-: Welcome to our first training facilitated
by Desire to Learn, which is Brightspace parent company.
I'll be the host Darrell Abney,
I am a learning management system specialist,
transition specialist with the CTL unit,
and I'll be helping out with the transition here at UVM
with to Brightspace.
And so just a few things to touch
on today's session will be recorded
and published to Brightspace implementation website,
which will be a URL will be posted in the chat,
so you can review at any time.
This session is just an overview
of Brightspace features and tools,
we will have follow up sessions to go deeper
into Brightspace next week and all throughout the year,
that URL will be posted in the training page as well.
And then we will use the chat for Q&A,
so please enter your questions in the chat
and then we'll have people monitor the chat
and answer your questions as best as possible.
If we don't have the answers right now,
we will definitely get back to you.
So let me get into introduced in Jackie,
Jackie Neal who will be actually doing the training for us.
So Jackie Neal is a trainer with Brightspace,
she's been working with education for over 15 years,
both in teaching and the corporate training,
and Jackie is certified adult educator
with a degree in Higher Ed Management,
currently studying HR management at McMaster University,
so welcome Jackie.
-: Thank you so much, it's great to be here,
great to have you all with us,
as mentioned we have a great deal to cover today,
so please feel free as Darrell mentioned,
to ask any questions and chat,
we will monitor those and we will get the answer to you,
if we don't today.
But today is just a high level overview
of some of the things that we're going to be covering,
some introduction to the Brightspace environment.
So with that being said, we will be recording,
so we just ask that if you do receive a recording link
that you do not share it out to the world,
not to YouTube or TikTok,
because we will be working within UVMs environment.
And what that entails is of course proprietary
and confidential information,
so we just wanna ensure we're not sharing
that out to the world.
As mentioned my name is Jackie,
so please feel free to ask questions in the chat of myself
and of the UVM team,
and we will be happy to share some
of those answers with you.
Also to let you know, D2L is Desire to Learn,
it's the company, Brightspace is the product.
The goal of D2L and of yourselves
is to ensure that all of our learners
can learn within the D2L and Brightspace environment.
We do invite you to jump into the environment
and work alongside of us during these webinars
and during training sessions.
It is a webinar however,
we do want you to click in, test some things out,
as we talk about them
and share some of the details of how Brightspace works
and the inner workings of the system.
So again, please feel free to jump into your environment,
log in and poke around as we talk.
What we wanna share with you today
is the basic navigation of Brightspace,
we're gonna focus on the elements,
the institutional landing page,
what that means to you,
looking in some of the settings
and profile components of Brightspace.
We're also gonna look at navigation bars inside of a course,
as well as a homepage for the course, the table of contents,
and just share a little bit of an overview
of how you can work with content inside of your course.
So that's a high level overview,
we are together for about an hour today,
and again as Darrell mentioned,
there are several more trainings coming your way very soon.
I will be sharing a short PowerPoint presentation with you
and then we're going to go into the live environment
where we're gonna start to click about.
To let you know,
when we first come into the main landing page,
we call this the institutional homepage for UVM.
This is a common space where all users
will come in for the first time
and see this main institutional homepage.
This is a way for us to share information on a global scale
to all of our UVM users, including admins,
instructors, and students.
It is a welcome page to share that information
and we will talk about the different components
once we're inside of the environment.
There are many profile components
and notifications and setting components
that we'll share with you today,
again as a high level overview on how to personalize
your own institutional areas
and your custom course homepages as well.
Now once we jump into a course,
the homepage looks slightly different,
and that is on purpose,
that is because the course homepage
is more of a functional homepage for our users,
so we wanna ensure that they can easily click into a button
to get to the resources that they need to,
to work within their education and their course materials.
Once we're inside of a course homepage,
I will describe and express how the different components
and buttons work inside of the content,
the content is the basic building block of the course.
So I'll talk about how each of the components work,
and how you can either build from scratch content components
or add stuff that you already have.
Now, today is just a high level overview of the content,
we will dive into this deeper into a later session,
but we just wanted to get you acclimated and start to build.
Now with the content itself,
we have a variety of different tools
that you can build content in.
As I mentioned, we can add things from scratch
and build directly into your course,
or you can add things from outside of Brightspace,
something you've already previously built
and a combination of both.
So on my screen, it's just sort of a demonstration
or a look and see about what we can,
what are the possibilities of building inside
of Brightspace itself.
Now with that being said,
that is the end of our PowerPoint presentation,
so I'm just gonna pop into your environment.
