-: I will start by introducing our D2L training.
D2L, for those who have not yet heard that,
Desire2Learn, is Brightspace's parent company.
We welcome Jackie Nelles
to our virtual workshop this afternoon.
Jackie has been with us, boy,
since beginning of September
and helping us learn the Brightspace interface
and all the features and functionalities of Brightspace.
And today's session is focusing on discussions and groups.
This session will be recorded so that we have
access to it for later viewing.
You are welcome to enter your questions in chat.
We will address as many as we can.
We'll pause along the way
so you don't have to feel like you
have to hold your questions to the end
because we know that sometimes it's best
just to ask as you go.
So we'll wait till we have a little bit of a critical mass
of questions and then we'll ask Jackie to pause
and take some questions.
So as I mentioned,
Jackie is our trainer from Desire2Learn.
She has over 15 years of experience in adult education
working in both higher ed and corporate training.
And so we've been really thankful to have Jackie join us
and guide us through learning Brightspace.
And so Jackie, whenever you are ready.
And you're muted. (laughs)
-: Welcome everyone
to Professional Brightspace Training environment.
It's nice to be here. Thank you Wendy, for the introduction.
I will likely turn off my camera
so that does not distract you,
but very excited to share with you
discussions and groups today.
It is a fantastic feature that allows students
to have a space to have a voice.
We'll talk about that as we go through.
We will be sharing a brief PowerPoint
at the beginning of our session
and then we're just gonna jump right into the environment.
So with that being said, we do encourage you,
as Wendy said, to jump into the environment with us
where you can poke around and try things out
as we go through.
As always, please feel free to ask questions in chat
and Wendy will let me know that you have questions
and she'll stop us or pause us
or I will take a brief pause to ensure
we're answering those.
Because we are recording,
we do have to display our legal disclaimer,
which just means that we ask that you don't share out
any of our recordings to the world.
As exciting as this is,
we are sharing private and confidential information
within your UVM site.
So again, please do not share it out to the world
without someone's permission for that matter.
Please feel free to log into your environment.
This is a webinar, although I'll be talking a lot,
I do encourage you to jump in and try these things out
as you move through.
It always helps to click into things
while we're in training, so we want you to try that.
Our agenda today is discussions and groups.
So setting up the discussions.
What are discussions?
Comparing Blackboard terminology
to Brightspace in discussions.
Although Blackboard and Brightspace are similar
in some fashion, there are some very big differences.
The functionalities are very similar.
It's just a matter of where to find the same resources
and the same functionality in Brightspace
that you may be familiar with in Blackboard.
So I just wanna draw attention to some of the things
that are available and where to find those.
We also wanna talk a little bit about a private discussion
for journaling inside of Brightspace.
You can utilize journaling,
individual messaging between student and instructor
using the discussion tool.
There are many ways in which you can
use discussions in Brightspace.
You can use them for individual activities
as we talked about with this journaling,
but you can also use them for group activities
where groups are just linked to specific forums
and topics to work within
or as a general discussion within your course.
It is a way for students to have their own voice.
It is a two-way communication within the LMS system.
Now we're gonna look at the statistics
inside of Brightspace, in discussions particularly.
Statistics are built inside of the discussions area
inside of a course.
So you don't have to be an administrator
to view how students are faring with the discussion topics
and replies and how much time they're spending
in there doing the work.
With discussions, we look at these
as sort of a social interaction with the class,
unless of course you're just using
discussions for journaling.
So we wanna see, are students replying?
Are they actually active with other students
inside of the course?
So we have these statistics.
Not only can we view the statistics
inside of the discussion tool, but we can also monitor
individual activity in the discussions
using the class progress tool.
Now we can set up groups today as well.
I wanna show you how that works.
Groups can also be used in discussions,
but in assignments or other activities in Brightspace,
but they're built the same way.
So I'll show you how that works.
That's the agenda.
We only have a short hour today, so there's a lot to cover.
One of the things we just wanted to address
as we get started is you are very familiar
with Blackboard and how discussions work in Blackboard.
With Blackboard, it has similar settings
that we do in Brightspace.
So I just wanna talk a little bit to that.
When you build a discussion in Blackboard,
you have similar options.
They're mostly in one or two screens in Blackboard,
whereas in Brightspace they're in different screens,
but the purposes are still very similar.
Some things that are in Blackboard are already
built in Brightspace and vice versa.
It's just really about navigating
and finding these different components.
With Brightspace, we have a hierarchical structure
when it comes to building our discussions.
The hierarchical structure is a way in which
for an instructor to organize how the discussions
are displayed and workable within a course.
So in Brightspace we use this hierarchical structure
and we start with a forum.
From the forum, which is a non-gradable activity,
instructors will then create a topic.
The topic is where all of the gradable activities
can be placed and students will reply to a topic
using a thread.
Once the students reply to a thread,
other students or instructors can reply to the thread
using what we call a reply.
So this hierarchical structure just helps us organize
inside of the Brightspace environment.
In Blackboard, it is a bit different
and, again, some of the features and functionalities
are found differently in Blackboard.
Now they're not identical, we're not perfect,
but it is a very easy way to build discussions
and utilize discussions in your course.
