Upcoming OWL Brightspace Workshops

The Centre for Teaching and Learning, along with Western Technology Services offers regular Interactive Workshops on specific Brightspace Topics as well as Drop-in Sessions. These are “hands on” sessions, and we strongly recommend that you do not attend this session until you have requested and accessed your Brightspace Sandbox so that you can apply ideas and create content alongside the session facilitators.

In addition, we have noted where it would be helpful to have reviewed a specific section of the OWL Brightspace Self-Guided Instructor Training before attending a workshop.

The dates and times of the Drop-In Brightspace Q&As with CTL and WTS, can be found on the OWL Brightspace Training and Help Resources page and the CTL's Connect calendar of faculty events. Registration is not required.

UPCOMING OWL BRIGHTSPACE WORKSHOPS

Using Brightspace Communication Tools to Support Students and Instructors

Description

OWL Brightspace has a variety of tools to help you better connect with students, share course expectations, and quickly identify when a student might benefit from an individual communication from the instructor.

This workshop combines hands-on practice with a demonstration of these tools for communicating with and supporting students:

  • Announcements 
  • Calendar  
  • Email 
  • Intelligent Agents

Register for an upcoming virtual workshop: 

Nov 18, 2024 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM
Register here

Integrating Discussions and Group Activities/Assessments into Your Brightspace Content

Description

Need to make changes to or reorganize Discussions and are not sure how? Thinking about how best to implement your Group Activity in Content? It’s easier than you might think!  

We’ll explore how Discussions and Groups can be tailored to match your course learning activities and/or assessments.   

In this workshop, you will:  

  • Configure Discussions for learning/assessment  
  • Determine how to integrate Discussions into Content  
  • Set up Groups for learning activities and assessments 
  • Determine how to integrate a Group activity or assessment into Content 

Register for an upcoming virtual workshop: 

 

Creating and Evaluating Assignments, Rubrics, and Self Assessments

Description

In this workshop, we’ll address different ways to assess student performance and provide feedback. 

Note: If you are also or only interested in the Quiz tool, we suggest signing up for the Exploring Brightspace’s Quizzes and Question Pool Features workshop as the Quiz tool is not covered in this workshop.  

In this workshop, you will:  

  • Learn to create both graded and ungraded assessments using different Brightspace tools 
  • Provide feedback to students in different modalities (e.g., text, audio) and with different tools 
  • Learn to create and link rubrics to your assignments and to other evaluated activities 

Register for an upcoming virtual workshop: 

 

Exploring Brightspace’s Quizzes and Question Library Features

Description

Join us for a practical workshop aimed at improving your skills in using OWL Brightspace for quizzes and self-assessments.  

In this workshop, you will:  

  • Create various types of quizzes, including multiple-choice, true/false, short answer, and essay questions 
  • Learn how to customize quiz settings in Brightspace to meet specific assessment requirements, including time limits, randomization of questions, and feedback options 
  • Learn to leverage the question library feature in Brightspace to efficiently manage, organize, and reuse quiz questions across multiple assessments 

Register for an upcoming virtual workshop: 

 

Setting Up the Grades Tool to Align with your Course Assessments and Structure

Description

A consistent and transparent Gradebook setup is helpful to both instructors and students! Learn how to align your course assessment needs with your syllabus and Gradebook structure using the different options available to you through Brightspace’s Grades tool. 

In this workshop, you will:  

  • Determine the Grades setup for your course 
  • Explore options to grade, display and calculate Grades 
  • Set up anonymous assignment grading 
  • Drop the lowest or highest grade in a grading category 
  • Link assessments (e.g., assignments, quizzes) to the Grades tool 

Register for an upcoming virtual workshop: 

Nov 15, 2024 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM
Register here

Nov 27, 2024 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM
Register here

Teaching with OWL Brightspace

Description

Once your OWL Brightspace course site is created, it’s time to focus on how to manage and adjust it so it works well for you, your Teaching Assistants/Facilitators, and students. This workshop will provide an opportunity to get hands-on practice with the following Brightspace tools and features: Class Progress, Manage Dates, Awards, Release Conditions, Checklist, and Quick Eval.

In this workshop, you will learn how to: 

  • Use Class Progress to track and identify students who are at risk of not succeeding in the course 
  • Manage Dates
  • Use Awards to issue badges and certificates
  • Use checklists to help keep your students organized 
  • Assign and publish Grades 
  • Use Release Conditions to create a custom learning path through the materials in your course 
  • Use Quick eval to centralize and prioritize your evaluations. 

Register for an upcoming virtual workshop: 

Nov 19, 2024 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM
Register here

Zero to Course: Brightspace Bootcamp

Description

The workshop will cover key topics to assist with your course development process, especially if you chose self-migration. We will begin with options for moving files from Sakai and loading them into Brightspace, structuring and organizing your course pages and exploring different templates. Following this, we will demonstrate how to use these templates effectively. Participants can build units and lesson pages, focusing on a representative week of their course. We will also provide an overview of managing files, including creating a folder structure. You'll build a simple page and add course content to a unit, with ample time for questions and discussion throughout the session. Join us to gain confidence and competence in setting up your Brightspace course site! 

Register for an upcoming in-person or virtual workshop: 

Nov 14, 2024 2:00 PM to 3:30 PM
Register here 

Nov 25, 2024 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM (in-person)
Register here 

Questions?

For OWL Brightspace Questions and more resources, please visit the OWL Brightspace Help page

For general instructor eLearning questions and support, please contact elearning-support@uwo.ca.

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