(Ep.79) Mohammad Elahee on Fethullah Gulen and Hizmet (aka the Gulen Movement)(Part I)
I think that is where the real appeal of Hizmet
Movement lies; that it embraces people of
all faiths, all ethnic backgrounds, all cultures,
and rather than preaching about Islam, through
their work, they show the beautiful side of
Islam, the peaceful side of Islam.
My name is Mohammad Elahee. I’m a Professor
of International Business at Quinnipiac University
which is in Hamden, CT.
I first came to know about this movement when
I made a trip to Turkey back in 2006. I had
a conference in Istanbul and Izmir… I went
to those places and I met some people who
were actually visiting one of my friends who
is from Turkey. And my friend told me about
this movement, told me about their activities,
and I was really impressed. I’ve never seen
any such movement in any other Muslim countries.
And that is how I came to learn about the
Hizmet Movement.
I am very pleased with the type of work that
the Hizmet people are doing. I live in Connecticut
and there is a Turkish cultural center. A
lot of people at the Turkish cultural center
are involved with the Hizmet Movement. They
are promoting Turkish culture, Turkish cuisine.
They’re engaging in different types of philanthropic
work. They’re providing assistance to victims
of natural disasters. They are also promoting
education. So, they are doing a lot of good
work that, unfortunately, hardly any other
groups, any other Muslim countries are doing.
I personally believe that Mr. Fethullah Gulen
will be considered in the future as one of
the foremost thinkers and philosophers of
Islam in the late 20th and early 21st century.
I had the opportunity to read a few book on
Mr. Gulen, and I also read a book which is
a collection of Mr. Gulen’s essays. And
I was very impressed with the message of Mr.Gulen,
how he promotes the idea of tolerance,
idea of coexistence, how he promotes interfaith
dialogue among people believing in different
religions, how Mr. Gulen promotes the inner
beauty of Islam and humanity. I was, to say
the least, very impressed. And I think Mr.
Gulen’s movement is not just for the Muslim
people but for the entire humankind.
As I told you before, that in 2006 I first
came to know about the Hizmet Movement, then
my wife and I attended some programs, workshops
and Abraham tablesâ€"which were basically
interfaith dialoguesâ€"that were organized
by the Hizmet Movement in Connecticut. And
I came to know and meet more people who were
involved with this movement. Then, in 2010,
some of my friends approached me about making
a trip to Turkey with some other colleagues
who were also at Quinnipiac University, where
I work.
So, with my colleagues, I made a trip to Turkey
and then, thanks to the Hizmet Movement, I
was able to visit many different historic
places in Turkey. We went to several cities
such as Istanbul, we went to Izmir, we went
to Konya, Cappadocia, we went to Kayseri…
And in all the cities, what we were able to
see was not just some historic buildings and
artifacts but also the hospitality of the
people, the Turkish people. We could see how
they embraced foreigners as their own, how
they promote the idea of peace… It was a
different Turkey. Before I went to those other
cities my exposure to Turkey was limited only
<br><br>
to Istanbul, and Istanbul is like any big
cosmopolitan city like NY, London, Paris…
If one visits just Istanbul, yes, one can
see a lot of history, but I don’t think
one can really understand the true meaning
of the Turkish culture. So, that trip really
opened my eyes to another aspect of Turkish
culture; the culture of hospitality, friendship…
Those things I wouldn’t have been able to
witness had I not gone with my friends in
the Hizmet Movement.
In fact, I think I was the only Muslim on
the trip. Most other people who went there,
they were either followers of the Christian
religion or Jewish, some of them did not have
any religion at all, and I think their perception
about Islam changed as a result of that trip
to Turkey.
First of all, most people, because of various
political reasons, have a wrong perception
about Islam. In the past few years, a lot
of terrorist activities carried out by different
political groups, in the name of Islam, really
tarnished the image of Islam. So, most people
view Islam as a somewhat backward, vengeful
group of people. I think this trip allowed
themâ€"I mean the non-Muslim people who were
with me in the tripâ€"they were able to see
the softer side of Islam. They were also able
to see the rich cultural heritage of Islam.
Unfortunately, many people do not know about
the Islamic contribution to art, to architecture,
to literature, and that trip opened their
eyes. So, I think that trip really showed
the softer side, the soft power of Islamâ€"if
I can use that termâ€"to non-Muslim people.
What I really like about Hizmet people, they
never talk about Islam in their program. Instead
of talking, they demonstrate the true meanings
of Islam through their work. So, it is open
to all people; to Muslims, to Christians,
to Jewish people… In Connecticut, when I
go to a program organized by people belonging
to Hizmet Movement, most of the visitors are
not actually Muslim. They’re non-Muslims,
and they feel very comfortable there. Most
people that I know, they do not want to hang
out with other Muslims because somehow other
Muslims would often try to preach them the
message of Islam or try to tell them how Islam
is better than other religions or maybe tell
them something else about their own religion
that they do not like. So, in Hizmet Movement,
it’s like a social movement; it shows how
people from different religions, they can
peacefully coexist, how we have more in common
rather than more in contrast. So, I think
that is where the real appeal of Hizmet Movement
lies; that it embraces people of all faiths,
all ethnic backgrounds, all cultures, and
rather than preaching about Islam, through
their work, they show the beautiful side of
Islam, the peaceful side of Islam. And that
is why I think Hizmet Movement will be a powerful
force of change, an agent of change. For the
Muslims, it will change the perception of
Muslims all over the world and it will also
make Muslims better Muslims. It will also
allow Muslims to reconcile their religious
belief with the challenges of modernity.
