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.
UPCOMING OWL BRIGHTSPACE WORKSHOPS
Your Future Self Will Thank You! How to Structure and Organize Your Course as a First Step After Course Migration
Description
Regardless of whether you chose Assisted Migration or Self-Migration, this workshop will help you create an organized foundation for your course site to save you time and improve your Brightspace experience later down the road. Investing your time in some key tasks as you get started with your course will go a long way to improving your future course management experience and the learning experiences of your students!
Because this workshop demonstrates key organization tasks to complete after migration regardless which migration option you've chosen, this workshop may also be helpful for instructors who are still not yet sure which course migration option to choose after reviewing the course migration option information found on the Requesting Course Migration information page.
In this workshop, you will:
- Identify the initial build/clean-up tasks relevant to your courses' migration type
- Organize and upload files to Manage Files (e.g. the "Resources" area of Brightspace)
- Create a structure for Content (e.g., the "Lessons" area of Brightspace) that aligns with your course design
Register for an upcoming virtual workshop:
May 2, 2024 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM
Register here
May 14, 2024 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM
Register here
May 29, 2024 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM
Register here
Jun 10, 2024 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM
Register here
Crafting Your Course Lessons in OWL Brightspace
Description
If you plan on sharing content with students in your OWL Brightspace course site, don’t miss this workshop! Unlike in OWL Sakai, course resources can’t be shared with students from your course files (e.g. Resources in Sakai or Manage Files in Brightspace). Content will be the tool you use to share course materials and develop lesson pages.
In this workshop, you will get hands-on practice in building your course pages using the Content tool (the equivalent to Lessons in OWL Sakai). This includes adding files, videos, images, links, text, and using Content’s HTML lesson pages and templates to create organized lessons.
In this workshop, you will:
- Differentiate between the Create New and Add Existing features for adding materials in Content
- Create course pages (i.e., HTML documents)
- Add to, edit, and configure Content material
Register for an upcoming virtual workshop:
Apr 29, 2024 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM
Register here
May 16, 2024 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM
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May 30, 2024 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM
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June 12, 2024 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM
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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 communicate with and supporting students:
- Checklists
- Announcements
- Calendar
- Intelligent Agents
Register for an upcoming virtual workshop:
May 8, 2024 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM
Register here
June 3, 2024 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM
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:
May 6, 2024 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM
Register here
June 5, 2024 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM
Register here
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:
May 13, 2024 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM
Register here
Jun 18, 2024 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM
Register here
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:
May 15, 2024 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM
Register here
May 28, 2024 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM
Register here
June 13, 2024 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM
Register here
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:
May 7, 2024 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM
Register here
May 23, 2024 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM
Register here
June 19, 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, 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 and release conditions
- Use Awards to issue badges and certificates
- 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:
May 22, 2024 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM
Register here
June 20, 2024 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM
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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