Now as we talked about this hierarchal structure
in Brightspace, we'd start with a forum.
Now a forum is used to organize.
It's like a folder of sorts.
With forums in Brightspace,
you must have a forum to build your topic within.
A forum is equivalent to a folder,
and it contains a collection or just one individual topic.
You can choose how you want this managed within your course.
Once we have our topics in place,
then we can post the discussion topics and each post is
within a topic called a thread.
So as I mentioned with that hierarchical structure.
Now topics are where users post and reply and read.
We can monitor how many students are actually reading posts,
replying to posts, and replying to the threads.
This helps us with our statistics to ensure
that the students are resonating with the discussion topics
and also helps us in grading.
Now, when we look at a difference between Blackboard
and Brightspace, grading is very different in discussions.
So in Blackboard you can set up a grade
for each individual topic or forum,
where in Brightspace it's set up slightly differently
but it can perform in the same manner.
We'll get there I promise.
Now in Brightspace moderating discussions again
is one of those places where students have a voice
and you could break them up where they can talk
to each other in groups with peers,
where you can do single journaling
where it's just a conversation between an instructor
and an individual student.
But it also functions as an assessment tool
where we can evaluate.
Now if you've been with us before in training,
we've talked about the grade book where we can set up
grading items for discussions and you can grade
an individual discussion versus an entire topic.
But in the discussion tool as well,
you can choose the type of assessment you want to use.
So there's a lot of different components
that we're gonna talk about
and we're gonna break it down for you.
One of the reasons we like to use the discussion tool,
apart from what I've already mentioned,
is it really does increase communication and collaboration.
It does provide a space for group work.
So you can assign a topic to a group
and send your students off to work together.
When they work together, we can give them a space
called a locker where they can share documents,
collaborate together on things,
and they can also work outside of that group area.
But you can set it up where the group will submit
as a group inside of Brightspace.
As we mentioned, you can use this in single journaling
and we can track it.
So there's a lot of great components
as to why we use discussions.
When we create discussions, we have to start with a forum,
as I mentioned.
We can set up a forum and we can have one forum
for the entire course, or we can have different forums
for different topic matter
or subject matter within that course.
So you can decide and you can build as you go
or you can build them all at the beginning.
When we build a forum, we can set specific options,
but we can also set individual options per topic.
So just having that forum or folder can categorize
how the topics are within.
And then inside of those topics we can set things
like restrictions, availability.
We can set different grading.
We can set different components for the topics individually
versus the entire forum.
When it comes to availability for discussions,
we have some restrictions that are specific
to the discussion tool.
So we can choose when the discussion will be visible,
when students can submit and when we can restrict
or hide those discussion activities.
This is a bit different than the restrictions you would see
in the quiz tool or assignments tool in Brightspace.
So I just wanted to provide you with a bit of a description
of what some of these availability settings are.
I will show you in the environment,
but just to share with you,
we can also share this PowerPoint with you,
but with discussions,
you can make a discussion available to students
when you start the course right until the end of the course,
or you can make it visible
with access restricted, which means
the topic is visible to the learners
before or after the start or end date,
but they can't access it.
So it's sitting in their content, they know it's there,
they know when it's going to start based on their calendar,
but they can't actually access it.
We can also choose visible with submission restricted
before start or end.
So in this manner it is visible to the learners
before or after; they can access it,
but they cannot post to either the class
or to the instructor until the start date commences.
Finally, we can make it hidden.
So that means they don't see anything until we've decided
which the start date is
and when it disappears with the end date.
So availability is a little bit more specific in discussions
than it is with our assignments or quiz tool.
Now we also wanted to draw attention
to groups in Brightspace and today we're gonna demonstrate
how to build groups and connect those groups
to the discussions.
But you can use groups in other activities in Brightspace.
Just to share with you with the groups tool,
you can have a maximum enrollment of 200 users
in an individual group.
If you have a course with more than 200 users,
then you can create different groups or new group categories
and there's no limit to the number of categories
you have in a course.
So very similar to the discussion
where we need a forum or folder to categorize.
In groups, we build categories to sort of organize
how our users are within those group categories.
Now we also have something called group types
where you can decide what group type
are you going to build for the functions within that tool.
So I just wanted to break some of these down for you
because it can get a little overwhelming.
Now when we have different group types,
the first one we can utilize
is number of groups, no auto enrollment.
In this group type, you can choose how many groups
you want and create which users you want in each group.
No auto enrollment means you the instructor
are going to place the students in a particular group.
If you see no auto enrollment,
it means you are going to organize that
versus auto enrollment when the Brightspace system
will automatically put users into groups
depending on the parameters.
Now we've mentioned this a couple of times,
but single user member specific groups
is when you create a group with a single user,
the group name for the single user
will be their first name and last name,
but this allows for that individual creativity
between instructor and individual learner.
It can be used for journaling.
It can be used for teacher conferences or conversations,
and it's very, very specific to that person
and the instructor.
Now we have some more group types,
so I just wanted to describe these to you.
Groups of number.
This group type creates a minimum number of groups
needed to place users in groups of a specified size.
So more groups can be created as you accommodate more users
coming into your course.
