New Clicker (SRS) Receivers

Posted on January 9, 2014 by Susan Degen

In preparation for the upcoming upgrade to TurningPoint 5 during the Summer 2014 semester, the Learning Technology Center has received replacement kits from Turning Technologies that include an updated receiver and a clicker keypad.

Instructors and staff who have been using the TurningPoint Student Response System (SRS) in past years will need to exchange their current hardware (receivers, clicker keypads, etc.) for the new kits. The updated hardware in the kit is compatible with the current versions of TurningPoint and TurningPoint Anywhere that we are using on campus, so there shouldn’t be any issues after switching.

For reference, here is a comparison of the old clicker receiver versus the new receiver:

Please drop by the Learning Technology Center (McGraw, room 120) to swap out your old clicker hardware for a new kit as soon as possible. We have plenty of kits for the current user group and for several new users if there is interest. Any questions or concerns can be directed to the Learning Technology Center via email.

What’s New in D2L Version 10.1

Posted on December 18, 2013 by Susan Degen

Desire2Learn is scheduled for an upgrade to version 10.1. The upgrade outage will start on January 8th, 2014 at 9:30 PM and end on January 9th, 2014 at 10:30 AM (all times CT).

During this upgrade, D2L will NOT be available. This outage and upgrade will greatly affect Winterim courses, so please plan your course work accordingly. It is also suggested that you end any dropboxes, quizzes, or other deadlines a half hour before the outage’s start time (i.e., 9:00 PM CT) if there are items due on that day.

We have a “What’s New” video for instructors that highlights some of the changes that are coming with the upgrade.

Since the Content tool interface has undergone a significant change, we also have a overview video for instructors that covers the changes and how to accomplish most common Content tool tasks.

A “What’s New” wiki page is also available that covers version 10.1 tool changes in more detail, and you can visit that page here: http://geturl.uww.edu/1od

If you have any questions about the D2L upgrade or the updated Content tool, please Contact UW-W D2L Support.

D2L eGrading Process Now Open

Posted on December 9, 2013 by Susan Degen

The D2L eGrading process allows instructors to transfer final grades from their D2L Gradebook to their WINS Grade Roster in a few simple steps. This process is currently open and available for instructors to transfer their semester grades from D2L to WINS.

For more information on how to use this process, please see the following Instructional Resources wiki pages:

We also have a video available to guide you through the first two steps:

If you need additional assistance with your Gradebook or if you have eGrading questions, please contact UW-W D2L Support.

Desire2Learn Upgrade to Version 10.1

Posted on December 3, 2013 by Susan Degen

We’ve received a notice from Learn@UW, and they have confirmed the dates for the upcoming version 10.1 D2L upgrade. The upgrade is scheduled from January 8th, 2014 at 9:30 PM to January 9th, 2014 at 10:30 AM (all times CT). During this upgrade, D2L will NOT be available.

This outage and upgrade will greatly affect Winterim courses, so please plan your course work accordingly. It is also suggested that you end any dropboxes, quizzes, or other deadlines a half hour before the outage’s start time (i.e., 9:00 PM CT) if there are items due on that day.

The major change with this upgrade will be to the Content tool and its interface. We will be posting “What’s New” documents and videos with more details once we get closer to the upgrade window. If you have questions or concerns, please contact UW-W D2L Support.

Desire2Learn Service Update (11/21)

Posted on November 21, 2013 by Susan Degen

This morning, Thursday, November 21st, Desire2Learn Inc. deployed Service Pack 15 and Service Pack 16 to our D2L learning environment.

In addition to the fixed issues listed below, this update includes a hotfix for the intermittent issues we’ve been having with accessing Quizzes. Users should no longer receive Internal Errors when trying to access the Quizzes tool in a D2L course.

ePortfolio: eP items submitted to Dropbox now display correctly when reviewed in Dropbox for org units that have names containing an ampersand “&” character.

Discussions: When a Discussion post contains a quicklink and a notification email is sent for that post, the quicklink now correctly navigates to the linked item.

Quizzes:

Export to CSV now correctly exports unanswered questions.
Students now have a drop-down list for ordering questions instead of manually entering entries into a text box.

Web Framework and HTML Editor:

Embedded Flash content now displays correctly in Chrome and Safari even when the right-click options menu is disabled.
Users can now enter HTML5 elements into the HTML Editor.
YouTube videos embedded through Insert Stuff now use a secure protocol to allow them to work regardless of web server security.
You can now also insert YouTube videos through Insert Stuff using a secure protocol, which allows them to work whether the web server is secure or not.
Users can now refresh a quiz page in any supported browser without causing main action buttons to disappear.
iPad users are now able to submit quizzes if dialogs are set to open as pop-ups.