Now as I mentioned,
once we come into the environment, once we first log in,
we land on what we call the institutional homepage.
And from my screen, you can see that at the very top right,
or sorry, the very top left of your screen,
there is an image or logo.
This also serves as a link,
and whenever we click on this link,
it will return us back to this institutional homepage.
Now at the very top, we call this the mini navigation bar,
and this will stay fairly similar
throughout the experience inside of Brightspace.
And again that is on purpose,
that is so our users can navigate to different components
and find notifications and information all the time.
Now we will express the different components
of the mini nav bar in just a moment,
but before we do,
I wanna express some of the different components
on this institutional homepage.
The second area we see in this beautiful green color
is what we call the secondary navigation bar.
Now in this secondary navigation bar,
if you hover over the different words,
these all service links as well,
now because we're on the institutional homepage,
these links are specific to different components
for all to see.
Now also to note,
based on the role that we have in the system,
we may see different links than our learners,
and that is because learners may not have
the same permissions as an instructor.
Now the next area we see is what we call the banner,
now on our homepage, we see this beautiful image,
but once we get into a course homepage,
you may see a different banner for your course homepage,
and that's just personalizing the space.
The next level down that we see
is these areas called my courses and announcements,
and if I scroll down on the institutional homepage,
I may see some other areas such as the calendar
and the Quick Eval.
These are what we call widgets,
and each widget has different purposes.
Now again because we're on the institutional homepage,
we have very specific widgets for our students
and our users to be able to navigate inside
of the Brightspace environment.
Now also to note, as you grow, as you build with UVM,
you will know that some of these widgets may change
on the institution homepage,
as we start to explore different functionalities
and widgets throughout the organization.
Now again, this is the main space
or the institutional homepage,
so when we see announcements here on this page,
it is a global announcement space,
we would typically use this to let the students know
of upcoming events or cancellations
without the entire organization.
You will also find that in a course,
you have an announcement widget,
and that announcement widget is course specific.
Again as we go through some more training sessions,
we'll tell you and show you how to build announcements
for your course specific material.
Now returning back to this navigation situation here,
at the top mini nav bar, we see a box or a grid if you will,
a three by three grid, we call this the course selector.
When we click on the course selector,
a dropdown should appear,
now I'm in currently the system as an administrator,
so I have a very lengthy dropdown, and that's okay.
When you click on the three by three grid
or course selector,
you will see the courses that you are the instructor
or administrator of record for.
This grid is unique to the user's account,
so for a student,
they will only see the courses that they are enrolled in,
they will not have access to anything else
other than where we've placed them in the system.
Also to note, you can click into any one of those courses
and it directly takes you to that course.
To mimic that, we have this my courses widget,
so you may notice this my courses widget
is the exact same as the dropdown that you see
when you click on the my courses three by three grid.
Again, this my courses widget may change in position
as you move and grow on the institutional landing page.
Before we actually jump into a course,
there are some other icons we wanna point out,
this first icon directly links the user
and again it is user specific to the internal email system.
Now the internal email and instant messaging system
is unique to Brightspace,
if we send an email to a student within Brightspace,
they will receive an orange dot just above this envelope.
And that will indicate to the student
that they have a new instant message or email,
now this is limited to internal messaging.
We have the availability to send notifications
outside of Brightspace,
and we'll talk about that as we move through
some of these other components.
Now, when a student clicks on this email
or instant message tab,
if there are messages for the student to see,
they will be listed in a dropdown,
just like we can see in our course selector.
Students will be able to click
into an individual instant messenger email,
and quickly navigate to that space.
Inside of the email for Brightspace,
it looks very similar to Microsoft
and it functions the same,
but again, just to remind you, it is internal.
We do that on purpose for security features of course,
so students cannot forward out
any secure or detailed information outside of Brightspace.
The next icon we see here is what we call
the subscription alert.
Now again, as we move through
and as you learn about Brightspace,
this particular alert is tied to two specific tools
inside of a course.
The first tool is what we call activity feed
and the second tool is called a discussion.
Now if we're utilizing either or both of those tools
in a course, a student will receive an orange dot above here
to let them know that either of those activities
has some things happening.
Now again just like the male icon here,
when we select onto this, a dropdown will appear.
So if we did have any active activity feed
or discussion feeds,
students would be able to click directly into them.
The final alert or icon here is what we call
the updates alert.
Now you'll notice I have an orange dot here
which indicates to me, Jackie,
that I have something happening within my environment.
