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What’s New in Moodle 3.9?

Posted December 23, 2020 by Dawn Lloyd Filed Under: News, Online Learning, Upgrades

During the first week of January 2021, ATSI will be completing a major upgrade of the Moodle system, taking us from version 3.6 to version 3.9- a change which will bring greater stability and new features. Read on for an overview of some of the key changes!

Activity Picker

Moodle 3.9 will bring a tabbed view to the activity picker that pops up when you click “Add an Activity or Resource.” Now, in addition to the main tab, which will include all items, you will also have the choice to select tabs that show just Activities (gradable items) or just Resources (text tags, URLs, etc). You will also have the option to “Star” activities, which will be included on an additional tab for easy access- a favorites list is born!

H5P Content Integration

H5P- short for HTML5 Package- is a way of adding interactive content to your course page. For more information on how to use H5P in Moodle, see the introductory article on the Moodle.org site. Stay tuned for ongoing updates about how this can be used in your courses.

Go to Top

Included in the new version of Moodle will be a “Go to Top” button, making it easier for users to return to the top of their course page rather than having to scroll manually from where you are on the page.

Want Even More Info on Moodle 3.9?

LinkedIn Learning offers a terrific series of introductory Moodle courses, including one on Moodle 3.9. All members of the UP community have access to this- and any other courses offered on the platform- for free. If prompted, log in with your UP credentials.

The ATSI team is also available for questions, troubleshooting, or training requests- feel free to email us anytime. We look forward to assisting you!

Tagged With: moodle

Improvements Coming to Zoom and Poll Everywhere!

Posted December 17, 2020 by Dawn Lloyd Filed Under: News, Online Learning, Polling

While we wrap up the Fall of 2020, we are beginning to look forward to prepare for the Spring of 2021. As we do so, there have been some exciting announcements from the providers of two of our tools.

Zoom

In order to utilize these updates, be sure to update your desktop or mobile client to the most recent version (in the desktop version, this can be done via the user menu, or if you are on mobile, you can check for updates via your device’s app store).

Enhanced Co-Host Priviledges

While in the past, co-hosts in a Zoom meeting did not have the same abilities to control breakout rooms during a meeting- requiring them to rely on the primary host- Zoom has made updates to extend the same control options to co-hosts. For many who are in team teaching roles, this long awaited change will bring much greater flexibility in scheduling, lecture planning, and the ability to be flexible on your feet as a course meeting progresses.

Desktop Meeting Reminders

The Zoom desktop client will now have the option to give reminders to users of upcoming meetings. This will be especially useful for those users who prefer to manage their meeting schedule within the Zoom app, rather than having to add their meetings to Outlook or another calendar program in order to receive reminders of their meetings. For new users, this will be enabled by default. Existing users who wish to enable this option can do so via their settings page in the Zoom web portal or in the General Settings portion of the desktop app.

In-Meeting Poll Reports

Added 12/21/20

Starting with the new version of Zoom released on 12/21, users can now access their Poll Reports during a meeting instead of having to wait until the conclusion of the meeting, giving more flexibility in when and how to share Poll results.

Non-Verbal Communication in Meetings

Added 12/21/20

Also released 12/21, non-verbal feedback (“yes,” “no,” etc.) now appears under the Reactions option which has housed icons such as the smiley face and thumbs up. This will make it much easier for users to access and use these options interchangeably without needing to access multiple menus within the Zoom interface. These reactions will now also show in the top corner of the user’s video as well as in the participant list.

Hosts and co-hosts will also notice that they can see the “Raise Hand” option under reactions going forward. Previously, this option was restricted to meeting participants, however the inclusion for the meeting hosts and co-hosts will now allow for more flexibility in situations where meeting leadership is being shared/handed off between multiple people.

Poll Everywhere

Poll Everywhere has also released several exciting updates as well as an important functional change to the Trash folder.

New Presenter Controls

Poll Everywhere has updated their Presenter Controls options for greater ease of use.

First, users will now be able to toggle between activity views in their surveys: when you enter fullscreen and present a survey to your audience, you’ll see new buttons to advance between questions, lock or unlock each activity, and to choose your desired view.

In addition, the bottom of the screen for each activity will now have unique views customized based on on the activities features. For example:

  • Did you request responses on a Multiple Choice activity with one correct answer? You can now choose between views that show the instructions, the responses, or if answers were correct.
  • Did you present a clickable image with predefined response regions? You can now choose to view the image you presented, the results, the regions on your image, or even all of the above at once!

Sharing Responses

You can now share the responses you collected even after your class meeting is over! This addition will provide another useful way for students to review information while studying or working on projects for future course meetings.

