Learning Technology Updates for December 2021

The Work To Do widget provides students with a view of any upcoming or overdue Assignments, Checklists, Content, Discussions, Surveys, or Quizzes that have not been completed. Please note that only learning activities with a due or end date will appear and will include items that are due within the next 2 weeks, or overdue from the previous 12 weeks.  To add this widget to your course homepage, please see our Edit Your iCollege Course Homepage and Navbar knowledge base article. 

The custom Profile Card widget allows instructors to be introduced to their students and provide them with a photo, biography, and other information, such as your office hours or a link to your WebEx Personal Meeting Room. To add this widget to your course homepage, please see our Edit Your iCollege Course Homepage and Navbar knowledge base article, which includes a section on how to edit your profile card. 

The Slim Announcements widget presents a simplified, unified view of announcements, by trimming the display to a single image and a set length of text. The widget allows learners to read more with a click and presents a slimmed-down streamlined display to avoid overwhelming information and create visual cohesion. Announcements  in the Slim Announcements widget are truncated, and students may not realize that more information is available, so it’s best for short announcements or with a prompt that students should click for more information. To add this widget to your course homepage, please see our Edit Your iCollege Course Homepage and Navbar knowledge base article.

The Content Navigator is an update to the Content Browser widget that gives users quick access to course topics. Users can select to drill down from module, to submodule, to content for more direct access. This widget tracks and displays navigational history and allows one-click navigation to the last visited module topic. This widget is now available on all default course homepages.If you have customized your homepage, you will need to manually update to content navigator if you would like to use it.

The new Assignment Creation Experience removes the current tabs from Assignment creation and editing and instead embeds all of the creation options on one screen. On the left pane, the basic information for assignment creation is available including the Assignment score, Due Date, Instructions, and Visibility. Additional settings for Assignment Availability and Release, Submission & Completion requirements, and Evaluation & Feedback are available in the right-hand menus. This update became available in June 2020, but is now the only experience available. More information on using the new Assignment Creation Experience can be found in our Creating Assignments in iCollege knowledge base article.

The view of Discussions during grading is being updated with a more modern interface to bring the Discussion Evaluation Experience more in-line with the new Assignment Evaluation Experience that launched this Fall. This version became available to opt-in in August 2021, but it is now the only discussion evaluation experience available.

Evaluation tools like Grades, Rubrics, and Feedback are moving to the Right-Hand panel to display in the same way as Assignments. Rubrics will drop down the side panel or pop out into a new window for grading.

Also consistent with Assignments is the header panels with the activity name display, navigation (either back or iterating through submissions), and the learner’s name and profile card. The draggable divider will work the same here, too! The adaptive mobile view is just as useful in this view with the evaluation tools tucking into a neat drawer when the screen gets smaller.

The differences in the display of the Discussion topic and replies are slight.  One change that may be noticeable is the title of the topic or the reply is a link. It will open the post in a new window so the evaluator can get an idea of the context in which the post was made.

The Discussion Dates and Locking options will be combined in the restrictions tab. Instead of setting availability and locking options separately, the ability to restrict access, submissions, and visibility can now be set with the availability start and end dates.

Message alerts, subscription alerts, and update alerts in the minibar will persist for 90 days instead of the previous 7 days.

When selecting an email recipient in the To, CC, and/or Bcc fields, each of these fields in the Compose window are now links that launch an Address Book dialog to select recipients from. Once a user, or users, are selected, they are added to the respective field.

Intelligent agents can now be included in course import/export packages.

To encourage users to better express themselves non-verbally, Webex is adding skin tones to your reactions. The additional five skin tones reflect a range of skin colors and are also available in the Webex Mobile app. To change the skin tones, go to Meeting Options > Appearance.

The following new reactions are being added to help users express how they’re feeling during a meeting: Thank You, Love, Speed Up, Slow Down, and Fire.

A new version of the VoiceThread integration in iCollege is now available. Improvements in the new integration include:

• Easily copy your VoiceThreads between courses in iCollege
• Complete roster sync, which supports adds and drops seamlessly.
• Support for future VoiceThread features, which will only be available in the new version.

For more information, or to try out VoiceThread in your course, please contact us at help@gsu.edu.