March 13th Technology Showcase: Get Real with Technology

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The Central Regional Instructional Technology Showcase for Spring 2013 presents “Get Real with Technology” on Wednesday, March 13,2013 at UW-Stevens Point from 8:45AM to 3:15PM. This event includes keynote speaker, Dr. Rovy Branon, from the University of Wisconsin-Extension in Madison, breakout sessions, a panel discussion and final group activity.

Registration is requested by March 9, 2013, and is limited to 80 attendees.

This event is free and includes lunch. Details and registration are available at: http://www.uwsp.edu/infotech/Documents/Faculty%20Services/2013UW-SystemCentralRegionalConference.pdf

2013 OPID Spring Conference Registration Available

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Registration is now open for the 2013 OPID Spring Conference: The Value of Inquiry into Student Learning in the 21st Century being held on April 18th through 19th.

The 2013 OPID Spring Conference will bring together over 200 faculty and staff across many disciplines to demonstrate the UW System’s commitment to excellence in teaching and student learning.   The conference will provide a forum to recognize, acknowledge, and share the expertise of faculty and academic staff who excel at teaching, value learning, and are committed to sharing their experience, knowledge, practice, and scholarship with colleagues.  The intentional relationships among teaching, learning, and making excellence inclusive will be a foundation of this event.

The OPID Spring Conference will feature the following keynote presentations:

  • Learning matters: Reflections on valuing inquiry in Wisconsin (1999-2013) by Tony Ciccone, Professor of French and director of the Center for Instructional and Professional Development (CIPD) at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
  • Stereotype Threat and The Psychology of Achievement Gaps: Causes and Solutions to Student Underperformance by Valerie Purdie-Vaughns, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Columbia University

For more information about the conference at-a-glance, please visit http://www.uwsa.edu/opid/conf/springconf13.htm.  The final program and detailed conference agenda is being created now and will be sent to you via email and posted on OPID’s website.

To register for the conference, please go to: http://www.jotform.com/?formID=30433439588966.  To make hotel reservations for the conference, please call the Concourse directly at 800-356-8293. Please register and make your reservations by March 29th.

If you have any questions about the registration process or the conference in general, please contact at: opid@uwsa.edu

FUSION 2013 – D2L Users’ Conference

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Instructional faculty and staff are invited to register and attend FUSION 2013, Desire2Learn Inc.’s annual users’ conference.

The FUSION conference is attended by individuals in various roles and there are multiple tracks for many presentations that are designed specifically for each role. Sessions are largely classroom style and are presented by attendees as well as Desire2Learn staff. There are also poster sessions, hands-on sessions for attendees to actively participate in learning, focus groups, and in-depth roundtable discussions.

This year’s FUSION is being held in Boston, Massachusetts on July 15th through the 17th. For more information and to register, please visit the Desire2Learn FUSION conference website.

Feb 22nd Keynote: Evidence-Based Approach to Multimedia Learning

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As part of the 2nd Annual Northwest Regional Instructional Technology Showcase, Dr. Richard E. Mayer’s will be giving a presentation titled “What Instructors Should Know about Taking an Evidence-Based Approach to Multimedia Learning”.

Mayer’s presentation will be streamed LIVE tomorrow Friday, February 22, from 9 a.m. to 10, CST. Participants MUST register prior to the presentation.

To register for this event, please take the following steps:

  1. Click on the following link: https://uwstoutevents.webex.com/uwstoutevents/onstage/g.php?t=a&d=665333438
  2. Click “Register” on the left-hand side of the screen.
  3. Enter your “First Name, Last Name, Email Address,” and then “Confirm Email Address.” Click “Submit.”
  4. Read the Confirmation page and click “Done.” You will receive a confirmation email shortly thereafter. Follow the directions in the email to enter the event.
  5. The Event Password is: nwritkey

Please contact Nathan Castillo at castillon@uwstout.edu if you experience difficulties getting into the event.

Did you know about D2L account profiles?

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Did you know you can create a personal profile through the Profile tool in D2L? This feature is a great way to get to know other students that are in your class. Click on your name in the top right corner and then click on “Profile”.  You can enter information about your social networks, contact information, education and work, and personal details such as your birth date, hobbies, favorite things, and download a profile picture.  You can further customize your account be going to the “Account Settings” option.

