Placing the SWTAFE OHS Toolbox into Blackboard

We now have the Blackboard equivalent for uploading the OHS Toolbox. This video is a little simpler and also includes where to find the OHS Toolbox on our SWTAFE intranet.

Blackboard Error Message

While watching the video, you will notice that when we uploaded the OHS Toolbox that we got an error. This to the best of my knowledge happened because Blackboard is so strict when dealing with files from other places. In this case it is safe to ignore the error as the Toolbox still functions well.

Placing the OHS Toolbox onto Moodle 1.9

This video instructs teachers how to add the OHS Toolbox to the Moodle learning environment.

LINK: OHS TOOLBOX

Scroll Down to OHS Toolbox and save the zipfile.

The Toolbox has been updated to now work with the versions of Moodle and Blackboard that we use here at South West TAFE. Previously the Toolbox only worked with OnCourse.

Teachers should note, the way the Toolbox is used now has changed. In OnCourse the Toolbox allowed students to print a certificate of completion once the student had successfully answered all questions. And this certificate was used as evidence of participation for the unit.

The new Toolbox however, does not print the certificate of completion. However! Don't panic! The Toolbox now ties directly in with the grading features of both Blackboard and Moodle. This means the teacher can now electronically check the progress of their students through the Toolbox.

The Leanring Management Systems (LMS) also both track the activities of students and teachers that work within them. So teachers can now present this tracking as their evidence of participation for their students.

Also for those Teachers who would still like to use the Certificate feature. Moodle provides a way for teachers to allow students to print out a certificate of completion on any graded activity in Moodle. I mention this in the video above, however I will devote an entire video on how to use this feature.

My personal reflection on this video:

I feel that I was speaking too fast, and I just felt as though I had rushed through the video. Please if you can spare a couple of minutes. Write a short reflection on what you think I did wrong and what I can improve on.

Blackboard - How to Submit an Assignment

Well here is my third video. This one covering tips for your students if they are having troubles submitting an assignment. The video looks at tracking the progress of your assignment. Reading the assignment instructions, submitting your assignment and why we here at South West TAFE choose to use Microsoft Word or any other text based program over the Blackboard submission window.

In this video there are a couple of spelling mistakes. The course is name TAVE VC instead of TAFE VC and I also spell tomorrow as tommorrow.

Overall I am quite happy with this video. Feedback so far has been my spelling and how many times I say um and ah. So I will use this as points to improve in the future :)

I.T. Tips - Change your youtube resolution.

My second video here. It's still a bit sloppy, but its already feeling better and easier to record.

This screencast was inspired by some feedback that I received. This particular person had simply said that the "Back-up your course on TAFE VC" was blurry when made full screen and simply hadn't noticed the resolution button. So with this video I hope to correct that .

for any one else who would have the same query.

This video was done in one take, and with very little preparation beforehand. Roughly it took about 10mins to quickly write down what I wanted to cover and also record the screencast, which is a massive improvement on the 1-2 hours it took for my first screencast. I still use Camtasia for my recording, however those of you using Jing would be impressed to know that you can have a finished resource for your students in 10minutes!

The post editing with this video took about 30mins to add the music and title clips. I also recorded little things that I would like to make consistant in my next few screencasts. Things like how long the titleclip stays on screen for, The volume level of the music in the background and what font and fontsize were used in the title clips. Hopefully this will make the process even faster for my next go.

If you would like a screencast done. Simply send an e-Mail to andrew.dart@swtafe.vic.edu.au asking what you would like to have covered, and I'll be in contact with you. :)

Blackboard - Backup your course.

This video is the first of many to come. It shows you how to back-up your course in Blackboard on the TAFE VC (Note we here at tafe call Blackboard TAFE VC. This will change now with the introduction of Moodle into the TAFE VC envirnment.)

The Importance of backing up your course remains an AQTF (I can spell it, just cant say it!) compliance issue. Its an issue because you need to keep the "Evidence of Participation" or "Tracking" data for a great length of time. As outlined in the video, this could be 7 years.

Why don't we just leave it on the Blackboard system? We currently need to clean up our old units and courses in Blackbaord to make way for the new courses in 2011. This means deletion and deletion means its gone if you happen to be audited some 5 years from now about your course. So it needs to be saved, and saved somewhere where its guaranteed its lifetime of whatever that concludes in the discussion. At the moment that is expected to somewhere around the 7 year mark, although this is expected to change. Be it more or less, really can't be said at the point of writing this. Hence why we save it to South West TAFE's W drive.

I hope the video comes across as useful. It was done in one tafe so there are errors, hence my poor stuttering of the acronym AQTF (seriously, whoever can say that 10 times super fast needs a medal!) :)

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