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Tegrity Utilization for spring 2013

Tegrity Usage Report for the Spring 2013 semester (Jan 13 – May 9, 2013) for all of WSU

• Total viewing time: 18,838 hours 33 minutes and 23 seconds (equals one person dedicated to 785 days of non-stop watching)
• Total times viewed: 61,899 
• Total recording duration: 1,889 hours, 55 minutes, and 59 seconds
  • Total number of recordings: 6,539
  • Total number of Podcast downloads: 665
  • Total number of MP3 downloads: 347
  • Total number of session downloads: 268

For a graph of usage over the last few semesters, see the Weekly and All-time Snapshot Report.

Total usage of Tegrity since Fall 2011:

• Total number of viewers: 5664
• Total views: 181,686
• Total duration of views: 43,325 hours, 39 minutes, and 40 seconds
• Total recordings: 22,034

WSU Angel LMS Metrics Spring 2013 semester

Here are the numbers for Angel LMS this past spring semester at a glance. If you’re interested in more detailed reports, see references below to the attached reports.

Angel during the spring semester (Jan 13 – May 9, 2013)

• 3,872,372 visits (see LMS Audience Overview)
• 39,092,262 page views
• Angel usage graphically represented for one semester by week:
• 

• 10.10 average pages per visit
• 07:56 Minutes average visit duration (see LMS Audience Overview)
• Accessed from 137 countries or Locations (see LMS Locations)
• Accessed from 37 browsers (see LMS Browsers 2013)
  Top 10 browsers:
  
  
• Accessed from 18 Operating Systems (see LMS OS report)
  • LMS Screen Resolutions report
  • LMS Screen colors report
  • LMS Flash Version report
• Top 5 Internet Providers or Networks from which Angel is accessed
  (see LMS Network 2013)
  

• 6.19% or 239,650 visits were from a mobile device (including tablet), see (LMS Mobile Devices).
  Top Ten Mobile Devices:
• See also:
  • LMS Mobile Service Provider report
  • LMS Mobile OS report
  • LMS Device branding report

How to embed a tegrity recording inside a page

If you wish to embed a Tegrity recording inside your Angel course, follow these steps.

1. Navigate to your recording. You can get there either by directly logging into Tegrity, or by going into your Angel course, and then under your course home page, there should be the Tegrity icon. Click on it to go to your Tegrity recordings, and find the recording you wish to post, and put a checkmark in the box next to your recording title, see screenshot below.
   

   Finding the Tegrity video embed link

2. In the next Pop-up window, you will see one link. Un check the anonymous check box, and you will now see an embed link (see below). This does mean that now the video link can be shared publicly if you or someone with the link decided to do so. Click your cursor inside the embed link box, which will highlight the link. Now either do a Ctrl-C to copy with your keyboard shortcut, or right-click the mouse over the highlighted link, to copy the link. You can now paste this link inside Angel.
   

   Copy embed link

3. Go to Lessons within the course.
4. Click on Add Content, and select the “Page” content item.
5. Give it a good title, and then select the source icon on the formatting bar, see below.
   

   source code button

6. In the Page text window below this icon, paste the code you just copied from the Tegrity page, it should look something like this:
   
   <script type=”text/javascript” src=”https://tegr.it/y/zzfb”></script&gt;
7. Click Save. You should now see the Tegrity recording show inside the Angel page, with a “Full Screen” option if need be.

Posting a link, such as Youtube video into Angel

There are several ways you add external links, such as a link to a youtube video to your Angel course. Either add a link in your content, or embed the video directly into your page.

The advantage of embedding, is that you keep the student in your course, they watch the video right in the page, and are not distracted by surrounding youtube advertizing or other links. If the video is embedded, the students don’t leave Angel, and they don’t have to look at advertisements surrounding the video on the Youtube site.Here are the directions for both methods:

First method, adding a link:

1. Find the link, highlight it with your cursor, and then copy it from the address bar, see screenshot below (keyboard shortcut Ctrl-C).
   

   Copy YouTube link in browser address bar

2. Go to Lessons within the course.
3. Click on Add Content, and select the “Page” content item

• Paste the link and hit enter, so it becomes a clickable link, example:
  You can paste the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zah7Qttpm2w
• Or type the text that will become the link, and then click on the hyperlink icon, as shown in the screenshot below, to paste the link into. This is an example of hyper-linking text, which looks a bit cleaner.
  

  Make hyper link, or embed video

Second Method, Embedding the Youtube video directly into Angel

• Click the “G” icon (see second arrow in screenshot above) where you want to embed the video, and then paste the last part of the youtube link, into the search box, so in this example case that would be this text string, for example: vN5KV2LUDLY and click save. You will then see the embedded video as shown in the following screenshot.
  

  example of embedded video clip

• Alternately, you can type the exact words that helped you find the Youtube link, or the last unique part of the link in the search field, and retrieve the video that way.

How to record and retrieve a Blackboard Collaborate Session

Once you have created a virtual room with Collaborate, you can now enter the session.