Now this update alert or icon will let the students know
of any new things that have been graded,
any new activities that they need to pay attention to,
such as new content, or a new announcement
within one of the courses that they're enrolled in.
As you can see, when I click on the bell icon,
it is linked to my account and I can click directly
into either one of these two alerts,
which will take me to that alert directly.
Now this will load with the top five messages or alerts
that are for my account,
and I can load more as I go through,
as students check in to either one of these,
it will come or fall off the list,
so this is kind of like a checklist of sorts.
Now the next area we see is what we call our profile card.
If you're in your account you may notice
that you have your initials beside your name,
when we select onto our name,
we see another dropdown that appears, lots of drop downs.
In this dropdown, we have a lot of functionalities,
the first one is that we can do what we call a role switch.
And what that allows you to do
is switch into the role of a learner,
now this is a role switch that allows you to see
what a learner sees,
it does not allow you to take over their account,
and again, that's for security purposes.
But the benefit of the role switch is so that you can see
and help a learner navigate
if they're missing a tab or a button,
or if they're just having difficulty finding something.
Another great use case for the role switch
is so that they can actually see as you're building material
what the learner might see.
Again just to remind you,
it's not taking over their account,
it's literally just giving you a role switch
to see what that other role can see.
We always note of caution to exit out of that
so that you're not stuck in that role switch,
because you're literally taking over the role.
You would simply click the X
and it brings you back to your own account.
Now again, clicking on your name,
we do have a dropdown,
and from here, you can click on your name
and click on profile,
now this is your profile card,
you do not have capabilities to change profiles
with any other user, just your own.
But again, once you click on your name
and jump into the profile, you can add your own picture,
add a few details for your personal information.
To add a picture, you would simply click on change picture,
and the system will allow you to upload a picture
from your computer screen.
Now it's a drag and drop, so it's not very difficult
as long as you have an image ready to go,
you would simply click the word, my computer,
and again, as I just demonstrated you can drag and drop
your image directly in that box area and click add.
At any time you can change your picture
by clicking change picture or delete the current picture,
but it will not activate until you click save
and close here at the bottom of your screen.
Now you will note once you add your picture,
it should appear beside your name.
When you click on your name again,
the next area of note is notifications.
Now notifications again is specific to your account,
you will not be able to set notifications here
for any of your students.
There are other places where you can
push a notification out,
but again, this notifications tab
is directly linked to your personal account.
When you select on the word notifications,
it brings you to this screen,
the first thing you're going to see is a mini advertisement
for what we call the Pulse App.
Now the Pulse App is a way in which you
and your students could receive information
and actually go and partake in their Brightspace courses,
using an app on their phone or their tablet.
The instructions are here,
but again, students would have to log in
with their credentials to get to the app
and they can take Brightspace on the go if they so choose.
Now back to the notifications area,
when you're here, you could set specific notifications
to be received outside of Brightspace
from this notifications tab.
And what that means is, if you scroll down on this screen,
you can send a summary of activity to an external email,
or instant notifications about different functions
and features inside of Brightspace
to an external email address.
Now you do have the availability
to register your mobile phone,
and you could come to your instant notifications
and just simply select SMS for some of the notifications.
Just to note, even though you're sending out notifications
externally outside of Brightspace,
you will not be able to open and function
in that external address,
you will still have to come in
and log into Brightspace to take any actionable steps.
And again that is a security feature,
but this does allow you to send notifications about
what's happening in Brightspace, outside of Brightspace.
When you're ready to select all of the different things
you wanna receive, you would click save
and the notifications should start coming through.
Now it's not necessary, it is available to you.
The next area we see is account settings.
Now in account settings,
this allows you to set account settings for your account,
again you will not be able to set any account settings
for anyone else other than yourself.
In the account settings,
this is for you to set certain things such as pronouns,
it may allow you to set different font sizes.
For example, if I wanted to change this to huge,
it would only change the font size to huge on my screen,
it will not affect my students screen.
The next thing we can do
is set specific assistive technology features.
Assistive technology is built inside of the tools
in Brightspace,
and what it does is it helps all of our learners
read the screens, see the screens, use close captioning,
see videos, and the like.
Now in the settings, you can set optimal settings,
but most of the assistive technology
is already pre-built in Brightspace.
In our account settings,
you can also set your locale and language and time zone,
and save and close when you're ready.
But again, just to remind you,
it is setting your own account settings,
you cannot set account settings for others.
Now that's the basics of the mini nav bar,
the next navigation bar as mentioned
on the institutional landing page has specific links
that are global to all of the institution.