There are different social and political movements
in different Muslim countries. I think what
really makes Hizmet stand apart from other
movements is Hizmet doesn’t work with any
political agenda. Most other groups who are
engaged in social or educational activities
have either an overt or a covert political
agenda. But Hizmet Movement simply does its
work; it does not promote any political agenda
nor does it engage in any political propaganda.
I think that is what makes Hizmet Movement
more appealing to others, more acceptable
to others. Whenever we mix politics with social
movements that actually invites problems.
We live in a world where only about 20% people
are Muslim. So, when 4 out of 5 people are
non-Muslims, we have to find a way to reach
out to them. Nowadays, when people are always
changing their nationalities, they’re immigrating
to different countries; almost every single
society is becoming more pluralistic, more
diverse. So, in this diverse, pluralistic
world, we should not expect that we will be
mixing only with the Muslims. For our own
betterment, for our own benefit, we must socialize
with people who do not necessarily believe
in the Muslim religion. We have to work with
them; we have to live with them; we have to
learn from each other. And it is, therefore,
very important that we try to develop a greater
understanding with people from other religious
communities, such as Christianity, Judaism,
Hinduism, Buddhism… And it is not just greater
understanding; also, we must develop a greater
appreciation of what they are doing. If we
learn how to respect them, then, they will
also respect us.
It definitely benefits Muslim people because
when Muslim people become more acceptable
to others, the Muslim people would thrive
in non-Muslim societies. If we look at some
of the largest Muslim populations and where
they live, we will find they live in non-Muslim
countries. For example, after Indonesia, the
largest Muslim population lives in India which
is a non-Muslim country. In India, about 80%
of the people are Hindu, only about 15% are
Muslims, and in India, Muslim people are not
necessarily treated well by their Hindu brethren.
If the image of Islam is improved, if Muslim
people have a better understanding with people
from other religions and, in the context of
India, if they have better relationships with
the Hindu people, naturally, Muslim people
would be doing better in the society, in terms
of education, in terms of jobs, in terms of
their upper mobility in the society.
If we look at Europe, a large number of Muslim
populations, from former European colonies,
former British colonies, French colonies;
they are immigrating to England, to France…
there’s also a large Muslim population in
Spain coming from North Africa. So, these
people are living in countries which are not
Muslim, and unfortunately in Europe Muslims
do not have… I mean… people do not have
a good impression about Muslim people. So,
if there is greater understanding between
Christians and Muslims, Muslim people would
have greater acceptability in Europe. Now,
people do not want to give Muslim people jobs,
people do not want to rent their house to
Muslim people. So, Muslim people face some
practical problems.
In the US also, I remember, before September
11, when American people did not know much
about Islam, they didn’t really care much
what your background is, what your religious
identity is, but after September 11, they
started paying more attention. And many Muslims
suffered discrimination, and, in order to
end those discriminations, and if not end
at least to minimize those discriminations,
we need to have better understanding with
people of other faiths, other religions so
that they know who we are, what we represent,
they know that we are not a threat to their
way of life. The sooner we can achieve that
understanding, the better off we will be,
and by “we†I mean the Muslims. It is
absolutely necessary that Muslims reach out
to other non-Muslims and engage in interfaith
dialogue. 1/3 of the total Muslims in the
world live in countries which are non-Muslim.
Hizmet Movement teaches us how to talk together,
how to share our view, to talk about issues
without using violent ways, without using
violent words. I think that’s a very good thing.
I think Hizmet Movement is the first Islamic
movement that has been trying to spread education
globally, not just in Muslim countries but
all over the world. And I think it has been
very successful.
Time Management: Techniques and Features that Help You Make the Best of Your Time
Alli Peterson: Good afternoon and welcome
to our first Live to the Desktop for
the Spring 2014 semester. Our Live to the
Desktop series this semester is on efficiencies.
Today we're going to be talking about time
management, hopefully, techniques and features
that help you make the best use of your time.
These are going to cover some new features
that we did get within our update to Blackboard
this spring semester. We're not really focusing
on features. We're looking at little tips
and tricks that can help you save minutes
here or there, perhaps, so that minutes, by
the end of the semester, a minute here,
a minute there can add up to a lot of minutes.
Your presenters today are going to be
Janet Bickel-Burton. She's is our Instructional
Designer III on our Dallas campus.
