Adding online discussion to Edline

Have you ever wished you could extend class discussion beyond 42 minutes?  Edline has an online class discussion feature.  For those of you who have taken an online course and taken part in discussions there, you have an idea of some of the potential for this extension of learning. 

Online discussions are great for many reasons:

• These discussions can take place at any time, without everybody being gathered in one place at one time.
• Shyer students can participate easily, so your discussion is not dominated by just those aggressive hand-wavers in your classroom.
• More deliberate thinkers can participate, and the discussion won’t pass them by, as can happen in the face-to-face classroom.
• All students can think more deeply about the question being posed, since they have time to reflect and write, instead of just blurting out whatever happens to be in their heads.
• You can limit the discussion to only class members and teacher – this also means your students’ work remains private.    
• The teacher can monitor all comments before they are published if you choose, and can either approve, delete or reject each comment.  It’s easy to check through the comments.  Just click on the discussion, read each comment, and click on the appropriate action.  You as the teacher can also participate in the discussion. 

I have copied part of a recent discussion at the end of this message so you can see what it looks like. 

Here’s what you do to create a discussion.

1.  Click the icon to the right of Contents on the class Edline page.  This allows you to add content.
2. Next, click on the down arrow next to Add and click on Discussion.  Then click on Add.

 

1. Now, enter the information for the discussion and the discussion question, just as you would add any other assignment in Edline.  You can add this to other classes, as you can with other assignments (however, if you do all the discussions together, all students in all classes will be able to see the entire discussion.  If you want to keep each class discussion separate, then set up each discussion separately.  Voice of experience:  kids can lose interest reading comments from more than one class, since there are so many to read.  It’s better to keep discussions separated by class.

 

1. Type of discussion is important. The defaults reject anonymous comments and require teacher approval of comments prior to publication.  You will usually want both kept this way (but if you choose otherwise, you can still go in and delete inappropriate comments later).  Voice of experience of the entire Internet:  If you are trying to build a safe, encouraging community discussion, anonymous comments will work against you, so don’t allow them.

 

1. The default for who can participate in this discussion is only class members and teachers.  Who can see the discussion is broader.  Since students’ full names show in the discussion, you will want to limit who can see it (if parents want to see a discussion, they can look over their child’s shoulder; you do not want to be responsible for exposing one child to another child’s parents.)  Down at the bottom under Visibility, limit visibility to students, teachers, and administrators.  Since the default lets anybody see the discussion, you will want to change this.   

 

1. Click on Save and return, and then on Done, and you are set to go.  The discussion will display among the Content choices in alphabetical order.

 

To check the comments (called moderating the comments),

1. Click on the discussion. 
2. You’ll see all the comments and can choose for each one what you’d like to do.  X means delete it; the thumbs down is to reject it.   Most will be accepted.
3. If you click on Rejected, you are given the option of giving a short reason, which only that student who wrote the comment will see.  You can see the rejected comment, but the rest of the class cannot.
4.  You will need to return to the discussion regularly to check for comments to moderate – but this only takes a few minutes.

Rather than deleting a discussion when you want to remove it, move it to your File Locker, as you may wish to refer to it at another time.

                I know this is a more challenging technology task than most, so if you want to take this on and want a little help, let me know.

 

Edline, Uncategorized | Comment (0)

Gradequick – multiple classes, cutting the work

Copying the same “test” from one class to another in Gradequick

Suppose you have two sections of the same class and you have the same assignments in both.  Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to create these just once and save yourself some work?

Well, you can!

• Just create the “test” or assignment in one of your gradebooks.  (Gradequick calls all assignments “tests.”)
• Then right click on that column.  You’ll see a menu that allows you to do many different things – one is to copy this “test.”
• Click on that (left click) and you’ll be given a menu of all your other classes.
• If you just want to copy this assignment to one class, click on it and then on OK.
• If you want to copy to more than one class, hold down the CTRL key (usually on the lower left part of your keyboard) and click on the classes you want to add this assignment to, and click on OK.