But we would set an extra parameter saying auto enroll,
which means if we need to add groups here
to this particular group type, if we choose auto enroll,
then the system will automatically enroll any new students
coming into the course.
Opposite to that, we have a number of groups,
which is we use this type when you know how many groups
you wanna create, but you want the system
to automatically place them into the group
without having to choose auto-enroll.
So different options for different purposes
within the groups tool.
We also have self-enrollment group types.
Now there are three self-enrollment group types.
I'm displaying two for you.
Groups of numbers self-enrollment, and again,
self-enrollment means that the students are accountable
to self-enroll themselves into a group.
We use these for various purposes.
One purpose may be that students know each other
and want to be in a group with others
that they've already been in a class with
or geological placement.
That would be number of groups self enrollment.
The other one groups of number self enrollment
may be used if you have
a specified maximum size that's automatic.
The nice thing with self enrollment,
we are asking the students to take accountability
to get themselves into a group,
but we can also set a parameter where there's a due date.
So they have to self enroll themselves into a group
by a specific date, and if they don't,
then either the system will enroll them in a group
or we can bump them out.
So again, it's really about accountability
using this group type.
Now again, we can provide you with these descriptions
if you need them.
It is a little overwhelming at first,
but once you get comfortable, it's quite easy.
This now brings us to grading discussions.
Grading discussions in Brightspace is slightly different
than grading discussions in Blackboard.
In Blackboard, you can choose which discussions
are gradable activities, right in the forum screen.
In Brightspace, we set up the grade book
in accordance to the discussions.
We can also choose parameters such as,
do you want to add a rubric to a discussion?
You can also choose a grade item to connect it to,
and you can also choose
how you want to assess individual posts.
In this manner, the system,
if you so choose to select that option,
can grade the students on an individual post,
via highest grade for that post,
lowest grade for that post, average score for that post.
And you can include also within that grading
any unassessed posts that have been added.
So it's a little different to grade discussions,
but you can still have the same result.
Now, another tool that we wanna discuss
is the calendar tool and sort of connecting
your students with the discussions
because if you're doing a group activity
and you have certain parameters
or you're doing discussions where you have timelines,
you can add that timeline to their calendar
to remind them, "Hey, by the way,
you need to connect with this discussion and reply by Sunday
and reply to two other classmates by Wednesday."
So in that manner we can connect the students
to that activity by reminding them
through their calendar events.
And I can show you how to do that as well.
So that's the end of the fun PowerPoint presentation.
Bear with me as I switch screens for a moment.
Any thoughts so far? Just let us know in the chat.
I don't see anything so far.
All right, so again,
I encourage you to jump in and use your course
that you have assigned to you.
I'm going to be using my sandbox,
so I'm just going to go to the course selector
and jump into my JN Train sandbox here.
Now discussions can be found inside of a course,
jumping into this course tools dropdown.
So if you have this on your nav bar,
you can certainly find discussions here.
When we first enter the discussions tool,
we're going to come into this area
where we can choose a number of different parameters.
By default, the first thing we see as an instructor
is the discussions list,
and this will list for you any discussions
that are already built or within your course.
You'll notice in my discussions list, if I scroll down,
I have a couple of different forums.
Now, forums again are a way for us
to categorize the topics within.
I have a forum called general questions,
general questions and answers.
And if I scroll down,
I have another forum called teams and self reflections.
Again, the forums are not the gradable item.
The topics that are within the forums are gradable.
Now with the topic,
I've added some instructions in the topic
and this is what the students will see
and be able to respond to in a thread and a reply.
Typically, when I build a topic,
I will put instructions on how best to reply to this
or what the expectations are for the student.
Now the next item we see here is subscriptions.
This tab inside of the discussion tool
is also seen by the students.
When you select subscriptions,
you can choose to subscribe...
I'm gonna have trouble with this word,
overall, which is when I click this tab,
it'll allow me to choose,
am I subscribing to all forums, all topics,
or all threads only?
Now what I'm subscribing to is an alert,
and that alert will come to me
using the double bubble alert in the mini nav bar.
So if I have subscribed to a particular area
of my discussions and there's activity within that area,
I will receive an orange dot here
above my subscription alert,
and I can click into it to see what alert that pertains to.
This is only one way that I can subscribe.
I can choose how I want to receive my subscriptions,
as we shared with you in the mini bar only,
but I can also send myself an instant notification
or through a summary of activity.
Now a summary of activity is sent
through the notifications tab
when I click on my profile card and go to notifications.
Here I can set whether I wanna receive
a summary of activity for a day or every week.
Now I can also subscribe to each individual reply,
each individual thread,
each individual topic as I need to
and as I progress through my discussions.
I do not have to subscribe to everything.
Also to note we can describe to the students
and inform them on how to subscribe,
but it is their accountability to do so.
Now the next area is group and section restrictions,
which we're going to build shortly,
but we also have the statistics.
Now this is one way to manage and monitor the statistics
of how your discussions are doing within a course.
So when I select onto the statistics tab,
it brings me to this screen for an instructor view.
From here I can review all of the users in my course
and how they're doing with the threads, replies,
how many posts they've read,
how many of them that I need to approve,
and we'll talk about that
and how many I've actually graded
for the individual students.
So scored means it's been graded.