I'm Alli Peterson. I am the Instructional Designer
III here in the Denton campus. We also have
with us today Tonya Anderson. She is
an Instructional Designer II in Denton and
she's going to be following the chat for
us just so we don't miss anything along
the way, hopefully. As I said there are opportunities
throughout to ask questions. Alright. We are
going to begin with online grading and I will
turn it over to Janet to tell you a little
bit more about that.
Janet Bickel-Burton: Well, thank you, Alli.
Yes, I'm Janet. I'm here in Dallas as
the Instructional Designer. We will get started
right now. Oops. Okay. [laughs] We have
Inline Grading for assignments and this is something
new that came with the upgrade. Instructors
can now grade within Blackboard. It's something
that faculty have been asking for, as I understand
it. There's no downloading, no uploading, and
we'll explain a lot of the details as we
move through that presentation. Also, [laughs]
the Inline Grading for Discussion isn't
new but it has been renamed "Inline Grading"
as a feature. We'll go briefly into that
and near the end of this part of the presentation.
Let's go take a look at why we want to use
Inline Grading. You can completely review
and grade student materials online. It's
just a few mouse clicks. Inline grading maximizes
your time in actual grading and not managing,
transferring or sending files. Of course,
you avoid those risks of viruses from all
those emails and files that students can send
you in the more traditional way.
> Is everyone seeing the page with limits?
Just making sure
we have no delay in our slides. Ah!
Thank you! Just making sure we're keeping together!
Okay. So there are some limits with Inline Grading.
At the moment, Blackboard says
four types of files are available.
Those are Word, Excel, PowerPoint or PDFs.
Everything else has to be downloaded as you
are familiar with in the past. There are
a few known issues that faculty have
reported. It's mostly to do with images embedded
into these documents. It could be something
that is an image that was imported or just
there's a large number of images or the
large size of the file itself could cause
an issue. Of course, there's always the
alternative way of doing things: downloading.
But this is something that you can anticipate
and that's something you can expect. So
that when you create the assignment for your
students, you might want to specify which
file types are accepted and you might warn
them about not adding too many images. Use
images sparingly not just plaster 15 per page,
if that's the type of assignment that you're doing.
So, you might save some headaches that way
by setting up the assignment and the expectations
the students have for completing that assignment.
Of course, another way to save time is for
those times that you are doing a couple draft
papers and then maybe a final research paper
for the semester. You can use the same assignment
submission link and Inline Grading will allow
you to view each submission. It will call
it, "Attempt 1" and "Attempt 2" for
the second draft and "Attempt 3" for the
final paper at the end of the semester. So
you can go through each student and review
where they were at the beginning and where
they ended up with their assignment at the
end of the semester and see if they made significant
changes. The student has the convenience also
with the multiple attempts enabled is that
they can click the "Start Now"
and they can submit that assignment. Just like all
of us, we sometimes forget to attach a file
to an email. We sometimes have students forget
to attach the file. They get so excited, they
add a comment and then click Submit
and forget the assignment. So, with the multiple
attempts you don't have to be contacted
for help. They can just try again and you
set that Start Now button to resubmit. Of
course, you can track all these submissions
and you can see any comments that they add
to their submission. You and the student both
can view this document online and you don't
have to download it as long as it falls within
the parameters of what Blackboard can help
you with. Of course, you're familiar with
the full Grade Center and you've been grading
discussions. You may be familiar somewhat
with Inline Grading but I'm fairly new so
I've been learning how to do inline
grading and I think the convenience of it
outweighs many other options. It's not the
only way but it is a good way. So we want
to click in the Grade Center, "Needs Grading."
Then, we will come to the assignment list
and it won't be sorted like this one. It
will be just random, all of assignments mixed
together. But then you can go to the [inaudible]
button and it turns on this Category submenu.
Then you can choose a category whether it�s
an assignment, a discussion or whatever and
then go over to the item [menu] and select a specific
assignment. There's also the option to do
Individual Users or Specific Day or Date Range.
For example, if you've allowed a student
to turn in an assignment late, you don't
need to look at everything, you can look for
that one person so that you can grade their
things. Of course, here at the end of the
item name is a little drop down arrow and
you can choose to grade All Users with their
names "on" or grade anonymously and then it
turns all the names into numbers
like "Student 1", and "Student 2."
So here you are ready to grade.
There's the up/down arrows here
at the top of the page that you can navigate
through their document or you can use the
slide bar here on the side. Then if it's
been a few months since you created the assignment
or you've just been grading crazy today,
you've got the assignment instructions here
at the top and you can see there's instructions
that were given to the student. You can also
see over on the side any submission text.
Basically, that's Blackboard's way of
saying they made a comment and here is the
actual file that they submitted and you have
a download option over here if somehow you
have trouble loading this. Then, of course,
you can come here to the comment bar icon
and it opens the tool bar that allows you to do
tracking changes or make annotations within
the document. So you have several comment
options. You can draw, you can highlight,
and you can have some alt text like "My Slide."
Then you can do a strikeout also.
That's one of those nice features of Inline Grading.