1. Click on the link that has the name of your session under the communicate tab.
   

   Click on your session name to initiate Collaborate

2. This will launch Blackboard Collaborate, click OK, as shown below, to allow the Java Start Web Launcher.
   

   Collaborate Java Start Dialog window

3. Depending on whether you have ever used Collaborate before, it could take a minute to load the Collaborate window. When everything is loaded, you should see a window like the one shown below. Note you can maximize the window, and you can click the Start button to initiate the recording of your session.
   

   Collaborate window

4. If you want a student to make the recording, you’ll either have to give the student moderator privileges in Collaborate, or you would need to request to have their account upgraded to instructor or TA with instructor privileges (the grade book can be removed from that student, if that is what you wanted.)
5. To pause or stop the recording, click the recording button, as shown below:
   

   Stop or pause the recording

6. When everyone leaves this session, Collaborate will create the recording, and post it in the communicate area, under recordings, the same place where you go to enter the open forum (duration of posting the recording varies, depending on how long the session was). If you wish to view a past recording, click on recordings, and put the correct date range in there. So in this case, just make sure the “From” field has a date and time that is before you started the recording, see below:
   

   Access the recordings

   Now, all you do is click on the recording to open up the recording

More information about Blackboard Collaborate, both for instructors, moderators, and participants:

http://www.elluminate.com/Services/Training/?id=70

How to start a Blackboard Collaborate session from Angel

If you would like to start collaborating remotely, whether this is creating a virtual classroom, or hosting and participating in a virtual meeting, you can do so with Blackboard Collaborate. This tool will allow you to utilize video,  audio, text chat, whiteboard sharing, show a presentation, do a virtual tour, or allow screen sharing with students or colleagues. The Collaborate web conferencing application is easy to set up from within any of your Angel course sites. You can also record a session for those who can’t make it, or for use in future classes.

View these demos to learn more about Blackboard Collaborate.

Most users of Collaborate would like to meet multiple times during the semester, or the year using Collaborate, so it is easiest to create a session for the duration of a semester, or even the entire year. When you want to record, Collaborate will only record the session, and will stop recording when no one is logged into the virtual room.

1. To create a virtual room in your Angel course, first log into one of your Angel courses where you wish to create the virtual room, and click on the Communicate tab. You will see the, “Collaborate Live” nugget likely a ways down the page. Hover your mouse over this box, until you see a pencil icon, click the icon to create a new session. (see screenshot below, click on image to enlarge)
   

   Creating a new Collaborate session

2. On the next screen, click, “Add Session” to create a new session.
   

   Add Session

3. Add a descriptive title that will become the link, and then make sure you add three hours as Angel creates this session in Eastern time. So if your session starts right away, make sure it has 3 hours added to it for the starting time. You can leave the “Never Repeats” setting.
   

   Compensate for Eastern timezone

4. You can now add any other session settings from the other tabs in this menu, such as how many simultaneous talkers (leave at 1 or two if you don’t want too much confusion in the audio). You can always change some of these attributes while in session, but this can be helpful if for example, you wish everyone to be a moderator in each session. By making it a default, everyone automatically is given the permissions to use whiteboard, chat, video etc.
   

   Add session attributes

5. Once you’ve created the session, they will show up in the Session Editor as shown below. You can click on the Edit button to make further changes, or you can click on the session name to open the session.
   

   Session edit area

6. You can now click on “Exit Session Editor” to go back to the main communicate area in your Angel course. The newly created session should be showing if you made it start that same day. If it is on a future date, you can adust the date fields, and click on “Go” to display the event or room, see example below.
   

   Change the dates

Using Agents

Many instructors spend a significant chunk of time sending emails to students to remind them to check your Angel course for updates, or to remind them that they have not met other conditions. This can get very time consuming. Not everyone is fortunate to have a dedicated TA. You may be able to offload some of this work to Angel though. One of the ways to do this, is through an Agent.

To create an Agent that for example, performs an action, say send an email message, to those students who did not meet a certain condition, say check their Angel course within the last 7 days, follow these steps.

1. Go to your course, and click on the “Automate” tab.

2. Click on the, “Add New Agent” link right below the Agents Console.

3. On the next screen, (see screenshot below) you can set the schedule for the Agent to run. So in the example below, the Agent will run once every day, at 9:05 a.m.

4. Click on “Next”, and then in Step two, you can determine whether the Agent is going to monitor certain users, or a selection of users. You can refine your selection by picking which course rights the users must have to be affected by the Agent. The default is “Any Rights”, which means the Agent is going to apply to students, TA’s, and instructors in the course. You can also limit the Agent to a certain team, using the Team filter.

5. The next section is the, “User Selection Conditions”. This is where you set up a condition that needs to be met, to initiate an action by the agent (in this case an email to selected users who meet the condition).

For example, the instructor may wish Angel to automatically send out an email message only to students who have not logged into their courses within the last 4 days. The instructor may want to insure that the students check their courses at regular intervals, so that students can see if there are new announcements, new tasks due, new discussion posts, etc.