Once we jump into a course, you will note
that the navigation bar is a bit different,
and that is because it's now course specific.
Again, we do see the widgets
on the institutional landing page,
and these will be different once we jump
into a course as well,
and they will be course specific to the course material.
So with that being said,
I do invite you if you are in your own environment
to come to the course selector
or jump into the my courses widget,
and you may find a course called sandbox course.
Once you click into the course itself,
you may see a few differences.
The first one of note is that the title of the course
will be now in the mini nav bar,
and will also serve as a link,
so you can return to the main homepage of your course
versus the main institutional homepage of UVM.
Now again, you'll notice in this mini nav bar
that the icons will remain the same,
however, the second nav bar has different links to it,
and again these links are core specific.
Now we see different widgets,
so for example, we see the content browser widget,
we see the announcements widget,
and we see a calendar widget,
and again, these are course specific.
So as we move through training,
as you navigate through your courses,
you will find that these are specific to your course,
and we will share with you how to update these
for your students within your course.
Now, the next story we wanna just take you to,
bear with me I'm just gonna check the chat for a moment,
is the content area.
Now again, we will be going over a high level overview
of content within your course,
we will dive a little bit deeper in a later session
where we'll take you through all of the bells
and whistles of content.
Now, to get to many different components within your course,
you can click here in the navigation bar.
I just simply clicked on content,
which takes me again to the building block
of content itself.
But just to note, a few other tabs within this nav bar
in your course homepage is this dropdown course tools,
now I'm just using a practice course for our example today
in your sandbox, you may note,
there are a couple of differences in your nav bar,
and again that's okay.
One of the tools you might come to click on a lot
is this course tools dropdown.
Once we click on that, another dropdown will appear,
and from here, you may find some of the links
to different components within your course.
One of the main ones that we wanna introduce you today
is called course admin,
so you may see on my screen,
I'm just hovering over with my mouse, this course admin tab.
When you click on course admin,
it does bring you to the behind the scenes of your course,
and this is your course material,
so once you click into course admin,
if you do not see a link in your navigation bar,
you may find a link here under course admin.
And again, as UVM builds and grows,
you may find some changes here and there,
but please note that you can always come to the course admin
to jump into any one of the components within your course.
And as always, you can click on the main link,
either the title of the course or the course home link
to bring you back to the course homepage.
Now class list is here, grades are here,
we can always click into any one of these useful links,
and again, as we go through more sessions,
as you start to click around,
you'll learn a little bit more about these functionalities.
We're gonna go back to the content area
and just click on content,
if you're following along in your sandbox,
but you're welcome to just follow along my screen.
And I'm just here to give you a little bit of insight
into the content of your course.
When you first land into content, you may see blank space,
and that is okay because you're just starting out
in your sandbox.
Again, I'm just using a practice course to show you
the end in mind,
what a course will look like with full content inside of it.
Now with content itself, when we first come in,
if you have a big course with lots of topics,
you can always search for the main topic here
in this search area,
the next area we see is called overview.
Now, overview is a space for you to add an overview
or just basic information about what students will see
within this course.
This is one of the spaces that you could add information
to the students about the course itself,
but there are others.
Now, if you did want to add an overview here,
you could simply click on the word overview
and add a welcome message or overview, or description here
of your course,
by clicking into add a welcome message,
overview, or description,
and what happens is it opens up into what we call
the HTML editor.
We will give you a brief description of this
in a few moments when we build some content,
but you could very simply and easily type in
a basic overview by just clicking into this HTML editor
and typing away.
Just as I am typing in a description,
adding an overview is not necessary,
but it is available to you.
And again, there are other places to inform
the students about course information.
If you are satisfied with your basic overview,
you can click update,
but if you decide to wait
and see what other options there are,
I'm just gonna click cancel.
Now the next area we see here in our table of contents area
on the left hand side is bookmarks,
bookmarks allow your students to bookmark
certain components of their course,
and it comes to this area in the bookmark space.
Students can bookmark frequently visited content, topics,
they can bookmark assignments, things like that,
and it just lands here in this bookmark area.
So for example, if I jump to module one
and I go into a topic area,
you'll notice I have at the top right of my screen
a little bookmark.
Once I select the bookmark tab,
it will then go to my bookmarks,
to get to the table of contents,
I can see just below the second nav bar,
what we call breadcrumbs.
At any time I can go back to module one,
or I can go back to my table of contents
using the breadcrumbs.
Now we do ask that you use the breadcrumbs
versus using this back button at the very, very top
of my left hand screen,
because going back in this manner
may actually bump you right out of Brightspace.