That’s it.  Now the assignment, complete with name, date, possible points is now in the other section or sections.  Thanks to Celeste for asking the question!

gradequick | Comment (0)

End of semester Gradequick

Entering Grades and Verifying Them   Entering grades for the semester

 

1.  Enter all your grades for quarter 2.  If you are overriding (example, bringing a student’s grade up to 55, or entering an I for Incomplete),  change View all Terms to Show Term 2.  Then the right-most column is Grade Term 2.  This is where you put your overrides.
2. Enter all your midterm grades.  You will need to View all Terms, then enter your grades in the MIDTERM column.

For grade verification, you will want to View all Terms and scroll all the way to the right.  You can then see MIDTERM, Sub Total 1 (quarter 1), Sub Total 2 (quarter 2) , and Grade Sm 1 (semester 1 grade).  (If this last doesn’t show, look directly above  the right-most column  and change Year to Semester 1.)

 

When you do this, the column headers on the  right should look like this.  In particular, the numbers under MIDTERM, Subtotal 1 and Subtotal 2 should be 20, 40, and 40 as shown.  If they are different, please let me know. 

 

 

Entering Comments in Gradequick

Don’t forget to change the old comments from C1 and C2, the two comment code fields. 

If you want to delete the old comments so you can start fresh, you can do this quickly and easily.
 
Go to column C1 and click on the column.  Now right click on the column and you’ll see a new menu (shown above) .  One of the choices is Zap the column – click on that and reply Yes when asked if you’re sure.  This will empty the column and leave it fresh for you.

If you have lost your comment codes, they are attached here.

Questions?

Fran Lo, room 224 (stop by, email, or leave a message in the Middle School office)

Finding the Midterm Column in Gradequick

You may have found – as I did – that there already was a midterm grade column already hiding in my gradebook.

Here’s how to find it – and save yourself some trouble later.

1. First, make sure you’re looking at View all terms. 
2. Then, click on View,    Sort ,   Tests ,    by date,   OK.  This will sort all your “tests” by date, and will put the midterm, which has a 1/12/10 date, farthest to the right.  Scroll all the way to the right to find it. 
3. If there is still no Midterm, then add a new “test.”  The short title is MIDTERM (all caps, no spaces, no hyphens).  Add the date as 1/12/10 or whatever date you have the exam. Put nothing in weighting or category.  (If there is already a 20 in weighting, just leave it.)
4. When it comes time to enter grades, make sure you’ve included the possible points.

If you need further help, please ask.

Fran

gradequick | Comment (0)

Using Youtube without the obnoxious stuff

You may have found a terrific video on YouTube that you’d like to share with students – and link to on your Edline class page.  But you don’t want students to see all the raunchy comments, and links to less desirable videos.  Now a service strips all that off.  So if you find a video you’d like to post on Edline, all you need to do is to paste the URL (the internet address that starts with http://) into Safeshare and click on Generate safe link.  You’ll get a new URL which you can now copy and paste wherever you want to use it. 

Easy and free: http://www.safeshare.tv/  

Internet tools | Comment (0)

Adding new resources to your Edline page

Looking for something to add to your class Edline pages to help students practice what they’ve learned, explore further, reinforce what they’ve learned in class?  You might want to check out this resoure from the Annenberg Foundation: http://www.learner.org/interactives/  where there are good resources, particularly in math, science, and history. 

• If you find an activity you like, copy the URL (the web address up at the top – starts with http://).
• Then, go to your class Edline page, click on the picture to the right of Links, then next to Add click on  Link and then on Add.
•  Give a title to the link, then copy the address you copied before into Link to the following URL. (Don’t click on Link to…)
•  If you want to add this to more classes, scroll down and double click on the other classes. 
• Finally, scroll to the bottom and click on Save and return. 
• Now, on your Edline page, click on the link to make sure it worked correctly and tell your students about the new link.

If you need more help, please let me know.

Edline, Internet tools | Comment (0)