Now, I can also flip to this forums and topics area.
So when I select on the words forums and topics,
it breaks it down, not by student,
but by the individual forums and topics within my course.
This provides me with statistics
in terms of how many threads
is this particular topic receiving?
How many students have replied to the threads,
how many students have pinned this particular topic
to the top of their list?
Again, we can approve anonymous posts,
which is what I'll see here in this unapproved column,
and I can see which of these threads and topics and forums
that need to be graded.
Just like Blackboard,
we can provide students with the option
to rate a post using a five star system.
And in discussions,
we can also allow students to vote up and down
or vote up only.
Voting up and down means that they're going to be able
to push that reply to the top of the list to be seen first.
So in this statistics view,
I can see of any of these topics,
how many students have voted up,
have given them a star rating or voted down.
So this is one way to see how your students are faring with
the forums and topics within your course in discussions.
There is another way through the class progress tool,
which we'll look at later.
Now, before we start to build discussions,
I wanna jump into the group and section area.
We do recommend that you build groups first.
The reason we recommend that is so that you can organize
the groups first before you build your discussions
and then connect the groups to the discussions you build.
You don't have to do it this way,
but it's the easiest workflow that we have found.
So I'm gonna go to course tools and click on groups.
This brings me to the groups tool.
Now, if I don't have course tools or groups on my nav bar,
I can always access it by clicking course admin.
Now here's where we can build the groups
and we mentioned categories in our PowerPoint.
So I can click new category
and start to build a new group category.
Now I would need to give it a name.
So I might say discussion
group work
and naming conventions is completely up to you
as per subject matter, as per topic, as per timeframe.
It's really, again, up to you.
Fix my spelling error
and now I can give this group category a description.
Now a description is not required.
You can share it with the students
or hide it from the students,
but it's really just for you behind the scenes
to manage what this group category entails.
Now, those group types we talked about,
here's where I can add a different group type.
So dependent on the group type I wanna build,
we can just select it and build out that group type.
I'm gonna stick with our first one,
number of groups no auto enrollments,
and that again means that I, the instructor,
will enroll my students manually.
Now I can choose the number of groups
within this group category.
So for fun, I'm just gonna say two
'cause I only actually have two students in this course.
But for larger students, of course,
you can choose different number of groups
and you can always add on to this.
Group prefix is a short name or a nickname of the group
that you want to utilize for this category name.
Again, under advanced properties,
you can choose, am I sharing this category description
and group name with the students in this group?
Finally, from this area,
you can create your discussion or your assignment directly
from your groups tool.
So I can select, set up a group discussion area,
and I can choose something that's already created
within my course, or I can begin to build
a new discussion just from this groups tool.
I can also do the same for assignments.
Now there's another feature here called set up lockers.
Lockers are individual spaces for each group.
So depending on the group type, each group you give,
will receive their own locker to work within.
If you are setting up a locker for an individual student,
they will have their own locker space to work within
and the instructor and the student will be able
to see the contents of that locker.
If you're building a locker for a group as we are,
each group will have access to this locker,
but only the group members and the instructor
will be able to access the documents within.
But lockers are a great space for students
to be able to collaborate together,
share and build folders and add documents.
Wendy: Jackie, this is Wendy.
I have a clarifying question
about lockers and collaboration.
You said that they're able to share files.
Are they able to collaboratively edit?
Jackie: Sorry, I was taking a sip of coffee.
So depending on the configuration variables
and the permissions, yes, they should.
So if I were to put a Word document
inside of the group locker and all permissions were okay,
another student could come and edit.
But again, we'll have to check
with our implementation teams to see
about those permissions and configurations.
Wendy: Great, thank you.
Cheryl asked about a file size limit.
Jackie: I believe it's two gigabytes per file
as if we were putting in content.
So I believe it's the same,
and uploading is the same.
They can drag and drop.
They can use insert stuff if that permission is turned on
for them and they can work within their locker.
So I've now created my group.
I can just review what I've done and click save.
The system because it's a non-auto enroll
is going to create the groups for me
and then I can go in and enroll my students.
So I've created two groups and I've created two lockers
within this discussion group category.
If I need to, I can scroll up to the top of my screen
and add another group.
As my course enrollment grows
or if I didn't build enough groups,
I can always click and add new group.
Again, I get a review,
I can see existing lockers that I've built
and I can click into each of these group titles
to access the locker,
but it's not the only space I can do so.
Now that I've reviewed and created,
I'm gonna click save again.
And from here it brings me to my group discussion category.
You'll notice because it's a non-auto enroll,
I have no members but can see group files.
So if I select in here as the instructor,
I can see the locker for the group.
So they could upload-
Wendy: I'm sorry, Jackie, this is Wendy again.
Before you move on from lockers,
Laura asks the question,
asking if you want to have a whole class collaborate
in Brightspace, is there a way to create a locker
everyone can see?
Or is there a different way?
Jackie: That's a great question.
I've never been asked that question.
We'll have to check with our team.
I don't wanna say yes if the answer is no
and I don't wanna say no if the answer is yes,
if that makes any sense.
Essentially you could create a group category,
create a locker, everybody can share within that space,
but they can also share in the discussions.
So if it's a group discussion,
everyone can sort of share there.
