Wednesday, March 31, 2010

ANGEL Tip of the Day #47 - Private Announcements

Happy Spring everyone! At the beginning of the quarter, one often finds students with bad email addresses. In an online class, especially, it can be challenging to figure out how to reach the student. You can post a private announcement for a specific person or a team.

When posting an announcement, the box just above the Save button says User> Everyone (circled below in red). If you click on that downward arrow, you’ll see your teams and then the individual students in your class. Just choose the appropriate recipient and you’ll be good to go.

FYI – students can update their email address in the SMS system at the Student Address Information page and they can update it in ANGEL using the profile button in ANGEL (circled below in orange)



Keep in mind that you will not, by default, see this announcement in your Announcements list under the Announcement Editor. This is because the default view is announcements that are visible to everyone. If you change the User to the specific person or team, you’ll then see that announcement.

Monday, March 29, 2010

ANGEL Training for Spring Quarter

We have a new session of ANGEL training beginning April 14. The course is entirely online. There are two sections.

The Full Section is

· for people who are new to teaching using course management systems.

· 6 weeks long (April 14 – May 25)

· Based on designing a course from scratch

· Covers basic online pedagogical theory

The Express Section is

· for people who are experienced using Blackboard or other course management systems

· 4 weeks long (April 14 – May 11)

· Based on converting an existing course

· Explores more advanced online pedagogy

Both Sections

· Have weekly graded work (the work is graded pass/fail)

· Take 4 – 6 hours a week to complete

· Have flexible time schedules – if you fall behind, it’s ok. You can continue on whenever it works for you

· Will have you ready to use ANGEL for Summer or Fall Quarter

· Are free and open to anyone in the community college system

To register, visit the WAOL instructor training page at http://www.waol.org/info/training/instTrainingRegistration.aspx . Please note that this is the only session that I will run online Spring quarter.

If you started the training previously and would like to begin again, please email Stephanie Delaney directly and we’ll get you going so you can start where you left off.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Important Information on Copying Courses in ANGEL

1. Back up your classrooms frequently. Restoring data that has been accidentally deleted is pretty easy if you backup your classroom. Otherwise, it is difficult and costly-- or maybe impossible.

You can find instructions on how to backup your content click here.

2. Copy from your Master Classroom so you do not include existing students and their work in your new classroom. When copying content into a new classroom, copy from your Master classroom.

This will link you to the instructions click here.

Note! If instead of copying from another course or master course you are importing a backup file, it will contain student records, grades, e-mail, submissions, discussion forum postings, and more. Uncheck the User Data column so that they will not be imported into the new course. All assignments remain, but do not contain any student submissions. You might also want to uncheck Calendar Items and Announcements if you do not want them in the new course.

These two steps can save you a lot of stress!

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Copying Grading Scales

I just got a question about copying grading scales from one class to another. If you have that question too, here is a PowerPoint presentation that explains how to do it, starting on Slide 10 - http://www.abington.psu.edu/content/intranet/instructional_design/docs/The%20ANGEL%20Grade%20Book.pdf

Monday, March 8, 2010

New Info on the ANGEL Logon Page


Next time you log on to ANGEL, have a look in the upper left of your screen. You’ll see a new up time indicator. If you click on it, you’ll be able to see the ANGEL up time for the week. Now, next time your student says “ANGEL was down” you have a way to double check.