Brightspace Blog
What’s New on Brightspace? (September 2020)
Sep. 21, 2020—Every month, Brightspace will release new features and updates. You can get a comprehensive view of the updates here, but this blog post will give you a quick overview of what’s new on Brightspace! Assignments – Additional functionality in the new assignment creation experience Add special access conditions to assignments. Receive a notification email when assignments...
What is click tracking? How should instructors use it to improve their courses?
Sep. 3, 2020—Click tracking refers to the ability that both instructors and students have in Brightspace to see where students have clicked within a course. This tool can be very useful for students trying to track their own progress in a course and for instructors evaluating their own course design and learning activities. However, this tool should...
Turnitin Workshop on Wednesday 8/12
Aug. 6, 2020—Join our partners from Turnitin on Wednesday August 12th at 2 PM for a training session catered toward online teaching. In this session, we’ll be reviewing the many ways Turnitin can help facilitate learning and assessment in online spaces. This workshop is open to all Vanderbilt faculty, staff, and teaching assistants and will be held...
Brush up on some essential Brightspace skills before teaching in an online or hybrid format this fall!
Jul. 28, 2020—Join Stacey, the CFT’s Assistant Director for Educational Technology, on Zoom for workshops about Brightspace tools including Discussions and Grades/Feedback. You can register and learn more about the available workshops on the Brightspace workshops page. If you will be using Brightspace for the first time and want to get to know the content and navigation tools,...
What’s New on Brightspace? (June/July 2020)
Jun. 15, 2020—Every month, Brightspace will release new features and updates. You can get a comprehensive view of the updates here, but this blog post will give you a quick overview of what’s new on Brightspace! Assignments – New create and edit experience The create and edit Assignments page has an updated look and feel. The classic tabbed...
Turning a Syllabus into an Online Course on Brightspace
Apr. 24, 2020—by Stacey M. Johnson, Assistant Director for Educational Technology If you will be teaching online, how do you plan to convert your course plan into a clean, easy-to-follow Brightspace course? The course plan or syllabus is the blueprint of your course, but now you have to construct the virtual structure according to the plans you...
Troubleshooting the Brightspace Quizzes tool or the Respondus Lockdown Browser – Trending Topic (April 2020)
Apr. 23, 2020—If you are using the Quizzes tool in Brightspace to conduct some end-of-semester assessment in your course, the CFT is here to help. And now, thanks to Lead Instructional Technologist Paige Snay with input from the rest of the support team, our ever-growing On-Demand Resources page also features a troubleshooting guide that you can use...
What’s New on Brightspace? (March/April 2020)
Apr. 23, 2020—Every month, Brightspace will release new features and updates. You can get a comprehensive view of the updates here, but this blog post will give you a quick overview of what’s new on Brightspace! Assignments – Video Note recordings have expanded time limit In Assignment submission folders, students can now submit up to 30 minutes of...
Developing Online Assessments of Student Learning in a Hurry
Mar. 25, 2020—by CFT assistant director, Stacey M. Johnson Faculty, are you thinking about how to develop online assessments of student learning in a hurry? At Vanderbilt most courses meet face-to-face, but with campus closed through the end of the spring 2020 semester, we are all rethinking assessments. The CFT has resources to help. This blog post is...
Video processing slowly? Here’s some help.
Mar. 19, 2020—If the speed of video processing is a problem… Video isn’t always necessary or even the best tool for the job. Lots of other technologies are just plain more accessible to everyone but especially to students on unreliable wifi. Read our blog post about low-bandwidth alternatives to video here. If you are using Kaltura, here...
Low-Bandwidth Teaching Tools on Brightspace
Mar. 17, 2020—by CFT assistant director, Stacey M. Johnson Video-based tools (like Zoom and Virtual Classroom, the two video conferencing tools available in Brightspace, or Kaltura Media, the video creation and storage tool) can be very useful for recreating the classroom experience in an online format. However, some faculty and students might not have access to the consistent internet...
Asynchronous Teaching Tools on Brightspace
Mar. 13, 2020—by CFT assistant director, Stacey M. Johnson With both Zoom and Virtual Classroom available in Brightspace for live video conferencing, many faculty will be moving their face-to-face classes online in a very literal sense, doing similar activities as usual that happen to be conducted video conferencing. However, for some faculty, moving their courses online means...
Accessibility and Remote Teaching
Mar. 12, 2020—by CFT assistant director, Stacey M. Johnson Accessibility in an online environment is essential. All students should be included and valued as our campus transitions to remote teaching through the end of the semester. Some Brightspace tools that will help are: If you will be creating recorded lectures or other video with Kaltura Capture this...
Putting Your Course Online in a Hurry
Mar. 6, 2020—by CFT assistant director, Stacey M. Johnson Faculty, are you thinking about how to put some of your course content online in a hurry? Perhaps to deal with unexpected events? At Vanderbilt most of our courses meet face-to-face, however, if you find that you need to make adjustments in a hurry to best serve students...
Teaching with Blogs on Brightspace – Trending Topic (February 2020)
Feb. 18, 2020—The Vanderbilt Center for Teaching released a comprehensive guide to Teaching with Blogs. Brightspace users on campus will be interested to know that a blog tool is included in every Brightspace course, and can be used to support student learning inside of the secure course management environment. How can Students Blog on Brightspace? A Blog is...