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December 9, 2009, 2:00 pm
What’s on your mind?
How’s your semester going?
Do you need advice or feedback about something related to life and work in higher ed?
Do you have advice or feedback to share about something related to life and work in higher ed?
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21 Responses to Open Thread Wednesday!
Nels - December 10, 2009 at 6:00 pm
For me, students email it all to me as an attachment, and when I open it up on my computer, I change the name when I save it to the right file; I don’t care what they call it when they send it to me. I also add “Comments” to each file as I grade them. Then, it’s clear to me which version is the clean one they sent to me and which one has all of my notes and comments in it. That’s the one I attach to the email message I send back to the student.
If they revise it, then I save it with “Revision” at the end. I don’t offer in-line comments for revisions but just a paragraph in the email with their revised grade. All file names start with their last name so all these files are grouped together.
George H. Williams - December 10, 2009 at 6:31 pm
Smart!
Tria Wood - December 10, 2009 at 6:40 pm
As I understand it, exporting from Blackboard puts the entire course (or segments of it that you choose) into a .zip file that you can then save wherever. I don’t know that it goes down to the document level, though I’ll find out soon since I’m required to export and archive all my Blackboard courses by Monday.
Alex Reid - December 10, 2009 at 8:09 pm
In my experience with Blackboard, you will get a zip file and the documents inside will be named with the following convention “assignment_name_student_username_file_type” (e.g. essay_1_jsmith_my_essay.docx).
William Patrick Wend - December 10, 2009 at 8:36 pm
More or less, I go through the same process that Nels does.
Stephen Schellenberg - December 12, 2009 at 10:45 pm
P.S. I’ve explored the general (e.g., “Project Management for Dummies”, which is what you would expect) and some thought-provoking obliques (e.g., “You’re in charge – Now what?” by Neff and Citrin), but am ideally looking for something with an academic/university-flavor. Thanks!
Stephen Schellenberg - December 12, 2009 at 7:24 pm
Could anyone recommend an fanstastical web- or print-resource on “project management” aimed towards pointy-head non-business-school academics? Likely along with many other academics in these economic times, I’m trying to develop a revenue-generating project that requires the involvement of a diversity of folks from across our university. I’ve got the ideas and content, while most of them communicate in “project management” dialect. Appreciate any thoughts. (Hmmm . . . perhaps I should repost this on the next Wednesday open thread.) Regards, s!
Amy Cavender - December 9, 2009 at 2:32 pm
I’d be interested in hearing about that, too. I could chime in with all kinds of things NOT to do, or at least to think about, based on my experiment this semester.
George H. Williams - December 9, 2009 at 2:20 pm
I’d appreciate a detailed explanation of how to achieve a paperless classroom, a step-by-step guide to how to have students submit work (including how to avoid ending up with 40 files named “Essay” because the students didn’t think about giving the file a unique name), how to comment on essays using only digital tools, how to administer online quizzes or exams (is Blackboard really necessary? please say “no”), and whatever other challenges such an approach takes. What kinds of potential glitches should we be on the lookout for if we adopt such a system? Nels and Jason, how do you pull it off?
Jason B. Jones - December 9, 2009 at 3:36 pm
You can do quizzes in Moodle easily enough.
As to the 40-files-named-essay problem, I just spend a certain amount of time talking about naming conventions, and include (or try to remember to) in the assignment instructions what the file should be called.
Not everyone gets it, of course, but enough do to make the situation more tolerable.
Mark Crane - December 9, 2009 at 2:49 pm
I’d use Moodle over Blackboard. Collect your essays from Moodle using the “downthemall” firefox plugin.
Knitting Clio - December 9, 2009 at 3:21 pm
I’m teaching my digital history graduate seminar for the second time next semester. Has anyone out there tried Second Life and if so, what have you used it for in your teaching?
Jason B. Jones - December 9, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Is there an easy way–in Blackboard/Vista–to scrape and download student work from past semesters?
I don’t use it, but our school is going to be purging classes that are 2 or more years old, and some faculty would like to retrieve student work in some way other than clicking on each individual file.
Bill Wilkerson - December 9, 2009 at 4:08 pm
I do the same for file names. It helps, but I am lucky to get over half of my students to comply.
I am heading in the direction of the paperless class, but it is a fair amount of work. I collect papers electronically. Depending on the paper I just write general comments in ANGEL, the Blackboard equiv. we use. For papers needing editing comments, I am using Word’s change tracking tools and it works well. I have yet to have a student who can’t turn in a .doc(x) or .rtf file. Returning them is a pain though as I have to email each student a file. I have replaced some pop quizzes with online quizzes that they only get credit for if they attend the next class. I have done a couple of online exams in non-online classes and they have worked fairly well.
William Patrick Wend - December 9, 2009 at 6:58 pm
(including how to avoid ending up with 40 files named “Essay” because the students didn’t think about giving the file a unique name),
I rename all student work myself. For example, Comp I papers are changed to:
eng101_studentname_paper1.odt
Shelly Maycock - December 9, 2009 at 7:20 pm
I ask them to put their names and the assignment title as their file names. I have them submit in class and remind them right before I ask them to load their files. I take off points on the second assignment after they have been reminded if they do not do it. I put FEEDBACK at the beginning of files I have commented on and GRADED before files I have assigned the final score on.
Angela Doucet Rand - December 9, 2009 at 10:21 pm
twitter.com/allonsdanser
Wondering about what is appropriate for grad student online portfolios? How much and what of good classwork to post there. This has come up in my Instructional Design Technology classes.
George H. Williams - December 10, 2009 at 9:54 am
More details, Jason! Do students email you their assignments, or do you use ~shudder~ Blackboard? How do you do the online reading quizzes you’ve written about before? Do you penalize students if they don’t name the file correctly? I just want to streamline the process as much as possible. Yes, I could rename the files myself, but in a semester when I have 80 students, that just doesn’t seem like the best use of my time…
George H. Williams - December 10, 2009 at 9:55 am
I believe that there is, but (not being a Blackboard user) I would not be able to explain it. I think it involves some kind of “export” function. At least, that’s what one of my colleagues says.
George H. Williams - December 10, 2009 at 9:56 am
Do you mean what to put online of your own work as a grad student?
or
Do you mean what to require your grad students to put online?
Alex Reid - December 10, 2009 at 12:07 pm
I have taught with Second Life, a couple years ago. It seems like interest in SL is getting hot again. I mostly used SL as a way for students to collaborate with other students at a distance, to attend some presentations, and just basically to explore. It was an introductory undergrad course, so that’s quite a different context from what you’re suggesting.
I was teaching an online course as it was, so a major challenge was getting real-time collaboration, especially when I started collaborating with courses from France and Japan simultaneously. Damn time zones!