TurningPoint 5 Clicker Updates

TP ConceptAs the Fall semester approaches, we wanted to let you know about several new changes to our Clicker software.

During the summer, we upgraded to TurningPoint 5. With this new version of TurningPoint, Turning Technologies has taken its available clicker software, such as TurningPoint, TurningPoint Anywhere, Results Manager, etc., and combined it into one singular program. Along with this change, some of the common processes you may have used to conduct your clicker sessions have changed slightly or have had their locations changed. Please see our What’s New in TurningPoint 5 wiki page for more details.

With this upgrade, we were also able to implement Clicker integration with D2L. This integration allows students to register their clicker keypad or ResponseWare license through D2L and allows you to retrieve participant lists through D2L as well. For steps on how students register their clickers, please see the TurningPoint 5: Registering Your Clicker wiki page. For steps on how to retrieve a participant list, please see the TurningPoint 5: Retrieving a Participant List wiki page.

Turning Technologies also migrated ResponseWare accounts during the summer, and if you didn’t receive an email with a migration link from them to the email account you used to register, you will need to use the Forgot Password link on their site to get a new link. For more detailed information on this, please visit our ReponseWare Migration blog post.

As a reminder, if you haven’t done so already, please stop by the Learning Technology Center (McGraw, room 120) to swap out your old clicker hardware (receivers, clicker keypads, etc.) for a new kit as soon as possible. The old hardware is NOT compatible with the latest version of TurningPoint.

We still have plenty of kits for the current user group and for several new users if there is interest. To see what the new receiver looks like compared to the old one, see our previous Clicker update blog post.

If you have any questions on TurningPoint 5 or clickers, please contact the Learning Technology Center.

ResponseWare Account Migration

ResponseWare LogoDuring the summer, Turning Technologies updated their ResponseWare service, and because of the change, all ResponseWare accounts need to be migrated over to the new service.

If you’ve previously signed up for a ReponseWare account, you would have received an email from Turning Technologies to the email address you used during the sign up (most likely your UW-W email account). The email will include a link to follow to migrate your ResponseWare account.

If you haven’t received an email from Turning Technologies to migrate your account, you can visit the Account page for ResponseWare and click the Forgot Password link. Do NOT make a new account from this page. Enter in the email address you used to register for a ResponseWare account in the forgot password screen, and you’ll receive a new email with a link to migrate your account.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding the ResponseWare migration, please contact the Learning Technology Center.

Desire2Learn Service Update (7/31)

On Thursday, July 31st, Desire2Learn Inc. deployed Service Pack 7 and 8 to our D2L Learning Environment. In this latest update, the following fixes were included:

Quizzes

  • If Question Library contains thousands of questions, attempting to delete hundreds of questions simultaneously no longer result in an error.
  • Previously, when users paged through the responses to a question that has more responses than other questions, the system remembered the page number they were on, and when they returned to the list of questions to grade a different question with fewer responses, the system brought users to a blank page 1. Now, quizzes correctly display questions and responses.
  • Because the same question cannot be imported into a Question Library more than once, an error page now appears to explain to users why some questions were not imported successfully.
  • The Equation Editor option now opens correctly when users open the HTML Editor in a pop-up window in Question Library and select it.
  • When editing quiz question types, users can now successfully delete answers with empty value fields without encountering an error.

Dropbox

  • Users working in Chrome browsers can now upload files to Dropbox folders successfully.
  • Instructors now remain on the Evaluation page for a user they evaluate after they click Publish, Update, or Revert. Previously, clicking these actions would automatically take instructors to the next student, and often instructors who were not aware of the change assumed their feedback wasn’t saved successfully and mistakenly do the evaluation again for a different student.
  • Dropbox now accepts submissions with file names that contain a period ending. For example, a Microsoft Word document called “MySubmission.” will upload successfully as “MySubmission..docx”.

Content

  • The Content tool no longer automatically adjusts the Due Date or End Date for a module or topic when a user edits a Start Date or Due Date. The date and time associated with a Start Date, Due Date, or End Date will only change if they are explicitly set and saved. A validation message will appear to users when they set an end date to occur before a Due Date. Validation checks to ensure that the Due Date and End Date are after the Start Date still apply.
  • Uploading a file with a name that is identical to an existing topic file now updates the topic successfully and no longer causes the creation of a new topic too.

Import/Export/Copy Components

  • An error no longer occurs when copying a course with Dropbox folders that contain special access.
  • Course files with commas in their names now copy successfully to new courses and an error no longer occurs. For example, a course file with the name “Module1,Reading1” now copies successfully through the “Copy selected components” or “Copy all components” workflow.

Discussions: If you attempt to export User Statistics from the Discussions Statistics/User tab, you will now get Discussion Statistics instead of Forums and Topics.

Grades: Instead of sorting by internal UserId and ignoring “Key Field”, the grades export file now correctly sorts by “Key Field” as set by the user.

Calendar

  • Calendar events that include YouTube videos now display the video correctly when users read the events from the Agenda view.
  • User interface changes were made to the List view’s “Filter By” activity type control. The changes include fixing wrapping issues that caused the control to wrap across three lines, and the “X” icon is now replaced with the words “Clear all filters” to improve usability.

Competencies: Copying courses with a large number of competencies that have associated quizzes no longer results in a timeout.

User Progress: The system table holding user login history was restructured to prevent slowness in login and querying.

If you have any questions or concerns about the service pack updates, please contact UW-W D2L Support.

D2L v10.3 Discussion Tool Changes

The latest upgrade in D2L to version 10.3 included a complete interface overhaul of the Discussions tool. This new interface includes a change to the structure of Discussions and some new features, which are outlined in the video below.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding the Discussions tool or the changes, please contact UW-W D2L Support.