TLP Blog

Learn how Rovane Younger of the CSU, Chico Construction Management Department has used Blackboard Vista to assess student learning.

This presentation was given on Wednesday, October 28
Presenter: Rovane Younger
In this TILT session, Rovane Younger details the process his department has gone through to assess student learning using Blackboard Vista. His presentation includes examples of test questions, testing scenarios, setting changes and recommendations, as well as what his department hopes to accomplish in the future.

View the Archive of the Presentation

How you can manage better your Vista!
This presentation was held on Wednesday, September 9
2:00 – 3:00 pm
Presenters: Scott Kodai, CSU, Chico Distributed Learning Manager, and Mark Kauffman, ITC & Vista Integration/Administration

In this TILT session, Scott Kodai and Mark Kauffman explain how the product was developed and show participants how to use it for Vista course management. This CSU, Chico developed tool allows users to: add or remove guest section designers, add or remove community members, add or remove prep areas, reset sections, and hide or show sections.

Watch the archive of this session.
Type your name in the PARTICIPANT window and select Enter.

Twitter Hash Tag for CSU Chico TILT sessions is #CHICOTILT

If you are thinking of personalizing the icons used for files, folders, and other elements in Vista, Icons Etc is a great place to look. Once you find the theme you like, click into the set and save the thumbnail images to your computer. (Creating a folder on the desktop called “Vista Icons” might be a good place to save them.) After you collect the necessary icon, enter your Vista course, and in the Build tab, click the action arrow to the right of the icon to be changed. Select “Customize Link,” “Replace Icon,” and browse for the correct icon saved to your computer.

More about Icons Etc:
Icons Etc offers 107,553 free icons and clipart stock images for web design, application design, graphic design, and many other purposes. Click on the Browse All Tags tab in the menu to browse all of tags in alphabetical order. Go to the top of the sidebar to Browse By Category (Icon Style) or scroll down and Browse Icons & Clipart by Most Tags (In descending order).

Yesterday’s LMS news that Blackboard purchased competitor, Angel, has created much conversation in academic technology circles. Those of us in the Technology and Learning Program have been reading as much as possible to stay informed. We thought we might share with you some of the resources we have found and let you form your own opinions about the recent “merger”.

Inside Higher Ed News

Campus Technology

eSchool News

Michael Feldstein’s Blog

Blackborg on Flickr

Twitter #blackborg Feed

Twitter #bbplusangel Feed

To date, there are over one hundred communities in Vista used by student groups, staff teams, academic departments and organizations that cross all segments of campus. Some highlights:

Provost Flake

• Provost Flake has created a community for the newly established working group of faculty, staff and administrators participating in Framing Meaningful Change at Chico State. This community will function as a hub for group members as they discuss, share and continue their conversations.
• Lori Beth Way is using a community for the Criminal Justice Program students for advising. Read more about this community on the TLP blog: http://blogs.csuchico.edu/tlp/?p=435.
• Esther Larocco of The Center for Bilingual Studies developed a community for use by faculty, Masters students, and Credential students. Esther has used TLP’s lab for training her department’s faculty members and teaching assistants on the wise use of integrating new technologies into their curriculum. ITC Ann Steckel has assisted them by using their community to provide demonstrations and new technology training.

There will be a TILT Session on Vista Communities offered on Thursday, February 19th at 12:30 PM in MLIB 031. For more information, see the TILT page: http://www.csuchico.edu/tlp/tilt.

To get a new community, contact TLP manager, Laura Sederberg, x4326. We hope to get a user group forming soon.

Because the Internet is NOT fool-proof, allow some flexibility in your assessment plans. Here are some helpful ideas that work using Blackboard Vista’s assessment tool.

1. CSU Chico students will automatically be logged out of Vista after 60 minutes of non-activity.
Best Practice: For long assessments, show one question per page so activity is ongoing and allow students to revisit the questions.

2. In order to randomize question delivery, questions must be organized in question SETs.
Best Practice: Organize questions using the set part of the assessment creator first. Then create the quiz criteria and click the randomize question option.

3. Questions cannot be changed by faculty while students are taking the quiz.
Best Practice: Proofread the questions first by taking the test as the “Demo Student.” If an error or edit has been missed, wait until all students have finished the Quiz, make the modification, and update all outdated attempts to rescore. (Not sure how to update all outdated attempts? Call TLP at x6167 for clarification.)

4. Create a practice quiz and/or other low stakes assessment first, before assigning a high stakes exam.
Best Practice: Ask for student feedback on how you use assessments online.

5. The quiz availability period should be at least as long as the quiz duration, if not longer.
Best Practice: Keep the window of availability open for student who may accidentally be logged off while taking an assessment. If availability is closed, then those students cannot log back in to complete the assessment.

6. Include in your directions that students should call STCP immediately if having any trouble with their quiz or connectivity.
Best Practice: There will then be a time-stamped record of their problem for you to verify fact from fiction.

7. Make-up quizzes, and quizzes for students with special needs, can be easily created as a copy of an existing quiz and made available to specific students.
Best Practice: Do not name the test with the time accommodation by using a student name. Each added quiz will get a NEW column in the Vista gradebook and others can view these columns.

8. Online quizzes have just as much a chance for cheating as do face-to-face quizzes.
Best Practice: Students are more likely to cheat on high stakes exams, than low stakes exams. Use online quizzes frequently, in small chunks and for smaller point values. Consider using several quizzes as a cumulative score.

To learn more helpful hints about using Blackboard Vista call TLP and ask for a consultation with one of us! We will be happy to work with you.

CSU, Chico has a goal of making all course syllabi “accessible” this fall, in accordance with the Chancellor’s Office Accessible Technology Initiative (ATI). What does this mean for faculty? If a syllabus is “accessible,” it is in an electronic format such as Word, a Web page, or Acrobat PDF that makes it usable, readable, and even searchable to all students.

TLP offers one-hour workshops called “Make Your Course Syllabus Accessible“. In this workshop, faculty will learn how to create a well-designed syllabus which is more usable and accessible for students with disabilities as well as students of every ability and learning style – and faculty will be able to do the same for all instructional materials they create with the same software.

For more information, see TLP’s Accessibility page which has links to tutorials and even a sample accessible syllabus which faculty may use as a template.

WebCT Campus Edition 4.2, which served as the primary Learning Management System at CSU, Chico until 2006, has been finally retired from service. The migration tool is no longer available to faculty who wish to copy older course content forward into the newer Blackboard Vista system. Special arrangements are necessary to access any student performance information related to grade challenges; contact vista@csuchico.edu for more information.