So again, we do encourage you to use the breadcrumbs
versus the back button,
and you can always jump back on the nav bar
to get to content again.
Now, you'll notice I have a number one beside my bookmark,
so because I bookmarked that particular document
within my course,
I can always click on bookmarks
and it takes me directly to that page
or that link that I was bookmarking.
As a bookmark grows, the number will increase as well,
just to indicate to the user or students that they have
a lot of things in their favorites list if you will.
Now the next area is what we call course schedule.
The course schedule is inside of the course,
and once we start to build assignments, or quizzes,
or at dates, or due dates,
to certain components in our course,
it automatically links to this course schedule tab.
Now the course schedule, students can always click into
to see what's coming up within the next seven days
under upcoming,
or students can click into the course schedule
and go to what we call a full schedule.
Now we haven't scheduled anything yet
in our practice course, but as you can see,
students would be able to see
a full schedule of upcoming events.
Now the course schedule as mentioned
is specific to the dates that we set
to some of the activities within the course.
If you are not using dates, that's okay
because we have another tool on the course homepage,
if I just click a course home, called the calendar tool.
Now with the calendar tool,
again, as we put dates on assignments and content, quizzes,
it will load to the calendar,
but in the calendar we can also schedule events
for students to see.
Now again, today is a high level overview,
so we will dive a little bit deeper
into how the calendar works in a later session,
but not only can students use the calendar,
which will be seen directly on the homepage,
but they can also click into the course schedule.
Now, this brings us to the table of contents.
The table of contents,
once you click onto the table of contents area or the words,
it actually lists everything in the course,
and you can scroll down to see all
of the different components.
Students typically wouldn't click into the table of contents
all at once,
they would go to what we call our modules.
With the table of contents,
you will see this large number 146,
which just indicates to me and to my users
that there are 146 individual items of content in my course.
Now mine's quite large,
you may not have such a large group of items
for your course, or you may have more
and that's perfectly fine.
It's just a number to indicate those are the items
within the course itself.
Now the next area we see here,
and again in my example, we have modules.
I have a before you start module, module one,
module two, and so forth.
Now with this before you start module,
there are seven items within it,
so of this 146, seven of those are in this
before you start module.
When you click on them before you start module,
it breaks it down into the seven components
within this module itself.
Now we refer to it as a module
but you may refer to it as a unit,
we will share with you how to build a new module or unit
and start to put components inside of that.
Now you'll also notice when I click before you start,
it expands and shows me what's inside of the module itself.
So, let's begin.
When we need to add a module to a course,
it's a very simple process,
now because I'm using this Brightspace resource course
and there are quite a few modules already built,
I would just scroll down to the bottom.
If you are in fact using your sandbox,
you may see at the very bottom of your table of contents
and add a module box.
When you click into that add module box,
this is where you can now start to build topics, modules,
or units for your course content.
So for example, I'm just in this box
and I can add a title of my module,
now I may keep with what's happening within my course,
and I can put module three,
and just follow along a topic matter,
or as mentioned,
you can have a different name and convention as you see fit
for your course material.
Once I've typed in my module topic,
I just click off with my mouse and my new module is built.
Now by default, as you note,
my module stands at the very bottom of my table of contents,
but I can easily move that in a couple of different ways
to where I'd like it to be within my course.
Now as you're building a new sandbox,
as you build your modules, you may not have to move them,
but at any time, there is this two by four grid,
you can just drag and drop it with your mouse
and place it where you feel it's best to go.
Also, you could move it by coming up to the top
of the screen just below the nav bar,
you may see a drop down arrow,
and with that, you see options to move up or move down,
or move to a different space within your course,
so there are different ways to do the exact same thing.
Now that we've built our module,
again to do that, all I have to do is click into these,
add a module, type in my module text,
and move it where I'd like it to go.
At the top center, now we can customize what's in our module
and build some content.
Now, just as we saw with the overview,
we have availability to add information to our module,
for example, I may add a description
just specific to this module,
or I may add dates and restrictions.
If I click into the words, add dates and restrictions,
this allows me to add a start date, a due date,
and an end date.
Now we have to be mindful we're building content here,
so start date allows me to actually connect a date
to this content so that it will only appear on this date
to my students.
This just allows me to sort of layer out
how the material is presented to my students in the course.
Now in Brightspace, just to note,
a start date is the very first date that the students
will actually see this module three content.
A due date in Brightspace is what we call a soft date.
Now a soft date means that I can allot a date
to this module three content.
