The myWPI platform is accessible to all users by default; however, the individual content items uploaded by faculty and students may not be. How can the common documents we use day to day be made accessible for users with visual impairments or learning and cognitive disabilities? You’ll be happy to hear that there are just a few…Continue Reading myWPI Accessibility Series: Providing Semantic Structure to your Documents
myWPI Update Completed 11/26
During our morning maintenance window on 11/26, our System Administrators were able to successfully deploy a fix to the myWPI Grade Center. We had several reports over the past month that e-mail was unable to be delivered to students via Grade Center. E-mail can now once again be sent from Grade Center in myWPI. Please…Continue Reading myWPI Update Completed 11/26
That’s What We Are Here For!
Yesterday I had one of what we call our “great meetings”. I met with two faculty (don’t worry, they shall not be named here) who identified some of their teaching challenges. We spent our time discussing the following topics: 1. Grading multiple choice exams. How can we cut down on grading time while also gathering…Continue Reading That’s What We Are Here For!
Self and Peer Assessment: Feedback on Group Work
I’m not kidding when I say that three faculty members have approached us very recently with a similar teaching challenge: How can I use technology to help with team assessment? And here in the TTL group, we LOVE a challenge. Each professor has slightly different needs, however all centered around the desire for students in…Continue Reading Self and Peer Assessment: Feedback on Group Work
Why can’t I right-click to copy and paste in myWPI anymore?
The January 4th update to myWPI/Blackboard brought us some new features, including the new visual text-box editor (VTBE). We’re very excited about the new VTBE as it introduces many improvements, including the ability to resize the text-box editor space (drag the hashmarks in the lower right-hand corner to resize your typing space) and also the…Continue Reading Why can’t I right-click to copy and paste in myWPI anymore?
Are we ditching finals? (weep) Alternative Assessment Ideas
My own undergraduate experience, which was so long ago that we didn’t even know the word “blog”, was full of midterm and final exams. But of all of these tests, I remember only one: my Introduction to Biology final. I remember it because it was multiple choice questions from the exams we had taken over…Continue Reading Are we ditching finals? (weep) Alternative Assessment Ideas
How do we collaborate? Let me count the ways!
col·lab·o·rate – verb \kə-ˈla-bə-ˌrāt\ 1: to work jointly with others or together especially in an intellectual endeavor – Merriam Webster Online Collaboration is at the heart of the WPI project system but, as many teams know, collaboration can be hard. You need to keep people, documents, and tasks all organized and this can be a…Continue Reading How do we collaborate? Let me count the ways!
Cut, Paste, Fix and Repeat
Anyone who has ever tried to cut and paste a perfectly formatted Word document into myWPI (Blackboard) has probably experienced some difficulties in doing so. Cutting and pasting from word brings a good deal of HTML-like code with the text. This HTML-like code has, in the past, been the cause of endless frustrations such as…Continue Reading Cut, Paste, Fix and Repeat
Guiding Self and Peer Assessment – Two Technologies
Self and Peer writing assessments can be very powerful tools in the classroom. This type of an assignment can aid students in improving their editing and writing skills. Through Peer Assessment students learn to collaborate and provide constructive peer criticism. However implementing this type of review assignment in a classroom setting can be a rather…Continue Reading Guiding Self and Peer Assessment – Two Technologies