Brightspace Transition

This workshop, designed for people who are teaching this fall and just starting to learn Brightspace now, will focus on two small and meaningful ways to use Brightspace this fall.  By welcoming students to the course, and then choosing one additional way to use a Brightspace tool, instructors will lay a foundation for success.  This workshop will highlight one foundational use of Brightspace (creating a welcoming space with a syllabus and welcome message), and offer a menu of 3 additional options for using Brightspace.  The foundation plus one menu choice will create a course that serves basic needs clearly, and we will end with an overview of what later learning in Brightspace can make possible.  This workshop will enable those beginning to learn Brightspace in the week before classes start to create a simple course space that communicates important course matters to students. 

To Register, click the links below.

• More Dates Coming Soon!

This session introduces Brightspace and focuses on finding your way in the Brightspace environment. It will cover course settings and personal profiles, the course navigation bar, home page, and table of contents. We will take a brief look at content and course tools e.g., Announcements, Calendar, Discussion, Assignments, and Quizzes.

To Register, click the links below.

• Tue, October 31 @ 9:30am – 10:30am

If your fall Blackboard course has been migrated (copied) to Brightspace, you might wonder what to do next. Join us for an overview that describes what you can expect and will help you assess your course holistically, identify which of your migrated materials need attention, and what your next steps might be. (If you have detailed questions about specific tools in Brightspace, consider attending one of our Spotlight Labs.) This Workshop is exclusively available via the recorded video above.

This workshop will focus on low-effort Brightspace strategies for building connections with your students and enhancing their learning. Your Brightspace course may be one of the most important places that students consult to understand what your course is all about. We will show you how the way you set up your Brightspace course can affect how easily students can locate important information. By considering how Brightspace creates the opportunity for you to connect with your students and help them see what tasks are important, you will build a more equitable learning environment for everyone. In this workshop, we’ll explore small steps you can take to organize your course consistently, helping students to navigate the materials and keep themselves on track.

To Register, click the links below.

• Fri, October 20 @ 10:45am – 11:45am

In these sessions we’ll focus on how content can be added and organized in Brightspace to best support student learning. We’ll show the wide variety of content types that are supported, important settings, and powerful tools like Video Note and the Accessibility Checker.

To Register, click the links below.

• Tue, October 24 @ 1:30pm – 2:30pm
• Thu, November 2 @ 8:45am – 9:45am

In this session we’ll focus on creating and previewing Assignments (individual and group), important settings, and connecting Assignments to Grades. We’ll cover editing and reordering Assignments, evaluating student submissions (including annotations and rubrics), and using the Submission Log for tracking student work.

To Register, click the links below.

• Thu, October 12 @ 9:45am – 10:45am
• Mon, October 16 @ 2:15pm – 3:15pm
• Thu, November 2 @ 2:45pm – 3:45pm

In Brightspace, the Quiz tool is used for both quizzes and tests. In this session we’ll show the workflow for creating quizzes, including creating questions, the question library, building a Quiz, and Grading Quizzes and viewing statistics and logs

To Register, click the links below.

• Fri, Ocotober 20 @ 9:30am – 10:30pm
• Tue, October 31 @ 1:30pm – 2:30pm

This workshop covers how to set up and manage the Grade Book in your Brightspace course. We will demonstrate the best ways to organize the Grade Book and the best ways to enter grades. Some instructors may find it beneficial to create their Grades area anew rather than editing what has been migrated from Blackboard, and this session will help you decide which option is best for your course.

• Fri, October 13 @ 1:00pm – 2:00pm
• Mon, October 16 @ 9:30am – 10:30am
• Wed, November 1 @ 2:15pm – 3:15pm

This workshop differs from the ‘Brightspace Grades’ workshop. While the Grades workshop focuses on setting up and managing the Grade Book, in this workshop we will delve deeper into the nuances of student assessment and feedback. We will explore a spectrum of feedback methods Brightspace offers, ranging from audio/video attachments and embedded video notes to annotations and rubrics. We will also talk about the Quick Eval feature and other grading workflows. We get a glimpse into Brightspace’s automated feedback tool, Intelligent Agents. Lastly, we will show how students can find their grades and feedback.

• Fri, October 20 @ 3:00pm – 4:00pm
• Tue, October 24 @ 10:00am – 11:00am

This workshop covers the details of using the Discussion tool in Brightspace. We will demonstrate where to set up both whole class and group discussions, and how link them to your Table of Contents. We’ll look at how to clean up Discussions migrated from Blackboard and cover the differences between Forums and Topics in Brightspace.

• Wed, September 20 @ 11:30am – 12:30pm
• Tue, October 17 @ 9:30am – 10:30am

Brightspace doesn’t have a journal or blog tool, so if you’re used to creating Blackboard assignments in those formats you’ll need to learn alternative ways to meet your instructional goals.  We will show how to clean up references to the old tools and set up the new options in both Brightspace and MS Teams.

• Recorded Session Coming Soon!

This session is an overview of Brightspace teaching and communication tools, including: 

· Announcements 

· Calendar 

· Discussion 

· Assignments 

· Quizzes

(Log into UVM Streaming before viewing recording)

This session is a deeper dive into creating and uploading content into Brightspace and includes: 

· How content is organized in Brightspace (modules, modules descriptions, and topics) 

· Creating Content with powerful tools like Video Note (“Insert Stuff”) and the Accessibility Checker. We’ll also hear tips for using the HTML editor. 

· Options for uploading content 

· Linking to course activities 

· Settings for content (visibility, date restrictions) 

· Conditional Release and how to use it

(Log into UVM Streaming before viewing recording)

View topic timestamps [PDF]

This session shows the workflow for creating quizzes, including: 

· Question types and creating questions 

· Creating a question library 

· Building a Quiz 

· Grading a Quiz 

· Quiz statistics and logs

(Log into UVM Streaming before viewing recording)

View topic timestamps [PDF]

In this Desire to Learn-led  (D2L, Brightspace’s parent company) session, you will learn in the ins and outs of the Grade tool and how to give students feedback. Specific topics include:

• Setting up your grade book
• The relationship between Brightspace assessment tools and the grade tool
• Grading assessments with annotation and rubrics
• How to use the “Quick Eval” tool
• How to track students’ progress and identify students who are falling behind

(Log into UVM Streaming before viewing recording)

View topic timestamps [PDF]

In this Desire to Learn-led  (D2L, Brightspace’s parent company) session, you will learn in the ins and outs of the Discussion tool, including how to use the groups tool for setting up private discussions with students. Note, if you used the Blackboard Journal tool, you’ll want to use private discussions. Specific topics include:

• Setting up Discussions
• Comparing Blackboard terminology to Brightspace’s terminology
• Using private discussion for Journaling
• Viewing student participation statistics in discussions

(Log into UVM Streaming before viewing recording)

November 30, 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm

In this Desire to Learn-led  (D2L, Brightspace’s parent company) session, you will learn the many ways you can provide feedback to students in a variety of tools. Specific topics include:

• Building Rubrics and connecting them to other tools (i.e., Assignments, Discussions)
• Using annotation tools to provide detailed feedback
• Using “Intelligent Agents” to automate feedback

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• January 3
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Learning Labs are hands-on sessions that focus on exploring Brightspace with your peers. Currently, we don’t have any labs scheduled, but if you’re interested in this format, please contact us ctl@uvm.edu.