So we'll check. That's a great question, a class locker.
Now once I create a locker,
each individual student has their own locker as well.
What's great about the group locker is as students
are working within their group in their locker,
they could email the group members
so they could have that open conversation.
In terms of permissions, I am a part of a course
that I'm taking in higher education currently,
and we use groups and my professor has turned off
the collaboration or group sharing.
So we have to actually go outside of Brightspace
to be able to collaborate on a document.
So I will check on that for you, but again,
I can upload files, create a new file, create a new folder,
and email the group members within my group.
When we create a group,
it will also provide a group area
so that users don't have to come into the locker
to be able to email their groups or their group members.
They will be able to see that in their course admin
if they have access to that.
Or we may put a groups tab available for students
in the nav bar and when they click on groups,
they'll see the groups in the course and they can access
their own group and email or communicate
with the members in their group only.
So great question.
Alex, TeamSpace, yes,
I believe that's a great space to collaborate.
I don't know if that's why you're mentioning it,
but yeah, TeamSpace is great space to meet.
Go ahead. Yeah, absolutely.
Alex: I'm on two devices,
so I think I'm going to get feedback.
I'll type my answer in the chat.
Jackie: Okay, thanks so much, Alex.
Now when you go into the individual groups,
I'm gonna go back to my groups tool.
I can click on or select an individual group and once I do,
I can enroll users.
I can create a separate description
for this particular group
and I can view who's in this group already.
So if it's an auto enroll or I'm non auto enrolling them
or enrolling them manually, I can view who's already here.
Description is not required,
but you may have a description for students
within the groups.
You are within group one.
Your level of subject matter will be this
or whatever description you require.
When you create groups,
each group has their own code
and that is an identifier for administrators.
Now I can click enroll users
and, again, it would give me a list of all users
for me to manually enroll them,
or I can look to see where Brightspace has enrolled
the students within the groups.
So I can put Jackie Learner in group one.
I can put my demo learner in group two
just to display that.
Now if I have multiple groups within my course
and I come into my course tools groups tool,
I can navigate to the different groups
within the group tool itself.
So I can check between the different groups.
Also for each of the areas,
I will see how many members are in the group
and when I click onto the number one here,
it will display which members are within that group.
If I have groups assigned to assignments and discussions,
it will tell me exactly which assignment or which discussion
this group is assigned to.
Creating a single user journal type of group,
you may go into the groups category
and create a new category.
I'm just gonna call it journal entry.
I would then come to my enrollment type
and go single user member specific group.
When you build groups, you can restrict different groups
so they do not get to do other activities.
So for example, you may have a group category
that is limited to a specific activity
and then you restrict a different group
from entering that activity.
I'm not gonna set up lockers,
so I just chose single user member specific groups.
And for each member in the class,
they will have their own group.
And then each person will be listed in my groups category.
So demo learner is number one,
and Jackie Learner is number one.
If you have 50 students or 200 students,
each one will be listed as an individual group
so that you and that student will only be involved.
Okay, Carolyn. Thank you.
All right, so that's creating groups.
Now I wanna return back to my discussion area
and now I can start to build.
As mentioned, in the discussion area,
we wanna create a new forum and then a topic within.
And, again, we would start with the shiny blue button,
new forum, and click new forum.
With a new forum, again,
you need a forum or folder to put the topics within.
It is non gradable.
It is just a way for you to categorize.
For a forum, I can give it a title.
So I may suggest that this is discussions.
And then I can create a topic that is attached to this forum
with the exact same title.
So you don't have to create a separate title
that is different from the forum title if you choose not to.
My description again is just for me to understand
what this particular forum is about.
It's not required.
You do have full use of your editor if you so choose,
but this is just the forum.
It's not where the work might happen for the students.
Now I can choose options.
When I choose options at the forum level,
this is the highest level of that hierarchal structure.
So what that means is if I choose options for the forum,
all topics within this forum will have the same parameters
I've set at the forum level.
So for example, I can choose allow anonymous posts.
Any topic I place into this forum
will allow for anonymous posts.
I typically don't put any parameters at the forum level.
I wait until I get to the topic level,
which gives me the flexibility to have different topics
in the forum with different parameters.
I can set restrictions to a forum.
So if I come to the top of my screen
and select restrictions,
it does allow me to hide from users
and this just means it's not visible
in the course at all until I make it visible.
I can choose those availability statuses.
Now again, I am building a forum.
So if I choose availability status here
at this level of my structure,
it's going to go across the entire folder or forum.
I can choose restrictions by topic,
which is typically what I prefer to do.
But again, it is available
if you want to restrict the entire forum.
For now, I'm just gonna save and close
or I could save and add topic if I decide.
And now I'm gonna go in and create a new topic.
So I can click new
and this time select new topic.
Now here I can attach it to the forum I've created
or another forum within my course.
So I'm just gonna go and click on discussions.
If I don't have a forum and I wanna jump in
and build a topic, I can create a new forum
after the fact, if I choose, by just selecting new forum.
At this point, I can choose,
is this going to be an open topic
where everybody in the course can work within it
or is this going to be restricted to a group?
I would give a title to my new discussion forum.
So I might say
discussion activity one.
