

There are plenty of columns, in fact you are pretty sure there are more than you can see at the moment.  But … there is the vertical scroll bar… and there, I’m pretty sure, is where  the horizontal scroll bar should be, but it is not.

Did I mention that you are on a Mac?  (I am too, no shame there.)

OK – this is a system setting on your Mac.  Go to the Apple menu.

Select “System Preferences…”

Now select General.

and finally, make sure “Show scroll bars:” is set to Always.

 

Using Google Drive for OCR

OCR (Optical Character Recognition) is when a program looks at the image with text, recognises those shapes as in fact being text, and then leaves you with a document that is editable as text.  (or at least matches this text up against the orginal file making it keyword searchable.)

It used to be that if you needed to do this you needed to have an expensive specialized program.  These days, you can do this with your google drive and google docs.

 

For example,

here is a picture of a page in an old dictionary. You may have taken this picture with your phone.

The first thing we want to do is convert it to a pdf.  You can do this in a number of ways, but I do it by choosing to print the file, not to paper, but to a pdf. This looks like this on a Mac (see thet pdf pulldown in the lower left?)

Now I have a pdf.

Note that this page does not have columns.  This freebie method doesn’t handle columns well.  You could still do it, but you would want to slice the image up so that in each picture was just one column, and then put them back together in the final document.

Next you take your pdf, and load it to your google drive:

Select File upload.

browse to your file and select it.

When it is done uploading, select “recent” so the new files are at the top and easy to find.

Now right click  the pdf and choose Open with -> Google Docs.

When you open an image based pdf in google docs, it will automatically runs OCR, giving you a file that look like this:

and now you have an editable document.

Are you fully using echo360?

Lecture Recordings in lecture halls with echo360:

If you are teaching in a classroom that has SB Capture (Echo) installed, and you would like your course recorded, make sure you submit a request  as soon as possible. (You will need to log into your Stony Brook Google Account to access the form). Other classrooms are equipped with echo360 recording devices in them, please contact us to confirm if your classroom has echo360 installed! If you choose to publish recordings to Blackboard, you will need to add your recordings to your course. The option of live streaming to your enrolled students is also available for these facilities. For more information, visit: https://it.stonybrook.edu/services/echo360-lecture-capture

Personal Capture is available if you are not teaching in a room that has Echo installed or you would prefer to record lectures from your personal computer, please know that you can install personal capture and request that recordings are published in Blackboard.  For more information , visit: http://it.stonybrook.edu/help/kb/using-personal-capture

Student Engagement enhances the utility of echo360 captures in the cloud platform. Students can engage with content, peers and instructors using echo360’s ability to take notes, ask questions and place study or confusion markers as they watch the videos.

Every user has their own Library in echo360, where they can upload video and powerpoint content to the cloud to be shared to individual students, small groups, other instructors or their entire class. Login https://echo360.org/ to get started.

Winter Session – a great time for some technology testing

CELT is currently running a winter session pilot with zoom for web conferencing.  If you are an instructor teaching this winter, you should have already received two emails.  One inviting you to use your Zoom account, and one that includes a form asking you some questions about your previous experience with either Adobe Connect or Zoom in an educational setting.

 

Participating in the pilot does not mean you can’t use Adobe Connect.

zoom web sessions can be recorded and have robust analytics.  We received 200 host accounts to use until the 30th of January.  This may lead to another pilot in the spring if it goes well.

This…

and From Turning Technologies

Take advantage of our free webinars!

Most instructors use TurningPoint as a quick and simple way to connect with students and support active learning. However, there is much more to TurningPoint, and you could be missing out.

YOU’RE INVITED

Join us for a free webinar! Our experts will walk you through TurningPoint’s more advanced features so that you can be sure you are getting the most out of our software.

WEBINAR: LEARN ADDITIONAL FEATURES IN TURNINGPOINT
This webinar is perfect for individuals who are using basic multiple-choice questions and want to expand their use of the software. Learn such things as incorporating competitions, demographics, pre/post assessment and much more!
Thursday, December 7th at 2:00 PM EST

WEBINAR: DISCOVER THE BENEFITS OF TURNINGPOINT
Are you interested in learning how TurningPoint can increase engagement and retention? Do you want to turn your current PowerPoints into interactive presentations? Join us for a 60-minute session that will teach you the basics of the software and how to quickly get up and running.
Wednesday, December 13th at 3:00 PM EST

WEBINAR: EFFECTIVE QUESTION WRITING
Find out how to create TurningPoint questions that motivate and stimulate new learning, appropriately measure learning objectives, reinforce fundamental knowledge, sharpen reasoning skills and enhance quality control.
Thursday, December 14th at 2:00 PM EST

REGISTER NOW

From echo360…

We are excited to announce that our support, documentation, and training resource site is now live with a single unified experience in our new Echo360 Resource Center!

The Resource Center was built with our institutions and our users in mind – whether you are an instructor, student or administrator, we’ve got a new and improved experience for you.

Highlights:

  • Improved Portal Login for Administrators
  • Easier-to-Find Content
  • Critical System Status

Check out this quick demo that showcases the exciting highlights.

Screen Shot 2017-11-16 at 12.36.22 PM.png

What this means for you?

We are going to keep the legacy site (help.echo360.org) and the Resource Center running in parallel until the end of January.  Many of our partner institutions have linked content from help.echo360.org to internal help desk or vendor support sites within their institution.  Those links will need to be updated and relinked to the Resource Center.

We look forward to delivering you and your Echo360 user community a better experience.

Sincerely,

Echo360 Academic Partnerships Team

Looks interesting

Open SUNY Summit

I wasn’t approved to attend, but this is generally a great event.

 

 

Missing Clicker Grade? Check this:

I have written about this before, but the clicker looks different, so I thought it was worth going over again.

There are two different ways that a student can use a clicker to send information to the instructor.  The first is the normal use of the clicker in the classroom… the poll response.  When a student uses this, the screen looks like this,

And when the student answers, they get a confirmation that the answer was received, and as long as the poll was given some grade, they may also get points in their blackboard grade book.

The second thing that students can send with their clickers are Messages.  The student enters into this mode by pressing the wrench button on the clicker,

and then sending the message

The student also gets a happy confirmation that this has been sent.. and messages can only be sent when the polls are open. But there are no grades or points associated with this activity, and if they believe they have answered a poll, they will get a zero.

As the instructor, you can check to see if this is happening in your class by opening the TurningPoint 8 software, go to the Manage tab, select a session file and click on Reports.

If you, like me get this error – ignore it

just click ok

and use the pulldown to select the report type Session Log

 

If you see entries that look like:

“Doe, John (8D5678) sent a message to the presenter: D”

You have students that think they are answering polls, but are really sending messages.  If you see things like:

“Doe, John (8D5678) sent a message to the presenter: Can you talk more about Mitosis?”

You have students who are sending messages, thinking you will see them and respond.

If you would like to see messages during class – you can.

You can click on the button as seen above that looks like a comic dialog bubble..  and that brings up a chat area that looks like this:

I hope this helps, and if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to either TLT @ tlt@stonybrook.edu or Turning Technologies at support@turningtechnologies.com

 

Creating, Crafting, Sustainability

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