Now, when you have finished doing the Annotations,
as Blackboard calls it, then you can shift
over to the right side of the screen and offer
feedback to the student. This is shown to
them and so you might want to give them some
praise, some critique or something that will
help them move along on improving their assignments
for the next time. Then there's grading
notes. It's like a little link, usually hiding.
but it's open now. But there's a little link
hiding right below the feedback box where
you can click on it and have grading notes
that open and are seen only by graders; you
or your TA can exchange some [private] notes. If you're
doing a long term project, this might be something
that you want to use a few notes for the next,
say the second draft of the paper so that
you don't have to review a first draft entirely.
You just have a few notes they should do x,
y, z to fix some issues in the second draft.
Then you can quickly check if that's okay.
>
Now, of course, Grading Discussions, some
of you may have been doing this before as
I mentioned earlier, it's now called Inline
Grading. The upgrade gave us a new setting
long requested by faculty. So, this is something
that you can track individual students. All
their postings to the [discussion] Forum is gathered
in one spot so you can look at that. If you're
grading forums then you can look at this and
see what needs grading and you can evaluate
their submission. Is it meeting the criteria?
Of course, if you're setting up a discussion,
then you want to know that you have to add
in the point value and also checkmark the
"Show Participants" and "Needs Grading"
status. If you do not checkmark that box as
well, then it's going to be perpetually
in the outer limits of Blackboard [laughs]
in pending grading. So you would have to
track that down to find those and that would
be helpful. What I was referring to earlier
is the participants must create a thread in
order to view other threads in this forum.
That is a new thing. That is something that
they have to create their own posting before
it is viewed. They can view any other postings
in that form. That's something that faculty
have asked for. And now is here!
Instructors can view all the posts as I mentioned
before. You can get statistics from this little link
here and -- let's get that pointer -- here's
the Forum Statistics. This applies to the
individual student, their statistics. Again,
you have the Comment box, that Feedback box
and here is a rubric. So maybe I've attached
your rubric to this forum and I can go ahead
and grade by the rubric as well. You might
notice these stars. This is something you
can turn on in the Forum settings to allow
other students to rate each other's posts.
It's kind of an interesting feature. I'm
not sure if everyone would like to use it
but it's worth noting that it is an option.
And so, if you were using the rubric, you
can go ahead and click it and then you have
a little menu open; show descriptions or show
feedback. So if you want to be sure what the
rubric says, because you may have several,
then you can look at that to see the point
values, the actual criteria for it. Then hiding
down here is a little feedback box also. You
can grade this way as well. So you have several
options for grading. That will help you move
along. Also, when you're done grading, hiding
right up here there's an arrow forward and
backwards next to this name and you can just
move to the next student in your list of grading.
So that's helpful, too. You don't have
to exit or anything, just keep moving along.
I mentioned statistics. It's worth saying
the assignment Statistics are cumulative
and as soon as you start getting assignments
submitted, this is turned on but the average
and the median is calculated based entirely
on the number of items submitted, not the
total thing that everyone's been graded.
So, just wait until the very end, maybe the
last student, and then this will be useful
to see the average in median. But in the middle,
this is not helpful to me. You might find
it helpful but I don't see how that could
be extremely useful information until you've
got everybody graded for that assignment.
Then it will be interesting information. Forum
statistics, as I mentioned, are individual
students so you can see the total number of
posts, when they posted last, and the average
post linked. This is the number of characters,
not words. Because I had the little star rankings
for peer ratings turned on, she ranked as
the second highest rating in the Forum. So,
here we've got her name again. You can move
backwards or forwards to the next student.
Of course, you want to submit - enter a grade
and submit that. Blackboard being what it is,
there are a number of different, little, hidden
ways to expand the screen so that you can
read their assignment. You can remember that
the menu can be moved off to the side so you
can hide it. There is the plus/minus tools
that can actually enlarge or reduce the size
of the font. There is the Comment option.
There is the Page Up and Page Down. There
is the Assignment Instructions. There is a
little wonder gem, moves things over to the
side. This closes the Categories box above.
There's the Exit and the Move Through toolbar
for the assignment. You can go to that. There's
the Assignment Details, that's the statistics.
This opens the different areas within the
Grading sidebar. It allows you to see the
Comment boxes and more details, depending
on what she's selected. The single arrow
means the Grading menu over to the right side
and then the Score Point arrow just blows
up the screen and gets rid of everything except
for the assignment itself. It gets rid of
your toolbars and everything. So this is probably
one of the most helpful ones. Of course, depending
on your color scheme there might be harder
to find or different browsers. I've noticed
I have some challenges in showing all of those
links. But if you notice there just click
around and you'll find it and they will
work. I tested that one and I actually discovered
those because I was clicking around. Okay.
Here is a summary of Inline Grading. Just
a quick review and then we'll be going to
Q&A in just a moment. Here's how you can
manage your time very efficiently with Inline
Grading. You just use Blackboard. You grade
the paper in Blackboard and then move on to
the next item to be graded. You don't have
to do anything extra, like downloading, uploading,
and risking viruses with all that exchange
of files. So, we'll open it up to Q&A!