The students will still have access to this
after this due date, but it will appear to them as overdue
in their course schedule and in their calendar.
An end date is the true last date
that the students will actually have access to this content,
so if I do a lot or assign an end date to this content area,
it just means that that's the last date
the students will be able to see or access module three.
Now this again is an option,
you may not decide to put any start dates,
due dates, or end dates to any of your content,
you may choose to do this to assignments or quizzes
within your course,
or it may be a rolling start course
where dates are just not required.
The next area we see available to this module
that we've just created is something
we call release conditions.
Release conditions allow us to set a specific criteria
to this particular content,
now release conditions are attached to not only content,
but also many of the tools inside of your course,
so you can set specific criteria to different components
of your course material.
Now we will dive deeper into release conditions,
but just to share with you what we mean by this,
let's assume for module three,
I did not want my students to see this module
until I know that they've completed all of module two.
So I would click on this create under release conditions,
and I would suggest, clicking this dropdown,
that my students could not access module three
until I've come down
and they visited all the content topics within module two.
So I would select visit content topic,
and I would select the last topic in module two.
I would then select create,
and with this release condition,
the students must complete everything in module two
before they can actually see module three.
Now release conditions are used outside of start dates
and end dates, but it's another option.
Now that we've called our module three content,
we may have considered start dates, due dates,
and end dates, and release conditions,
we're just gonna click update and we have our module.
At any time, you could edit the properties
of the module three, by just clicking again onto the words,
or clicking into the description to change,
or edit the description.
Now we have our module built,
now we have to consider what sort of content
are we placing inside of the module.
To do that, we can click a couple of buttons,
we have upload/create, existing activities, and bulk edit.
We also have this space, drag and drop files here,
to create and update topics.
Just like we saw when we added our profile picture,
we can drag and drop images and documents into this space.
So for example, if I did have something created
such as my syllabi for this course on my laptop,
I could simply drag and drop it
and place it into this area here.
Something I already have built very simple,
within a matter of seconds,
I can add to my module three content area.
Now, I can also click this upload and create tab
to upload and create components inside of my content area.
Once I click upload and create, I have several options,
again, another dropdown appears.
As we mentioned a couple of times,
we will dive deeper into these components,
but we did wanna get you started.
So when you click on upload and create,
you can also click on upload files
and you have the same availability
to drag and drop something from your computer.
Again, you could click on my computer
and I could add something else to my course,
module three content,
simple drag and drop and click add,
and I've added a new document.
Now, when you are dragging and dropping in this capacity,
you could drag and drop Word documents,
PowerPoint documents, oh gosh, PDFs, there it is,
sorry, I missed that in my head.
Several different types of documents that you could add
to your course material,
when the student is ready, they'll click into this document
and it will open up for them.
Now again, high level overview,
you could also click on upload files
and grab something we call course offering or public files.
Course offering files are already inside of your course,
and they've been placed there by your administrators.
Public files may be something like a student code of conduct
or a logo for UVM.
These take you to another area
within your course content material,
where you can navigate and find a specific document,
and it just brings that document
into your course content material.
Now again, high level overview.
When you click upload/create,
you can also click into this video or audio,
this will allow you to upload a video
or audio using a URL or an embed code,
it also allows you to upload an MP3 or MP4
that you already have within your system,
again, it's a simple drag and drop.
I'm just dragging and dropping an MP3 or MP4
I've already created and adding it to my course material.
It will render the video and let me know when it's ready,
so I'm just gonna click save, no, title.
I'm just gonna call this exciting content and save.
It will display for me what the content is
and this is very exciting stuff, groundbreaking material,
it's just a 13 second MP3 that I was able to drag and drop.
Again, I'm going to use my breadcrumbs at the very top
of my screen, to bring me back to module three,
where I can continue to build.
So as you can see, in a matter of seconds,
we added a couple of documents and a video,
just by clicking upload and create,
or dragging and dropping.
Now another cool tool that we wanna talk about
is create a file.
When we select create a file,
this will allow us to create a file from scratch
and also use a couple of other tools.
Again if you missed it,
I'll just go back inside of my content,
I'm inside of my module three, which we just created,
again, I clicked on upload and create.
Instead of going to upload files or video audio,
I clicked on create a file.
Now this allows me to build what we call an HTML file.
There's a number of different things I can do here,
and again, we will explain all of these details
in a later session,
but we did wanna introduce you to some of the features
of this HTML file.
We could give it a name, I may call this course overview,
again, instead of using that overview
or in combination with that overview
in my course table of contents,
I could create something here.