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

UW System Learning Technology Development Council Showcase 2014

Posted on November 18, 2013 by Renee Pfeifer-Luckett

Call for Proposals Now Open!

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Date: April 10-11, 2014
Location: Virtual Conference, no travel required

The UW System Learning Technology Development Council (LTDC) Showcase 2014 will be held virtually April 10-11, 2014. Faculty, teaching staff and learning technology support staff – please share your innovations!

This virtual conference offers an opportunity for sharing your successes and challenges in teaching with technology – in your face-to-face, online, blended/hybrid, flex, flipped or MOOC. This conference will provide you with the opportunity to virtually connect with other practitioners and requires neither travel expense nor a significant time commitment. Please join us and submit a proposal to present or facilitate!

All presentations will be conducted virtually with technology training and orientation available prior to the conference. The presentations will be approximately 30 minutes in length with 15 min Q&A following. Proposals are sought in the following six general categories:

Innovative Approaches (Hot Topics) – Tell us about how you’re working and teaching. Are mobile applications a part of your learning and knowledge portfolio? How have you taken traditional teaching and enhanced it through an innovative approach? Can you share a successful case study?
Engagement of Students – How are your students connecting with each other and you? What works now or what do you expect might be a future method of engaging students? Can you share a successful case study?
Faculty Development – How are you supporting your faculty? Are you facilitating learning communities? How are you engaging faculty to try new approaches to teaching and learning? Do you have a successful case study to share?
“How To” and Resources – Do you have a skill to share? Have you created a wonderful set of resources for faculty and students? We’re interested in successful case studies; what can you share?
Best Practices – Are you using a particular learning technology (or set of technologies) and know through evaluation that it definitively engages students and promotes learning?
Emerging Topics – Do you have a proposal that doesn’t quite fit into the other topics?

Proposals are due December 31, 2013. Successful proposals will be notified by February 10, 2014. Please visit the following website to submit proposals: http://goo.gl/NaWyWY

Winterim and Spring 2014 D2L Course Requests Now Open

Posted on November 12, 2013 by Susan Degen

Winterim and Spring 2014 D2L course requests are available now through the D2L Course Request application.

As a reminder, course requests for a semester become available on the first day of priority registration for students, and course shells for D2L need to be requested for every semester you plan on using D2L.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact UW-W D2L Support.

Desire2Learn Service Update (10/24)

Posted on October 24, 2013 by Susan Degen

Desire2Learn Logo This morning, Thursday, October 24th, Desire2Learn Inc. deployed Service Pack 14 to our D2L learning environment.

The following fixes were included in the service pack:

Performance improvements were made in the Email address book to make it quicker at selecting recipients and adding them to an email.
Quicklinks in notifications generated by News items now correctly navigate to each quicklink item.

A hotfix was also applied during this update that corrects the issue that was blocking users from adding participants with the “batch file” option. If you’ve previously used this option but were unable to do so during this semester, you should be able to do so now.

Mixed content handling in Firefox and Chrome is still an issue, especially for courses that have links to external resources. We wrote about this previously on our blog, and you can view that post for more information.

As a reminder, the Notifications feature has been enabled starting this semester. This feature allows users to receive notifications on several different tools to either their email or to their phone. For more information, please see our blog post on the Notifications feature.

Also, for interested faculty and staff, the D2L Ignite Regional User Forum is still accepting registrations. For more information on the conference and a link to the registration, please see this blog post.

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

Snackable Series: E-Service Learning

Posted on October 3, 2013 by Elizabeth Simpson

The Learning Technology Center (LTC) is pleased to invite faculty and instructional staff to attend the next free session in the Snackable Series “Solving Teaching Challenges One Byte at a Time.” In the “Snackable Series” sessions, a specific learning technology is spotlighted. The next session will be held October 16th and 17th and focuses on E-service learning.

Service learning is a powerful tool to foster critical thinking, engage your students, and promote civic engagement. E-service learning is a service learning program or project conducted online. This format allows students limited by work obligations and geography to participate. This session will introduce some formats for online service learning, some common partnerships, and the practices of other faculty.

The dates, times, and location for this snackable are as follows:

Wednesday, October 16, 2013: Noon to 1 p.m.
Thursday, October 17, 2013: 11 a.m. to Noon
Location: iCIT Training Center, McGraw 112

If you have any questions regarding the Snackable Series and its sessions, please contact the UW-W Learning Technology Center.

Users Receiving Old D2L Notifications

Posted on October 1, 2013 by Susan Degen

Some users may have received several email notifications from D2L that were related to past courses. Learn@UW has inadvertently triggered notification emails this afternoon (October 1st, 2013) starting at around 3:00 PM for UW-Whitewater users.

The emails can be ignored and shouldn’t affect your courses. However, we apologize that some of you may be receiving many of these emails, especially if you had notification subscriptions set up in your past courses.