Any questions, please.
Alli Peterson: You can feel free to ask questions
either if you'd like to take the microphone
or talk in the chat. I see [inaudible]. "What
are some of the pitfalls to avoid for Inline Grading?"
>
<br><br>
Janet Bickel-Burton: The pitfalls are mostly
in the files having too many images. That's
been the most reported issue. So, I think
that's the number one. As far as the other
issues, I have not really discovered many.
It's a really effective, workable tool.
Alli Peterson: I think as Janet told me, she
said images seem to be the number one problem.
I think if the file is too large, then the
tool has a little trouble opening it and you
might have to download it instead of opening
it to grade. I think also possibly -- and
we haven't had a lot of instructors use
it yet so we haven't run into a lot of problems
but I think if it's a very long paper, instructors
might have difficulty working all the way
through the paper. Grading long papers is
time consuming no matter how you go about
it. You can start to develop a cheat sheet
for yourself so that if you're repeating
the same comments over and over again, you
have those and can cut and paste them into
the document. I think if you are already familiar
with Turnitin and using its tools, including
GradeMark, and GradeMark is their rubric tool
for commenting. Then Blackboard's Inline
Grading isn't quite as sophisticated as
that. So if you're used to Turnitin, I don't
know that moving over to the Blackboard tool
at this time is an improvement. But if you're
doing just short papers or things like that,
it can be very useful. If you're new to
this idea of opening the document directly
into Blackboard, it can be very helpful. Were
there any other questions we had about inline
grading today?
> Alright. I am getting the [inaudible].
It doesn't look like anybody's typing
or raising their hand at the moment, so if
you'd like to wrap up your last slide on
that, Janet, we'll move on.
Janet Bickel-Burton: Thank you, Alli. There
are some helpful sites that Blackboard has.
The first one, the official Blackboard help
site is their documentation site. So help.blackboard.com.
Type in Inline Grading in the Search box and
you'll find a long list of very useful tips
about Inline Grading. Then the second one,
Blackboard Learn On Demand Learning Center
is mostly videos with a few one-page
PDF documents. Click on the Assessing Learners
and then Assignments link and you'll get to those.
Alli Peterson: Alright. Thank you, Janet.
I think one of the things we mentioned in
the beginning, we're talking about time
management in terms of functions and features
in the LMS that can help you save, I hope,
a few minutes in your grading or things like
that. Perhaps time management, my choice of
title, I think, might not be exactly the most
clear but hopefully, you'll get some little
tips and tricks out this that can save you
minutes over the semester, and those minutes,
a lot of times, can add up. So if you're
saving five minutes here or five minutes there,
by the end of the semester you can be saving
yourself some hours of time. I'm going to
talk a little bit today about group management.
Group management isn't something new in
Blackboard. However, with the new update to
Blackboard, we did get a few new functionalities
that I think users will like. First of all, let's
talk a little bit about the benefits of Groups.
There's actually some time-saving things
with Groups that you can do for yourself.
One of the things is large group management.
Groups can be good for large group management
and saving you time there. This is in terms
of reducing your grading mostly. If you have
a really large class, say you have 50 students
in your class and you're wanting them to
have a meaningful discussion on the discussion
board. Well, 50 students is a lot of discussion.
It's a lot of posts, it's a lot of replies.
If you were to divide that large course into
smaller groups, say ten groups of five, and
have them become responsible for coming up
together for a single post; so they get together
in a small group, they discuss the topic and
decide which key points they want to use in
a post, and then craft that post together
in their group and post to the main discussion
board. Now, instead of having 50 posts, you
have ten posts from groups. That reduces your
time right there. They get group experience.
You can always go in and look at their group
interaction, but it is less grading for you
that way and time saving. With groups, you
can also have peer assessment. So not all
of the grading has to be on your shoulders.
You can save yourself some time there. You
do want to set up rules for peer assessment.
You want to have a good idea of what your
expectations are. You can have them agree
to what the rules in the group might be and
how they're going to assess each other.
But there is no law that says that as the
instructor you have to be the only one who
is assessing the students in a course. It's
a great opportunity for students to interact
and help each other and assess each other.
Now, what we did get new with Groups Management
with our recent upgrade are some new features
to that group management. You can now easily
see the students and which students are in
which groups. That also includes being able
to see in one place what students are in any
groups at all. Before, you would have to go
into the groups to see the list of students
in the group, then you had to go back out
and you had to go back into the next group
and see who the list of students were in that
group. So this will speed things up for you
in that way. You can also very easily modify
these group memberships. There's one location
for that. You don't have to go into the
group and out of the group and into group
and out of the group. You can manage those
memberships not only in all groups but in
group sets. So, if you have three groups talking
the same assignment or you generated that
group set so that they're all the chapter
one groups, one, two and three, you can manage
those memberships in one place as well. You
will have the ability to import and export
groups in group memberships. So if you teach
two sections of the same course and you set
all of your groups up in section one, rather
than having to copy your entire course or
reinvent the wheel in section two, you can
export your groups and import them into the
new group. Or, if for some reason, you might
have a course where the students stay the
same, maybe that you have a lecture course
and a lab course, the students are the same
and you want them to have the same groups
in the lecture and the lab, you can import
and export those group memberships as well.