Now you will note there is a tab here
called hide from users,
what this allows is for me to hide it from my students
so they do not see it in time, ready to share it.
This is a great feature if you're building
and you're not quite sure
you're ready to reveal this content,
it'll allow you to hide it until you're ready.
Now as you can see on the center of my screen,
I have this HTML editor area,
and just like we saw before briefly,
we could very simply and easily just type information
in this area,
I may say welcome to module three,
and just simply type as I would type
in a Microsoft Word document or another type of document.
Now, because we mentioned assistive technology,
this HTML editor is built specifically for helping students
who do require assistive technology.
That may mean that they need a screen reader,
they need close captioning,
they need details or descriptions of information,
so HTML editors have assistive technology tools
already built in.
Although we've typed this in the font is quite small,
so this may not meet our wizzywig or assistive technology,
ADA compliant tools.
Once I've typed everything,
I've highlighted it so that I can now use
this paragraph feature,
which is about headings, and laying out,
formatting and fonting, sizes,
that meet the assistive technology needs.
So, I can build my headline using heading one
and continue to build content
and using different headings or block quotes.
So I can highlight the details
and I can also center it using the center tab here,
I may not want to do this so I could again go back,
center it back and continue to build the material.
Now, also within our Brightspace HTML editor here,
we have some other cool buttons.
We have this tab here called insert stuff,
I know it's formally technical,
but it allows you to do exactly that, insert stuff.
Now just to recall, we are building it in HTML file,
so we're building content within our course.
We can build a file with content already in it.
So for example, if I click insert stuff, just like I could,
I could add a file directly to the HTML file
and just choose a file from my laptop or computer screen
and upload it.
Insert stuff also allows me
to go to course offering a public files,
it can allow me to add a video note.
A video note is where it will record from my webcam
or my phone camera, an instant message up to 30 minutes
that I can add to this file.
We can add something from our media library,
we can insert a link or even an embed code
just to inform the students of this information
that we want to share within our file inside of Brightspace,
so, there is a lot of possibility here.
We also have another tab called Insert Quicklink.
Insert Quicklink is beside the insert stuff,
and what this allows me to do is insert a link
into my HTML via content that I'm building
that directly connects to outside details.
I could connect it to content already in my course,
I could use a link to an external learning tool,
my media library, or third party such as Cengage content,
Gradescope, video assignment, and virtual classroom.
So Insert Quicklink allows me to build upon
stuff I already have or stuff that I want to add
to this particular file.
So in this instance, in my HTML file,
I gave it a title
and now I'm linking the course objectives
to my course overview in my module three.
Now another thing I could do is add an image,
so I can click on this image box
right beside Insert Quicklink,
and I can add an image from my computer screen.
Again, I would click my computer and again,
I would drag and drop that image and click add.
Now, whenever you're adding an image to Brightspace,
again, meeting with our Wang and our ADA
and our assistive technology,
we need to be able to describe or convey what this image is
for students requiring that technology.
So this is an image of a moose with coffee,
now this is just a decorative image,
so I could select this image is decorative
and it will not be picked up or conveyed,
the message will not be conveyed to the users
if it's a decorative image.
But again, whenever we are adding anything such as an image,
the system will ask us to describe that image
for the students.
So just like that,
I've added a course overview, HTML file that has a title,
a link to other material within the course, and an image.
At any time I can select onto the image and make it smaller,
flip it about, crop it, whatever I'd like to,
and I can save and close.
Now if I go back to module three,
I'll show you how it appears,
here's my course overview HTML file,
and this is how it would potentially look to a student.
I could click directly into this link
and it will bring me directly to the course objectives
where I wanted to link my students to.
Now, one final thing we wanted to share with you
before we end today, is this upload to create again,
and again, we're gonna return back to create a file.
When I select create a file,
as you can see, this looks very familiar,
we were just building an HTML file,
this time however,
I'm going to add a title
and I just wanna share with you
what we have called the HTML templates.
So again, I could come down to my HTML editor here
and start typing away, insert stuff,
insert a link and image,
but this time I'm going to go to the select
a document dropdown, when I click on this dropdown,
a popup appears or a dropdown menu,
and these are all templates that you could utilize
to build course material.
Now again, we're just giving you an introduction to this,
we will expand on this at a later time,
but we did wanna share with you this functionality.
Now the title of my file is module introduction,
and I have a template for that,
so I'm just gonna select module introduction
and you'll notice a template loads onto my screen.
