Assignment Upload Error - Update

When faculty or students try to upload an assignment in Blackboard, they may get an error message that says, "Please enter a valid file."

I originally posted about this error on August 12th, but it is affecting so many faculty and students that I am updating this information. This error occurs when using Firefox 3.5 or Chrome browsers. I have heard some reports of it happening with Safari as well.

The solution for now is to use IE 7 or Firefox 3.0. If you already have Firefox 3.5 you will need to uninstall it first. You can then upload Firefox 3.0 from these web pages:

Download for PC

Download for MAC

Please forward this information to any of your colleagues that are using Blackboard, but may not be subscribed to this blog.

If you are getting this blog post for the first time, please subscribe! Just go to the Cuyamaca Online Blog and put your email address in the Email Subscription box.

SafeAssign Comments Not Showing to Students

We have just discovered that when you grade a SafeAssignment and make comments to your students, they cannot view these comments through My Grades. This has been reported to Blackboard and we have two temporary workarounds.

One workaround is to make the SafeAssignment available after you have finished grading. This way students could view the assignment and see your comments. You would need to make sure to enter zero points for those students who haven't turned in their work on time so it would be clear if they tried to submit it late.

Another workaround is to enter the comments in Grade Details by clicking on Modify Attempt. I understand that this would require several extra steps and may not be very feasible.

This is a priority issue for Blackboard and we hope to get a fix for this soon.

Guest Speaker for Online Courses

Here's an offer you can't refuse from Kari Wergeland!

To All Online Instructors

Last semester I “visited” one of Cindy Morrin’s online classes as a guest speaker. This was my first attempt at offering a library instruction session online. To get the ball rolling, I started several threads on the discussion forum about various research (information literacy) topics. Then I appeared throughout the rest of the week to answer questions. Cindy jumped in, from time to time, too.

I would be happy to come in to any of your virtual classrooms to help your students become better researchers. My appearance could be geared toward a specific assignment; or I could go over Cuyamaca’s virtual library; or I could cover various search strategies. Of course, I am always open to your suggestions, as well.

If interested, please contact me at kari.wergeland@gcccd.edu or x4412.

If you take Kari up on her offer, here is how you add her as a Guest Speaker for your course:

1. Go to the Cuyamaca College home page
2. In the Online Services menu, click GCCCD Online Classes
3. Click Support for Faculty in the upper right corner
4. Log in with your email username and password
5. Click on Blackboard Course Containers in the left side menu
6. Click ADD an Instructor/Teacher Aide/Workshop Participant/Guest Speaker/Evaluator to a Blackboard container

Or just click this link and log in, but that won’t help you next time you try to remember where this was!
http://www.gcccd.edu/online/faculty_support/courseware/container-req-step-2-add-2009.htm

Register Now for @ONE Online Courses

@ONE has published their Fall schedule of courses for faculty. Most of them don't start until you've had a chance to settle into the semester, but it's important to sign up now to make sure you reserve your seat.

Here are some classes that you may need to get certified for teaching online:

• Introduction to Online Teaching and Learning
• Introduction to Teaching with Blackboard 9
  (Bb 9 is the new version we may be going to in Spring)
  
• Creating Accessible Online Courses

Optional professional development credit is available from Fresno Pacific University too!

Also, check out their 1-hour Learn at Lunch Desktop Webinars. There will be a webinar on Blackboard version 9 for those already familiar with Bb 8.

Make Old Blackboard Courses Unavailable

This is a reminder that it is important to make your Spring '09 and Summer '09 Blackboard course containers unavailable to students. We've had several calls to the help desk from students that are very confused when they see courses in Blackboard that they're not taking this semester.

To do this:

1. Go to the Control Panel
2. Choose Settings
3. Choose Course Availability
4. Make Course Available: No
5. Submit
   

Start YouTube Videos at a Specific Time in the Movie

I know many of you use YouTube videos in your courses. When playing videos in class or having students view a video online, rather than having it start at the beginning, you may want to have the video start later in the movie. To have a YouTube video start at a specific time in a video follow these steps.

1. Edit the URL you already have for the video.
   
2. Go to the end of the URL and add the time code for the specific time in the video you'd like the viewer to start watching.
   