Another example is an instructor may want Angel to send out an email if the student has not posted or replied to a particular discussion forum. In that case under Condition select, “Forum Posts”, and set the condition to only email students who have not contributed any discussion posts or replies to the “Week 2 Discussion board” (or any other of your discussion boards visible from this drop-down menu). The next section, “Agent Summary”, simply summarizes the course of action if a certain condition is met. See example below.

6. In step 3, you select what action you want to be taken as a result of a student having met the condition you set up in step 2. In the examples mentioned so far, the action you want is for an email to be sent to the student, letting them know to go to Angel and log into the course, or to let them know they have not yet posted or replied to a particular discussion forum. So in these cases, select “Mail (Internal)” in the “Choose Action Type” section.

7. In the next area, you can select who you want the message to go to. Select “All Filtered Users”, if you only want Angel to notify the students who have not met the condition you set in step 2.
Then you create an appropriate message and subject and you can leave the other options blank. See example below.

8. Click “Next”, and then view the summary on the next page. If it all looks good, click “Save”, and you’re done. You can always go back and edit specific parameters if need be.

Writing and marking up a handout or PDF file in iPad or Android

Sometime around the 17th of September, Blackboard will allow Angel users regardless of mobile device to use the Mobile Learn App. End Users can purchase the one year or perpetual license on September 10th.

So far, only iPhone or Sprint users have been able to use the native Blackboard App called “Mobile Learn” to use Angel from a Mobile device. If you pay the App fee, iOS, Android, BlackBerry and Palm webOS users will be able to use Mobile Learn on any wifi or phone carrier network to connect to Learn instances at that institution.

Here’s what will be new  for Mobile Learn:

• At institutions that choose not to purchase an institutional license (which includes WSU), individual end users on iOS and Android devices will now have the option to purchase a one year license for $1.99 or a perpetual license for $5.99.
• You will be able to download the App for “free” (same App as before, updated), and the two end user license options will be available as in-App purchases. This allows Blackboard to verify that you can successfully log into at least one school via Mobile Learn (and that that school has not already purchased and institutional license) and shows a list of the courses that are accessible before they ask you if they would like to purchase a license.
• If you purchase an end user license, it will allow you to use Mobile Learn on any wifi or phone carrier network to connect to Learn instances at any institution that you have access to. Additionally, the license will be good for any other device you own using the same OS (i.e. iOS license holders will be covered on every iOS device they own, and Android license holders will be covered on every Android device they own).

Here’s what will be going away:

• The confusing free/pilot/Sprint license option goes away.
• There will be no option that is free for both users and institutions. In other words, no one is getting a free lunch when it comes to the Mobile Learn App at this point (see below if you don’t want to pay for the App).

To download and start using Blackboard Mobile Learn:

1)       Search for “Blackboard Mobile Learn” in your App Store or scan the code below:

2)      Once Blackboard Mobile Learn is installed, search for Washington State University using the search bar that automatically appears when you open the App

3)      Select Washington State University

4)      Log in using the same username and password you normally use to access Blackboard

Mobile Learn gives you access to your course Announcements, Grades, Lessons, Roster, Discussions, and Personal Tasks on the go. Additionally, you can update your announcements, create discussion posts, and comment on your students’ discussions from your mobile device.

• Mobile Learn Feature Guide
• Handout for Faculty
• Android FAQ
• Blackberry FAQ
• iOS FAQ

For those of you who don’t want to purchase the Mobile Learn App

• Logging into Angel using a browser on an iPad or Android tablet can be difficult using the tablet’s browser. One way to get around this issue, is to log in using PDA mode, see, “PDA Display Mode” icon on the lower left corner of your Angel screen.
• Another option on an iPad instead of selecting the PDA mode, is to open pages in new tabs.  Since ANGEL uses frames you often can’t scroll down a page, but if you “tap hold” a link in the admin area and then select “open in a new tab”, you now can access just the content frame and don’t have the scroll problem. You can also do this inside of a course by “tap hold” on one of the Tabs such as lessons and “open in a new tab”.  It’s certainly not perfect but works for a lot of things I do.

The 3 Best iPad PDF Markup Apps:

• http://www.tcgeeks.com/best-ipad-pdf-markup-apps/

List of Android PDF Markup Apps:

• http://www.androidzoom.com/android_applications/pdf+markup

Informative video on QPdf or Qoppa PDF notes full version:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Of1rT4i0F_Q

Enlarging fonts on the fly

Are your eyes having a hard time with small fonts on Angel?

• Tap hold the Ctrl key on your keyboard. While holding the Ctrl key, push the plus key to increase the font, hit the minus key to decrease the font size.

Adding a profile picture and finding the pictures in course roster

1. Log into Angel
2. Click on the Preferences icon
   
3. Under General User Settings, click on “Personal Information”
4. On the next page, scroll down to “Photo URL”, and click on the Add button
   
5. On the next pop-up window, click on the browse button, and look for your profile photo file on your computer, and click upload to bring your photo into Angel.
6. You can view the profiles of other students by going back to the Angel home page, entering your course, click the “Communicate” tab at the top
7. Then select, “Course Roster”, and click “Show Pictures”