For any additional questions about D2L visit FAQ for Students or for technical support Contact D2L Support.

 

Summer 2013 D2L Course Requests Open

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Summer 2013 D2L course requests are now available in 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.

Copying Grade Items in D2L

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Currently we are aware of an issue where instructors cannot copy gradebook items and/or categories from any previous course offering using Copy Components.  The workaround is to use Export and Import Components functions instead. Learn@UW is pushing for a fix to have the Copy functionality restored for Gradebook items.

  1. Navigate into the old course that you would like to Export grades from
  2. Click on “Edit Course” and in the course administration page click on “Import/Export/Copy Components“
  3. Check mark “Export Components” then click on “Start“
  4. Check mark “Grades” and you can can either export all of the items or select individual items to export. Then click on “Continue“
  5. Confirm the components to export and then click on “Continue“
  6. Once you see the green check marks then click on “Finish“
  7. Under the Export Summary, click on the blue link that says “Click here to download the export Zip package” and save it to your computer. Click on “Done“
  8. Next, navigate to the new course that you would like to import the Zip package to
  9. Click on “Edit Course” and in the course administration page click on “Import/Export/Copy Components“
  10. Check mark Import Components and “Browse” for the Zip package file. Next Click on “Start”
  11. Once you see the green check marks then click on “Continue“
  12. Select the components from the file you would like to import and then click on “Continue“
  13. Once you see the green check marks then click on “Finish“. Then click on “Done“

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

Desire2Learn Service Update (January 2013)

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On Thursday, January 31st, Desire2Learn Inc. deployed the two latest Service Packs to our D2L learning environment. Unfortunately, along with the deploying the Service Packs, Learn@UW has reported a new issue that affects copying grade items. Instructors cannot copy gradebook items and/or categories from any previous offering of the course using Copy Components. Currently, the workaround is to use Export and Import Components functions instead. Learn@UW is pushing for a fix to have the Copy functionality restored for Gradebook items. However, these Service Packs included several fixes to existing issues with two prominent issues being resolved:

  • ePortfolio: Users no longer encounter an error when they push a presentation to a course. Presentations can be successfully pushed to a course without having to create a Sharing Group.
  • Minibar: Users can now receive and access alerts. Minibar alerts should no longer be blocked by unsubmitted quizzes after a quiz is no longer accessible to a user.

In addition to those fixes, there are several others in various tools as follows:

  • Calendar: Due dates displayed in Calendar for Checklist items no longer display as UTC time. The time now correctly converts and displays in the user’s time zone. Offsetting dates in Calendar now calculates times correctly when the offset spans a daylight savings time shift.The Calendar widget and the Upcoming view in Calendar now only show events for the current day if they are still occurring. Previously, current-day events that ended were still displayed.
  • Classlist: Online status in Classlist now displays correctly across different time zones.
  • Competencies: After copying a Learning Objective with a Manual Rubric activity without receiving errors.
  • Content: Content user progress was not updating when viewing sequenced SCORM 2004 packages. Visits to these topics are now correctly tracked.
  • Dropbox: The notification now correctly displays the number of submissions to the assignment folder in Dropbox. Word wrap is now working correctly for Feedback in Dropbox.
  • ePortfolio: News feed load time is now improved, users with a large amount of shared activities will notice a faster load time.
  • Grades: In a student view, when users click on the calculator icon for a calculated grade item, they can view the results of what grade items were included. They will no longer encounter an error.
  • Homepages: Shared widgets now properly display on new homepages that have been copied via Copy Course Components.
  • HTML Editor: If a custom widget contains a <form> tag it will now be wrapped in an iFrame. This prevents the <form> from getting stripped out of the custom widget.
  • Minibar: When a user has visited 50 courses or more, the course selector now correctly displays the order of the results when sorted by last accessed course.
  • Quizzes/Question Library: If a random section is deleted from a quiz, it will allow users to successfully import questions from that random section back into the quiz. The Quiz Attempt Log now records any changes, saves, and submissions made by the user. Users can now access the Edit and Preview actions from the context menu of a question within a random folder without receiving an error.

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