To utilize this new option, instructors can select up to 20 items from their activity list to be shared at once. After selecting the desired activities, click the “Share Response” option at the top of your activities page and enter your students email addresses to send them a link which will allow them to download screenshots of the information. Students do not need to have signed up for their own Poll Everywhere account in order to review the shared information.

A Change to Trash Retention

Added 12/21/20

Starting January 25th, 2021 items in your trash folder will be deleted after 30 days. After deletion, activities are not recoverable so be sure to remove any items you may want to keep before that period of time.

Interested in more Product Updates?

Both Poll Everywhere and Zoom maintain product update pages where you can read more about recent developments that might be of use in your classes.

  • Poll Everywhere
  • Zoom

The ATSI team can be reached via email with questions on these or other Academic Technologies in use at the University of Portland.

Tagged With: polleverywhere, Zoom

Coming to VoiceThread: A New Assignment Experience!

Posted November 19, 2020 by Dawn Lloyd Filed Under: News, Upgrades

Over the summer of 2021, VoiceThread will welcome a new user experience which will revise old assignment styles and add new ones. This new experience is now available for early adoption by interested users.

If you are interested in checking out the new features ahead of time on some or all of your course pages, instructions for how to enable and use the features (as well as information which you can provide to students on how to navigate the changes on their end) can be found in VoiceThread’s recent announcement. Your old assignments will continue to work using the previous format- changes will only be in effect on new assignments (note: after activating the new version, in the event that you choose to go back to the old experience, assignments created using the new features may not be backward compatible).

If you wish to continue using the VoiceThread assignment versions you are familiar with for the 20-21 school year, no action needs to be taken. You will continue to be able to access that version until June 30th, 2021.

Users who have not already opted into the new version will automatically be switched the next time they log in starting July 1st, 2021.

For training or questions about using VoiceThread, ATSI can be reached via email.

Tagged With: online assignments

New Features Coming to Zoom and TechSmith

Posted September 30, 2020 by Dawn Lloyd Filed Under: News, Online Learning

Zoom

Zoom has released two new features which are sure to be especially useful for your upcoming meetings.

New Security Feature

The first new feature is the ability to restrict entrance to Zoom meetings to those logged on via the University of Portland Zoom account.  This setting can be found in your meeting settings when scheduling a new meeting (or editing an existing meeting).

demonstrative image, see instructions

As a reminder, users who have not yet activated their account can do so by following our Activation Instructions.

Self-Selection of Breakout Rooms

The other new feature of note is the ability for meeting attendees to self-select the breakout room which they want to join, as well as move freely between those rooms during the meeting if desired. For up to date information on Zoom Breakout rooms, please see their Managing Breakout Rooms and Participating in Breakout Rooms guides. As a note, the meeting host and attendees will all need to be on version 5.3.0 or later of the Zoom app. If you have not updated recently, this is a great time to check that you are on the most recent version. To do so, click your Zoom user menu (represented by your initials or photo) and select “Check for Updates.”

TechSmith

The picture-in-picture recording feature is back in the new version of the Capture recorder in Knowmia!

When preparing to make a new recording, you will now have the option of Picture-in-Picture (PiP) or Fullscreen mode under the webcam options menu. Picture-in-Picture will be the default mode- and will display the camera feed in the bottom right corner of the recording area (note: you will not be able to toggle back and forth between PiP and Fullscreen mode after starting a recording, so you will want to take this into account when selecting options pre-recording).

A preview of the new layout for PiP:

Updates to the recorder will roll out automatically over the next few days and install when users next start the recorder. If you want to enable the feature before it appears automatically on your account, you can do so by uninstalling the existing Capture Recorder from your computer and then starting a new capture from your Knowmia site, which will prompt you to download the new version.

For support using either of these platforms, contact atsi@up.edu.

Tagged With: techsmith knowmia, Zoom

Important note about MS Teams Recordings

Posted August 31, 2020 by Benjamin Kahn Filed Under: News

We discovered recently that Microsoft changed the auto-sync to Stream videos process for Teams meetings recordings. Any user on the A1 O365 license (most UP users), no longer has the auto-sync feature (As of Aug. 20th).

With this in mind, we’ve tried to identify all the faculty that use this feature and get them over to the A3 license (which still does the auto sync).

Hopefully this mitigates the issue going forward. If faculty encounter this issue for any new meetings they should contact the Help Desk to have their MS Office 365 license adjusted to the A3 level.

For any Teams meetings recorded the week of Aug. 20th, you will need find the recording in your Teams meeting history and download it, you can then upload and share from a service like TechSmith Relay as needed.


Tagged With: Teams

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