   For example, if you'd like the viewer to start watching the video at four minutes and fifty-five seconds into the video, you'd add the following time code to the end of the URL: #t=4m55s . The URL with the Deep Link should appear this way:
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLzoikMTaOA#t=04m55s
   

Speaking of YouTube videos for your students, below is one I hope every one of our students sees. If you can find a way to fit it into your curriculum, please do. It very graphically illustrates the dangers of using a phone while driving. Click the image below to play it or view it at http://vodpod.com/watch/2063868-cow-taster-001?pod=godiskatt .

Bb Email Address and Login Instruction Resources

I just want to remind you to tell your students that all email addresses in Blackboard come from the email address they have in WebAdvisor. Here is a website you can link to with instructions that show your students how to make sure they have the correct email address listed in WebAdvisor: http://www.cuyamaca.edu/tlc/bb/docs/webadvisor-email.asp.

You may want to double-check to make sure your email address is listed correctly in WebAdvisor too!

Another website you can link to for your students has login instructions:
http://www.cuyamaca.edu/tlc/bb/docs/blackboard_login.asp

SharePoint Designer is now FREE!

SharePoint Designer is the new program that replaces MS FrontPage at our college. It is used to edit web pages.

For those of you that want to use SharePoint Designer on your home computer, Microsoft has decided to give you the program for free. Just go to http://tinyurl.com/cz22uy and download it.

If you don't have SharePoint Designer on your campus computer, please do not install it yourself. Call the Help Desk at 660-4395 and ask to have it installed.

Assignment Upload Error

When using Firefox 3.5 or Chrome browsers, you or your students may get an error message that says "Please enter a valid file." This only occurs when uploading files in the assignments tool . It does not effect the SafeAssignment tool. The way to get around this error is to use IE 7 or older versions of Firefox to upload assignment files.

This has been reported to Blackboard and we're hoping for a fix soon. This is another reminder that, as fast as browsers are changing these days, it's a good idea to tell students that if they have a problem with Blackboard, to try using a different browser. Blackboard has a list of supported browsers that you can refer them to.

Course Copy Redux

Blackboard tells us that the problem with Course Copy was caused when the Grade Center had more than one Total column in it. So before copying your course, please make sure to remove any extra Total columns that are in your containers. You won't be able to remove the Total column with the green check mark, so remove any others as needed.

If you have problems with Course Copy, you can always recycle the destination container and try again with Export/Import Course.

Hide Courses in Blackboard Video

You may find that there are courses showing on your Blackboard "Welcome Page" that you don't need this semester. Blackboard provides a way to hide or show only the courses you want. I've created a video that shows you how to do this.

How to Create and Share a Pencast

Tim Fahlberg, the creator of Math247, has created this video showing how to make a video of solving a math problem using the LiveScribe pen, JingPro, and a document camera.

Don't Use Course Copy

Okay, I'm eating my words! In spite of all the testing we did to try to make sure that Course Copy was working correctly, I've had two reports today of problems with Course Copy.

So to be safe, I suggest you use Export/Import to copy your courses from previous semesters into your Fall containers. Export/Import has been working just fine, and only takes a couple more steps than Course Copy.

If you already tried a course copy (between Friday and today), please forward the email message you received from Blackboard to me, whether you had an error or not. This way we can get an idea of how widespread the problem is.

Fall Containers Are Ready

Last night all Blackboard course containers for the Fall semester were created. You will be able to see them when you log on. If you don't see courses you're supposed to be teaching, make sure that your chair has listed you as the instructor of record in WebAdvisor. The problems with Course Copy and Recycle Course have been resolved and your preparations for the Fall semester should go smoothly.

A few reminders about the Summer semester while I think of it. Don't forget to make your summer containers unavailable when the class is finished. It's also a good idea to archive your courses periodically, but especially after the semester ends and all grades are turned in.

Oh, and enjoy this great beach weather too!

Force Completion Message Changed

When choosing settings for a quiz or test, we usually recommend that faculty set Force Completion to off, and use a Timer instead so that there is a limited amount of time that the student has to complete the test. You can search my blog for several previous posts about this.

However, this caused one problem. When Force Completion was set to off, a message automatically displayed on the student’s introduction to the test that says, “Force Completion This Test can be saved and resumed later. “ This wording lead students to think they could stop taking the test and come back later, in spite of the time limit. They mistakenly thought the timer would stop when they were gone, however the timer keeps running whether a student is actively taking a test or not.

To remedy this situation, the wording has been changed to "Force Completion Force Completion is off.” That way it just won’t mean anything to the student and they’ll pay attention to the timer notice.