And now I also have a description availability in a topic.
This is where you want to put the actionable steps,
the instructions, what is required,
the expectations within this description.
The reason for that is this is where the students
will be responding to.
So although the discussion description
did not really matter as much in the forum,
it really does matter in the topic area.
So for ease of time,
I'm just gonna copy and paste something
I've already typed up.
And here I'm just adding expectations.
I like to add the expectations in the description
so students are very aware of how this discussion tool works
and what I'm expecting from them.
More so more expectations in the beginning
of starting the discussions.
Once the students are acclimated to it,
it makes it very easy for them to just work within the tool.
Now you can add a topic matter, you can add a video,
you can add more instructions,
you can even go to insert stuff, add something
from OneDrive, my computer, record a video,
my library, embed code.
Students will also have the availability
to add their own videos as well as links
and images if permissions are turned on for them.
So they can get really collaborative here,
very creative, I guess, is the better word
when they respond to these,
but we're not there yet.
Wendy: Jackie, before you leave this screen,
I do have a question about topic type,
but you can just go on with the other options.
Jackie: Oh no, go ahead.
Wendy: Okay, so let's say I have 50 groups
and I want all my groups to answer the same question.
Under topic type, I would choose group.
Everyone can access this topic,
but only students can see the threads from their own group.
Is that right?
That would save me copying a question
in the group discussion?
Jackie: Yes, so if I choose group or section,
everybody in the class can see it.
But when we've assigned a group to it,
so if I say this is gonna go to discussion group work,
I know I have two groups within this group work category.
So those two groups will be separated,
they'll each get the same discussion
as everybody else in the class,
but they'll only be able to see the threads
from the group members.
So no, you do not have to recopy
and recreate two separate groups
and then attach them to the persons or members of the group.
This does it for you.
Wendy: Great, thank you.
That's a much different workflow than Blackboard.
Jackie: I'm not a very good expert on Blackboard,
but that for me is good to know.
So yes, if you have 50 groups within your course
and you've set up that category in your groups tool as such,
once you assign that group category
to this particular discussion topic,
the system will break it into those groups.
And again, students within that group
can collaborate together or talk together
within that discussion,
but they cannot see the rest of the class' threads
or replies with other groups.
So great question.
Now we've set up our groups description.
We've set up with a group and a topic.
Now, for this individual topic, I can choose parameters,
I can allow anonymous posts,
which means that anyone can post
and we will not see the name of that person.
If I choose to use allowing anonymous posts,
I do want to perhaps consider attaching a moderator
to this discussion topic.
A moderator can be a TA.
It can be someone, administrator, it can be an instructor,
but a moderator will review the posts
that have been posted anonymously first
before they go to the class.
Now we utilize anonymous posts more often in peer review,
but it can be used for many things.
We can also choose a user must start a thread
before they can read and reply to others.
So in this manner, even if it's a group,
a student must reply to their instructor
or to the topic first before they can see
what others have posted.
Whether it's a general discussion area
or whether it's a group discussion area,
the student will not see any other details
until they post their own reply.
We typically use this to gather, you know,
the details and the knowledge from the student first
before they can form an opinion
based on others discussion posts.
So it is available. It's a cool thing to utilize.
When we're building our topic here,
this is where we can choose,
do we want this to be a rating scale of one to five,
one being not so great,
one being awesome or fabulous?
And we can choose vote up or down, or vote up only.
Again, vote up and down means that they're pinning it
to the top as per, you know, this is a great post,
I'm gonna push it up to the top.
Now we're not done there yet.
So once we've created our discussion topic,
we can then go to the top of the screen
and select restrictions.
Restrictions allow us to then choose, is it hidden?
When is the availability for this particular discussion?
So I can choose a start date or I can just have
no availability and have it in the course
for the entire length of the course if I choose.
But with the availability a little bit more detailed
than the assignments and quizzes,
I can share that this is visible with access restricted.
So it's in the course, they can see it,
they cannot respond to it,
they cannot click into it and they cannot post to it.
Versus they can go into it, they can see it,
they can work on it,
but they cannot post until the start date.
And finally, you can choose hidden,
so it's completely hidden before the start date.
Now you can have different parameters for the end result,
so you can make it visible
with access restricted after the end.
It's still there.
They can see all of the comments
from the rest of the students, but they can't access it.
Or you can restrict it to the point where they still see it,
but they can't submit for a gradable activity
after the end date.
And you can toggle between these.
You don't have to choose the exact same
for each start date and end date.
You can also even set further parameters
using release conditions
or just use release conditions without dates.
It's really, again, up to you.
Just know that release conditions will outweigh the dates,
meaning if a student does not meet the criteria first
before the end date appears, they will never see it.
So just so you're aware.
But with release conditions, again, they must visit a topic.
You may suggest that they have to post
their own authored topic before they can enter
this particular discussion.
Again, lots of flexibility in how this is displayed.
Finally, assessment, when we go into assessment,
here's where we can start to assess this topic.
Now again, we're at the topic level.
So here, this is where I can be very specific
with how this is going to be graded.
I can choose a grade item, which means in Brightspace,
you could create different items for each topic.
It could be a group topic and you can assess
individual posts, or it could be
an individual topic response.