You can sort your groups in one place. You
also have the ability to delete groups all
in one place. You can create Smart Views from
the Grade Center around Groups. One thing,
probably the best thing that came out of this
update to the Groups tool, is you can manage
tool availability for all groups. I'll show
you what that looks like. I think that's
a real time saver for you. This is what the
new All Groups page looks like. There are
tabs at the top that you can click and change
your view so by default you see All Groups.
You can look at your group sets. Or, if you
want to, you can look strictly at All Users.
You have the ability here to do the import,
the export, same as always. You can create
new groups. This is simply what
the Group Set page looks like now.
And this is the All Users.
So you can see each user in the course.
You can see what their role is in the course.
Here you can see what groups they are a member
of, if they are members in multiple groups.
If you want to add students to a group, you
have the ability to add them at this point.
Now, some of the things that we received with
this update from that main Groups page are
these bulk actions. You can delete groups
now all at once. Before you would have to
go in to your Groups page and delete one group
and wait for that process to happen and then
delete the next group and wait for that process
to happen. Now, you can select All Groups
or select a group at a time if you want to
delete them and simply say Delete Group.
Perhaps you're like me, sometimes I think I know
before I teach the class what the group is
going to be, what kind of dynamics or settings
I want for the group, or I'm experimenting
with different groups' ideas and I set these
groups and all of a sudden I've got a whole
bunch of test groups in my course that I don't
need. So, I can go through and bulk delete
those now and get that done in one process.
I can also create a Smart View for groups.
This is something that's related to the
Course Grade Center. So, Smart Views are ways
to look at the activity in the Grade Center
of a specific group. That can be a really
useful if you've set up groups for teaching
multiple sections out of the same course shell,
you can set up Smart Views. If we have time
we'll cover that in the Grade Center and
how that can be useful. As I said, one of
the nice things that we have now with this
are some different view options. One is Show
Tool Availability and the other is to show
grades in our codes. I want to talk for a
minute about this view option for showing
the group code. In most cases, the group code
isn't going to be something that you need
to worry about. I just want to talk about
it because it is something that you see in
these options. Group codes only come into
play when you're importing and exporting
groups. It's a unique identifier, it tells
you where the group came from. If you're
importing a group from section two into section
one, it helps you identify which groups just
in case you have the same group names. Most
of the time it's not going to be something
that you need to worry about. The tool availability
is something really nice and time saving.
Before, you would set up your groups at the
very beginning of the course and possibly
before you even knew what students you were
going to have in the course and you decide
at that time when you're setting up the
groups what tools you're going to give them.
Maybe you decide to give them just the bare
minimum of tools and then as the groups develop,
they come to you and they say, "Well, we
really want blogs in our group as well as
some of the other things." Or, "We want
to do something different," some tool that
you haven't given them. In the past, you
had to go into the Group, look at what tools
you had, edit that and give them to the group.
You had to go all the way back out to the
Groups page and go into the next group and
edit it and edit tools and what tools you
wanted to give them. Now, you have the ability
to look at all the groups across all of the
areas where they're deployed and see what
tools you gave them. If you want to take away
a tool or give them a new tool, you can do
it all in one place. These x's and checks
are simple toggles. If I want to give this
Group One, the blog tool, all I would have
to do is click on that red X, it becomes a
green check and now they have that tool within
their group. I can just go right down the
line and click each red X and now they have
those tools. It's one stop, it's quick,
it's easy. I've saved myself a lot of time.
That was a really quick look at some
of the things that are in group management
that have been added that can really save
you time. I think they're nice features.
Do we have any questions about what's become
available with Group Management?
You can either type in the chat box
or raise your hand if you have audio.
>
I do see we have someone typing so we'll wait a second.
>
Here we go. The question was,
"Can members request teleconferencing in groups?"
Teleconferencing isn't something
that's built into Blackboard. The only thing
we have with teleconferencing is Collaborate
allows you to use telephony. So the system
that we have in here, there can be a call-in
feature for that. But Blackboard itself does
not have a call-in that you can use for groups
so that they can be in a location at the same
time and call in to a meeting room. That does
bring to mind, though, something that you
may not know about Groups. By default, students
can create their own groups. This isn't
something that has been advertised. I don't
know that it's anything that has changed
or how long, honestly, students have been
able to do this, but this feature is turned on.
If you don't want students to be able
to do this, you would actually have to go
in and turn it off. Right now, you might want
to, if you'd like students to be able to
do this, you might need to give them directions
and tell them how they create their own groups.
Otherwise, they're probably going to stumble
across the fact that they can do this. But,
by default, in that they can create their
own groups, this is found under group settings
on that main groups page. It's just student
created groups, if you want to permit them
to create self-enrolled groups and/or permit
them to edit those created groups. They're
not going to have the ability to do some type
of audio conference but they can allow themselves
file exchange and discussion boards and chat.