Each template is used for a different purpose,
however, they're all editable
and they can all be used in a variety of different forms.
Once I've selected my template,
I can come down and I can as mentioned,
edit any one of the components within the template.
Each template also has a description of how best to use
the template,
so I wanna ensure that I'm removing this intro instructions
and I can add my own material.
For example, I can add another image if I want to,
and make this image pop in this particular template.
Again, clicking on the image, making it smaller,
centering it, all the fun stuff.
Now with this, you could also add a Quicklink,
again, just typing in if I could spell correctly
that would be fantastic, type in some instructions,
add a Quicklink to a quiz,
but the templates are quite versatile
because you can build and add just as you would before,
and then I'll show you what it looks like.
So this is what the template would appear to be
for the students,
and you can see there is an image,
there is our introduction,
there is the link and in this template,
it has some learning objectives.
Now I will have to go back
and add my learning objectives here
to make it more specific to my course,
but that is content in building an HTML editor template.
So, again just to recap, we went into our content area,
we built a new module by simply clicking into add module,
and we typed in the module title.
We moved it about into our course content
where we wanted it to go,
and once inside of our module, we started to build content.
We can add a description, add some dates if needed,
and we can also simply upload files, clicking upload files,
we can drag and drop from our computer.
We can also add video or audio by just dragging and dropping
or copying and pasting a previous existing URL link.
We can create a file by clicking create file
and building our own HTML area or utilizing an HTML template
by clicking on, select a template
and choosing a template that you wanna add.
Again, each template has a different purpose
and each template can be completely customizable
to your needs for your course content.
So that leaves us with a few minutes for any questions
that are popping up,
any thoughts, ideas that we can assist you with
in our final minutes.
Looks like we have some great questions within our chat.
-: Jackie, by the looks of it,
it looks like the questions in the chat were answered
by the UBM team but I do see a question coming now
asking if you can make the text wrap
around an image left or right aligned I think.
-: Can you make text wrap around image?
There is a way to do that,
we don't have the opportunity to share that with you,
but we will certainly send that information out.
I don't know the idiocentrics of that,
but it does have to do within the Brightspace editor.
Yeah, great question.
There's quite a lot of features you can do
within the HTML editor,
we didn't get to them today,
we just wanted to provide you with an overall view
so you can get started in practicing
and testing some things out.
We will go into further detail about more of the tools
you can do within the editor, within the templates,
within the building content.
So, much more to share,
but also much more for you to practice.
Is there a quick button for student view?
I don't think there's a quick button,
but you can certainly again,
click on your name and view as learner,
that's the quickest way you can do that.
A great question, Joseph, thank you.
All right, we have four minutes left,
you're very welcome to take yourself off mute
and ask a question or simply pop it in chat.
Or if there are any comments from our administrators,
let me know.
It is quite quick, yes.
Now again, always remember to exit out of that view
because it can get a bit frustrating
and I will be honest with you.
I've even called IT because I forgot,
and I've said I can't function as an instructor
because it's not letting me click into buttons,
turns out I was in the role switch
and it does not allow me to work as an instructor
in a role switch.
So always remember to exit out of there or check.
Oh yes, I think we have but thanks.
All right, we only have about two minutes left,
so please feel free to ask any questions,
I know we covered quite a bit of information,
it will take you a few minutes just to sort of
get that information marinated,
practice with it in your own sandboxes,
but so much more.
-: Can I ask of a meta kind of question?
-: Of course.
-: How has the transition gone from Blackboard to Brightspace
kind of porting over courses already developed
if you've looked at other universities?
I know many have done it, but just from your experience.
-: Well, once the initial shock wears off
to be quite honest Joseph, it goes very well.
There are some idiocentrics I mean,
we are not perfect for sure,
but once we work around some of those idiocentrics,
it works very nicely.
There's a couple of different ways that we would do this,
we would migrate it in a global spectrum
where the administration will migrate certain courses
from Blackboard or Moodle,
and it does carry over fairly well.
There are a few documents that might not carry over,
and there's also a way where if
with the permission of your administration,
you can import a package from outside of Brightspace.
So we didn't get into that quite so deeply,
but there are ways for you to import an entire zip file
and then it unzips in your course.
We find that it works fairly well
because we understand that you're coming from places
where you spent years creating this beautiful material.
So overall I think once we get through those little
first blips, it works really well.
Yeah, great question.
All right, well, I do appreciate your time,
I know Darrell and the team also appreciates your time
for coming in.
Again, this will be recorded and sent out to your links.
We will be having other sessions moving forward.