It is set up a bit differently in Brightspace.
In Blackboard, I know you can choose an item
to be graded and it connects with your grade center,
but in Brightspace, it's a bit different.
So you could create or choose a grade item,
attach that to the grade book.
You could give it a score.
Again, for the individual topic,
you can add a rubric to this topic and you can choose
how is this post for this topic going to be assessed.
So I can select, allow an assessment of individual posts,
and then I can choose the method
of how I'm grading this topic.
If it's a group, I can average the post score,
or if it's an individual
and they're very conversational in discussions,
I can choose a maximum post score,
minimum mode, which is highest on the multiple replies
or lowest on multiple replies.
Or I could choose to assess this by a sum of post scores.
I can also include unassessed posts
in the calculated topic score as zero.
So again, this connects to the grade book
where you have final grade calculation.
Now, you ready? You can save and close.
Oh, I didn't give it a score.
I'm gonna say 20.
I don't have a grade item, so I could choose to create one.
Now you could create a category in your grade book
and have different items for each topic
and connect this topic to the grade item
in the grade book.
You could do it that way.
There's various ways in which you could do that.
I don't have the category yet,
so I'll build one at a later time.
So that's the essentials when you're building
a discussion topic in forum.
So you can see here I have my new forum discussion
and my topic within.
Again, you can create different forums
for different topic matter,
different timeframes, different group activities.
Just a general forum as I have here
where it's an introduce yourself.
I have an availability date with access restricted
after a specific time,
I provide some things that I would like them to consider,
how they could respond, all of the bells and whistles here.
For a student view,
when they come into their discussion feed,
they see what we've allowed them to see.
They would simply click into a topic
and they could start to respond to that.
They could start a new thread,
which means they're going to respond to this topic.
Now they have access to the full HTML editor.
So again, they can add a video, a link,
see if that pops up.
In some circumstances you can use an @ mention,
I'm not sure if it's turned on,
but you would simply do @ and if this was turned on,
I don't think it is, but a name list would pop up
of the students that you have access to within the course.
You can also use this for a word count.
So for example, if you're suggesting that students
must reply with minimal of 250 words,
it does do a word count.
So as I'm typing, it starts to count the words.
It has spell check.
Students have the availability to edit their posts
once they post it to the group or to the class.
They cannot edit anyone else's just their own.
And that's built in.
So I don't have a click of a button
where I can say cannot edit.
It's just built into the discussion tool.
They can pin the thread, which means it's going to
go to the top of their pinned list.
Or if we have allowed that when we built our topic,
they can pin it by vote up or vote down.
And as I mentioned,
they can subscribe to an individual thread,
they can subscribe to a topic.
You'll see the subscribe tab.
They can subscribe to an individual reply.
So maybe they're monitoring or following someone
who's responding to them.
They can add an attachment here.
So if they wanted to add an attachment
as proof of learning or what have you.
And they can also post to another topic
within their discussions.
So I could post to add a topic if I so chose.
And when I'm ready, I can post.
Once they post...
Yeah, go ahead.
Wendy: Oh, there's a lot of chatter
going on, Jackie, in the chat.
Jackie: Uh-oh, I better turn on that.
Wendy: (laughs) A lot about grading,
but before we get into the grading question,
there was a question way back
at 3:17, let me read it, from Jennifer.
Jennifer asks, "How is restricted access different
from restricted submission?"
That one has not been addressed yet.
Jackie: All right, so I'm gonna go to this
introduce yourself and I'm gonna click edit topic.
Again, you can edit the topic at any time as the instructor.
And I'm gonna go to restrictions.
So to clarify, is this what you mean, Jennifer?
If not...
Jennifer: Yes. Yes, that's it.
'Cause I understand.
I guess it's because they're visible in both cases
and I could see how you could see something
and not be able to submit.
But I don't understand what seeing something
and not having access means.
Jackie: So you could see it, it's grayed out,
you cannot click it.
It's there but you can't click it versus you can see it,
you can click it, you can actually do a draft
before you submit.
So I don't know if that helps.
Jennifer: I guess it was the after restrictions.
So down underneath the end date where I was confused,
like I'm wondering if it's possible to have
like a discussion situation that ends
at a particular set date
and have it be that students can no longer engage
in that discussion because it's over,
but they can still go back and read it.
Jackie: Yeah, so that one you would choose
probably the second one here.
Jennifer: Okay.
Jackie: So visible with submission restricted after end,
which means the student can no longer submit any comments
toward that topic, but they will still see it
within the course.
They can still see their group's activities.
They can still see what everybody else had said,
but they can't post to it anymore, it's done.
Jennifer: Okay, and what would visible
with access restricted after end be by contrast?
Jackie: I believe it's the same,
but I don't think they can see
all of the discussion topic replies.
Jennifer: Okay, so we would wanna do that second option
that you've got highlighted right now.
-: Yes. -: Got it. Thank you.
Wendy: And before we jump into the grading questions,
'cause there are a few of them,
there was a comment and a question about that
students have the ability to edit their posts.
It sounds as if that's not an instructor setting.
That is how the tool functions.
That students at any time, and correct me if I misheard,
but students at any time could edit their posts
and if that is true, can faculty see?