They can enable chat for themselves. At this
time it's the Blackboard chat that they
would be able to turn on for themselves.
Were there any other questions we might have
about groups or group management?
>
Alright.
I am getting a 15-minute warning timer on my own.
Let me just bring this up first. If you do
want to know more about groups, there is that
official Blackboard help site. It is very
helpful. It is maintained by Blackboard, the
company. It is simply help.Blackboard.com.
If you search for Groups Management, I'll
tell you a little bit more about what we received
in this latest update. And the Blackboard
Learn on Demand Learning Center, as Janet
said, does have some brief tutorials, little
video snippets and there you would want to
look under Communication and Collaborating
and then Managing Group Work. That will give
you more than just the things that we mentioned
here today. It talks about all types of things
that you can do with groups. As I mentioned,
I did get a 15-minute warning. We do want
to be mindful of your time. Some of the things
we can talk about if you're interested,
happy to answer any of your questions about
Inline Grading or Groups Management but we
can also look at some of these Grade Center
management tools if you're interested. They
would include things like Smart Views categories
or filters. Just to give you a little idea,
Smart Views are very useful for merged enrollments.
If you have two sections of a course that
you have merged together and are going to
teach out of a single course shell, you can
create Smart Views so that you group all of
the students from section one and all of those
students from section two and then coming
into the semester, you can use those smart
views to look at just the students in section
one. So you can more easily copy your grades
or look up a list of your grades for just
that section to move over into Web Advisor.
So Smart View can be very helpful for that.
There's also Categories, which you can use
to help view things in the Grade Center. They're
essential if you're going to use filters
in your Grade Center. They do become important
when we're talking about weighting grades
because if you start weighting grades, you
have to have a hundred percent and if you
don't want to have to figure out what each
individual item is worth, then Categories
are great because you can say all assignments
are worth 10%. This can save you a whole lot
of time in your Grade Center if you just look
at particular categories. Also, there are
filters. These help you focus and can be time
saving because they do let you look at your
grade center very specifically all the way
down to users and items and things like that.
We have just a little bit over 10 minutes
left. Was there perhaps one of these more
than others that you might be interested in
knowing a little bit more about? You can just
type it in the chat if you want to hear a
little bit more about one of these, or if
you have other questions. We're certainly
open to other questions that you might have.
Okay? I don't see anybody typing or raising
their hand or anything like that. So, I'll
go ahead. If you have questions, feel free
to stop me, let me know, type anything in
that chat. In the meantime, I will simply
use the rest of the time that we have to go
over some of these, if you're interested.
Let me go ahead and talk a little bit about Smart Views.
By default, the Smart Views that you have in
Blackboard already include Assignments,
Discussion Boards, there's a Final Grade
view, a view of what my grade is, what the
students see, [inaudible] and tests. You also
get blogs, journals and wikis as a default
Smart View. An important thing to note there
is that these are Blackboard tools, the Blackboard
blogs, journals and wiki tools. They are not
the Campus Pack tools. If you want a
Smart View for Campus Pack tools, you
would actually have to custom create those.
The Final Grade View does display all columns
including default totals and weighted totals.
As I mentioned, the preview of My Grades displays all
columns that are invisible to students. The wiki is
-- again, it's the Blackboard wiki -- but
it's only going to appear if you've actually
created a wiki. If you happen to use that
Needs Grading in Blackboard, you go to your
control panel in Blackboard and you see Full
Grade Center, you'll notice that Assignments
and Tests, those Smart Views are already created
as Favorites and are on that menu so that
you can quickly get to those particular types
of activities - from those Smart Views - without
having to go into the Full Grade Center to
see them. Once you're in the Grade Center,
if you want to work with Smart Views, you
would simply select Manage at the top, and
then Smart Views. That will take you into
all of your options for Smart Views.
As I mentioned, these are the default Smart Views
that every Blackboard course comes with.
You can make these Favorites. You can delete
some of these. You'll notice here, it says that
these are system created, that Assignments
and Tests have little green stars. Those are
already favorites. You can make others Favorites
and they'll appear in your control panel
so that you can easily get to those views.
If you do a custom Smart View, there are some selection criteria. It is based on options
within the course, and the type of item that you're viewing.
So, example views that you can create is,
you can create a course group.
We were just talking about Group Management.
If you've created a group from that group's
management, you can see that group or have
a custom view for that group from Smart Views.
You can create Smart Views based on performance.
So, this particular assignment or, say, all
discussion boards over all, I want a Smart View
for everyone who's performing below 80%.
You can do Smart Views for specific
users. Again, that would be good if you have
a course where you've merged your enrollments
and you want to select users for section one
and section two so that you can more easily
see those students specifically for that section.
Smart Views based on category and status and
then there's all kinds of custom builds
lets you pick and choose a whole bunch of
different options for those Smart Views.