Online Student Experience

Please view this video for a view of what some students experience in an online class.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWPI35WGsTc

An Alternative Way to Turn In Homework

The Chronicle of Higher Education, Wired Campus blog has an interesting article by David Wiley on ways to get the most from your students. One example was to have students turn in their homework in a public blog. Here is an excerpt of the article:

"In 2004 I began asking my students to post their homework on their personal, publicly accessible blogs. (Students who didn’t have a blog before taking a class from me signed up for a blog as one of their first assignments.) By changing their homework assignments from disposable, private conversations between them and me (the way printed or e-mailed assignments work in students’ minds) into public, online statements that became part of a continuing conversation, we realized very real benefits.

The very first semester I began asking students to share their homework this way, a popular e-learning newsletter found and liked one of my students’ essays and pointed its readers to the student’s blog. When the visits and comments from professionals around the world started coming in, students realized that the papers they were writing weren’t just throw-away pieces for class – they were read and discussed by their future peers out in the world. The result was a teacher’s dream — the students’ writing became a little longer, a little more thoughtful, and a little more representative of their actual intellectual abilities. And this benefit came by simply asking students to submit their homework through a different channel. They were already going to write and submit it; I was already going to read it. This was a true two-for-one."

Give the full article a read at: http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/3884/david-wiley-open-teaching-multiplies-the-benefit-but-not-the-effort

If you prefer having students keep private blogs that only you and/or other students in the class can view, that feature will be introduced in Blackboard version 9 which we may be going to for the Spring 2010 semester. More on that later.

Fall Containers Delayed

Blackboard has been working on fixing the problems we are having with Course Copy and Recycle Courses, but they haven't found a solution yet. These two functions must work correctly before you can prepare containers for the Fall. For this reason, course containers for the Fall Semester were not created today as planned. We hope to have a solution by next week.

In the meantime, if you want to get started preparing for the Fall semester, you can request a development container at http://www.gcccd.edu/online/faculty_support/courseware/container-req-step-01.htm. Log in to that site with your email username and password.

Webinar - Utilizing Clickers in Higher Education

For those of you interested in effectively using clicker technology to increase student participation and classroom engagement, there will be a live 60-minute webinar.

"Classroom Response Systems: Utilizing Clickers in Higher Education"
Thursday, August 6, 2009 10:00 - 11:00 AM PT
$199 per phone line (unlimited number can listen)
Hosted by Higher Ed Hero
http://www.HigherEdHero.com/HX/0/2/p2KLXBc/p2RCJXF8i/p0e

Strategies to Promote Academic Integrity in Your Classes

WCET (Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications) has published a document called "Best Practice Strategies to Promote Academic Integrity in Online Education" that lists several recommendations for how to promote academic integrity in your courses. Here are some of their suggestions:

1. State the academic integrity/academic honesty policy within the online learning environment and discuss it early in the course.
   
   
2. Require student engagement with the academic integrity policy. For example:
   
   
   1. Ask students for their input on how to create a community of integrity at the start of the course. This establishes the students as stakeholders in the community and the process of its formation.
   
   
   2. Develop and ask students to commit to a class honor code.
   
   
   3. Require students to read and sign an agreement to the campus academic integrity policy.
   
   
   4. Write a letter to students about integrity and post it in the course.
   
   
   5. Ask students to restate the academic integrity policy (this can also be used as a writing sample to use when grading and reviewing student work).
   
   
   6. Ask students to reflect on the academic integrity policy in the discussion board.
   
   
   7. Include a lesson on avoiding plagiarism.
   
   
3. Have assignments and activities in which appropriate sharing and collaboration is essential to successful completion. Foster a community of integrity by choosing authentic learning tasks that require group cohesiveness and effort. For example, focus assignments on distinctive, individual, and non-duplicative tasks or on what individual students self-identify as their personal learning needs.
   
   
4. Provide students with a course or course lesson on research and/or study skills. Work with library staff to design assignments and prepare materials on plagiarism and research techniques.
   
   
5. Include a statement that the instructor reserves the right to require alternative forms and/or locations of assessments (e.g., proctoring).
   
   
6. Ask students follow-up questions to assignments such as, “expand upon this statement you made,” “tell me why you chose this phrase, description or reference,” and “expand upon the ideas behind this reference.”
   
   
7. Select one or two difficult concepts from the paper and ask the student to restate/rewrite the information.
   
   
8. Require students to share key learning from references for a paper or self-reflection on an assignment in the discussion board.
   
   
9. Include an ethical decision-making case study within the course.