Is there some kind of version control?
Can faculty see if the students have edited after posting?
-: I believe in the data hub,
they could pull that type of data,
but that's not an instructor functionality.
For an instructor, I don't know if there's a tool
they could see edits, but they can see activity
such as, you know, how many threads,
how many replies, how many read,
but edit, I'm not quite sure.
Now you can go to the discussions area and go to settings.
Instructors have settings in the settings tab
and students have settings if it's turned on for them
to be able to go into.
So with this settings tab as an instructor
you can display
deleted posts.
Now there's another tool to this where you can restore
a deleted post that you yourself
as an instructor has deleted.
Students cannot delete in discussions.
So I don't know if there's... no, there is not.
So we'll have to check on that.
But students also have the availability
to see settings and those settings mean,
does my original post show with my actual post?
So things like that.
But we'll have to investigate if there is an instructor view
to see who's edited what.
They can only edit their own.
They cannot edit any other discussion.
Oops, I went right outta there. Sorry.
I'm just writing a note.
Wendy: So there are some questions
about grading discussions.
Say if you wanted it to be scored as complete or incomplete
and with no numeric value attached.
And Jennifer asked again,
what if you wanna use the discussion feature
but not have it graded,
just graded up based on whether it's done or not?
So yeah, it's that same complete or incomplete question.
Jackie: So the way the grading and discussions may work,
there are different ways to do this is you can set up inside
of your grade book a category for discussions
and an item or different items.
When you do that, when you set up an item,
so let's say I'm gonna go to manage grades,
I'm in the grade area and I wanna create a discussion item.
So I would create this item in the grade book.
And when I create my discussion under the assessment tab,
I would choose the point value this grade item
or this discussion topic would be in points.
Then I would come to the grade book and I would say,
"Okay, I'm going to make this grade item
for a discussion topic in my course
and I'm just gonna go to numeric and choose that."
Now I can say this is discussion topic one.
Let's just say that I'm going to grade discussion topic one
within my discussion forum.
I could choose this into the discussions category
if I had one, I don't.
I could say, "Okay, in my discussions
when I set up my discussion, I said this was
a maximum points value of let's say 20."
Now as I scroll down,
when I'm building my grade item for this discussion thread
or a topic, I can choose a grade scheme.
I can build a grade scheme that is complete or incomplete,
pass, fail, participate, non participate,
percentage point value, letter, grade,
whatever I choose my scheme to be.
If I choose a scheme such as participate or not participate,
then I build a scale with a point value to that.
It then converts the point value
that the student receives into that scale.
And whatever the result the student received,
they will receive in their book, pass/fail
an incomplete or complete, a letter grade,
depending on how the calculation worked.
Now I know that's extremely broad and very quick,
but when you're managing grading discussions,
you have to use the combination of the grade book
and the discussion tool to set up the specifics
that you're asking for.
It's doable, it's a different workflow
than what you're used to,
but it does allow for that flexibility.
So if I were to save and close this
and go to my enter grades,
I could go to my category or what have you
and it would say, although it's worth 20 points,
it's going to convert to a pass/fail.
So the student would see either the pass/fail,
they would not necessarily see the points.
So Jennifer, I don't know if that answers
your question or not.
Wendy: This is Wendy again.
I had a clarifying question
'cause I thought there was a text when you were setting up
an item in the grades area.
I thought there was an option for text
that you could enter text.
Jackie: In the grade book?
Wendy: Yeah.
Jackie: So there is, there's a feedback area.
If I go to this discussion, part one item,
I can enter grades.
So I'm just going to this discussion and there's an area
where I can add a text response.
Wendy: Yeah, yeah, that's not what I meant, Jackie,
I'm sorry and I don't wanna derail the conversation.
I'll do some digging around.
Jackie: So another way is a rubric with a text response.
You could do that.
And grading discussions is a different area as well.
So with discussions when I'm grading something
or assessing this, so I'm just gonna go here
to this working together,
I would click assess topic, in the assessment screen,
I can just go to a student.
Here is where I can add whatever feedback I need.
So when you're assessing this particular discussion,
you're not going to the grade book
to provide the grade value.
You're going to the assessment screen.
All of the discussions linked to that topic will be listed
here on this screen so you can view all of that activity.
You can add your overall grade here and the point value.
You can add your text feedback here
or grade from the discussion rubric.
And then once you publish,
it will then go to the grade book.
So you don't have to go to the grade book
and manually enter this if you've connected
the discussion to the grades.
So I'm sorry if I confused that,
but assessing and adding feedback
you can do from the discussions
and it connects automatically to the grade book,
and then converts it to the grade value.
Does that help, Wendy?
Is that what you meant? Let me know.
Wendy: I'm muted. I'm sorry.
I had a slightly different question than that,
but we can follow up at another time
'cause I know that we are at time
and I wanted to just to make sure
that no one else had any final questions
before we signed off for the afternoon.
Well, thank you so much, Jackie.
Really appreciate your time.
We covered a lot of ground
and I know that it'll be super helpful
to go back and review this recording
to pick up on some of the pieces
that we might have missed.
So thanks again and thank you all UVM faculty and staff
for showing up this afternoon.
I appreciate your time.