Moving on a little bit to categories and how categories
can help you. With categories, you can filter
your view of the Grade Center, you can calculate
grades, dropping high and low and weighting
your grades. You can actually create a Smart View
from a category, and you can create reports from
categories. Recently, I worked with an instructor.
They are over a large enrollment multiple
section courses. They help TAs manage that.
They came with an interesting idea that I
think a lot of people do but nobody's asked
me about before. They have four tests during
the semester. They drop the lowest test for
the students. It could be one of any of the
four tests and it could be different for each
student. They wanted to come up with a way
to drop a different test for different students
depending on the score. So we used Categories.
We gave all of those tests a category and
created a new column that averaged those and
actually said, 'Drop the lowest score."
That's where Categories come in handy with
weighting grades. They were doing this all
manually. They were seeing which score was
the lowest for each individual student, and
we're talking about hundreds of students,
then recalculating the grades of the other
three. So this became very helpful for them.
Like Smart Views, Categories do have defaults
in Blackboard. Here's a list of those. Again,
with the blogs, journals and wikis, those
are Blackboard tools and, therefore, Blackboard
Categories. They do not refer to the Campus
Pack tool. Just like managing Smart Views
in the Grade Center, you would go to Manage
in Categories and you can create new categories,
use the categories they currently have; any
of those options.
This is simply a look at those default categories.
You can give them more information. This particular course shows that there was already at least
one assignment in the course and this just gives details about that column and that particular assignment.
Now, if we have Smart Views and Categories, one of the things we can do with them is filter. That's what
this is looking at here. This is the Full Grade Center
and we have our filter option.
With that, by default,there's a view, which is the
Full Grade Center. Categories are All Categories and
status is All Status. You can filter by any
one of those things. By default you're going
to see everything as Janet mentioned with
Assignments. The filters can help you narrow
those things down. The view that you see,
the current view, can be the Full Grade Center,
Smart Views or even grading periods if you
want to set up grading periods for your class,
Maybe grades to midterm and grades past midterm.
Categories can be default categories, which
are Blackboard categories or your custom categories,
and the status can be completed, you can say,
"I want to feed just any of the columns
that have been edited manually so I've gone
in and changed any of my grades." I want
to see the categories that are exempt from
the Grade Center. Maybe I want to see just
that my extra credit is exempt or something
like that. If I want to have a look at anything
that students are in progress with, that is
an option. I can look at things that are only
those items that are still awaiting grading
so needs grading. I can look and filter status
by things that have not been attempted by
students yet. So if I have a large group of
students in my course and I want to see where
they're progressing and where they haven't
progressed to yet, I can certainly do that.
So that was a very quick look at Filters,
Categories and Smart Views and the things
that you can do with those that, hopefully, by managing
that Grade Center you can speed up your time.
Were there any questions?
Would you like any more information about any one of those particular tools?
>
You can also, certainly, at this time ask any questions you might have about anything else.
Thank you. [inaudible] as well.
If you would like more information about using any of these tools, these Smart Filters, things like that.
Again, that [website] help.Blackboard.com
is a tool that I continually refer to and
go back to. It's very useful. It will give
you information about the new tools we have
in Blackboard. Please be aware that just because
a tool might be listed there, we might not
necessarily have it here at TWU or we may
not have all the functionality. So there is
that caveat. But it is very useful information.
At that On Demand Learning Center, anything
that is current or if it might have some
red text next to it and say a Service Pack, we
are currently on Blackboard Service Pack 13.
So if you happen to see something that says
Service Pack 14, we would not have that available
yet at this time. Hopefully, we have covered
questions and answers. If you do still have
them, please feel free to type those in the
box or raise your hand.
Just to let you know, you can always find us. We are
Teaching and Learning with Technology, so you can find
us on the TWU site at TWU.edu/TLT. In Denton,
we have instructional designers here to support
you and we also have designers in Dallas and
Houston to help faculty, students and staff there.
I would like to let you know a little
bit about our upcoming opportunities.
We do have the Academic Success lecture coming up
towards the end of March. Dr. Ken Bain will be
presenting that. Registration will close
on Wednesday, the 19th. Registration
is open right now. It will close on the 19th.
His presentation in the morning will be about
teaching and learning and is open to all administrators,
faculty, staff and adjuncts. Everyone is welcome to that.
We have additional Live to the Desktop
presentations coming up in March and April
based around that idea of efficiencies and helping
you with the Learning Management System,
and best uses of your time and some tips and
techniques for that.
So we have Organization and Efficiency: Simplifying Test Management
and Grade Center Statistics: What Can the Numbers Actually Tell You?
At this time I am going to conclude and stop the recording.
If you have questions, please feel free to
ask them. We'll stick around. One thing
I do want to do is, if you could take a moment
to complete our evaluation when we post that.
There's a link there in the chat feature.
If you click on the link, it should take you
directly to the evaluation. We always appreciate your feedback and your time.
So we do listen to those comments on the evaluation.
We use them to help us craft our next offerings.
Thank you and as I said we'll stick around
if you have any more questions.
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