Let’s pack up our stuff, and prepare to make the move to our new online home, Canvas! What do you do when you prepare to move? Plan, clean, pack, and make the move! In this four-part series, we will share some tips for making the transition easier. In case you missed it, check out Part One (Planning) , Part Two (Cleaning) , and Part Three (Packing) of the series. Moving! It's finally here! This phase we will cover the importing of your Blackboard zip file, and locating the SOLS Template. Stay tuned to future blog posts that will provide tips for structuring your Canvas course, essentially unpacking in your new course home! Import Zip File If you chose to download your own zip file of your Blackboard course, you will now need to import the zip file into your newly created Canvas course. Here's the step by step instructions on how to do this. SOLS Template in Canvas We get asked often if we have a template to use in a Canvas course, in case you want to start fr...

Let’s pack up our stuff, and prepare to make the move to our new online home, Canvas! What do you do when you prepare to move? Plan, clean, pack, and make the move! In this four-part series, we will share some tips for making the transition easier. In case you missed it, check out Parts One and Two of the series, about Planning  and Cleaning , respectively.  Packing All finished with cleaning up your Blackboard course ? Next step is to pack up! This phase includes exporting your Blackboard materials to save them and how to request a Canvas course. Export You can either ask the University Technology Office (UTO) to export your Blackboard course into Canvas when you request your new course (see section below, "Request a Canvas Course"), or you can export the Blackboard course into a zip file that you save to your computer or in the cloud. You can even do both if you'd like!  We recommend keeping your Blackboard materials in a zip file on your own computer o...

Let’s pack up our stuff, and prepare to make the move to our new online home, Canvas! What do you do when you prepare to move? Plan, clean, pack, and make the move! In this four-part series, we will share some tips for making the transition easier.  In case you missed it, check out Part One of the series, all about Planning . Today's post is all about cleaning up Blackboard, because why bring along stuff you don't need or use? Cleaning   In this second phase of the moving cycle, we discuss how to clean-up before you make the move to Canvas! It will help you in the future to only have moved what is essential, rather than moving everything.  First, we’ll cover the items that will not transfer to Canvas from Blackboard. Then, we will share the top six areas you need to consider cleaning up before you move your Blackboard course to Canvas. What will not transfer Most things will transfer from Blackboard to Canvas, but it is good to be mindful of those that do not....

Let’s pack up our stuff, and prepare to make the move to our new online home, Canvas! What do you do when you prepare to move? Plan, clean, pack, and make the move! In this four-part series, we will share some tips for making the transition easier. Planning  When you’re moving, you want to make sure you know all the tasks that should be done to make the move. The planning phase of the move to Canvas includes knowing dates, resources, and training sessions that are available. You will also want to request a DEV “sandbox” Canvas course , so that you can begin to get to know Canvas and even move over one of your Blackboard courses (we will cover this in parts 3 and 4 of this series). Here's a checklist for you to plan your move to Canvas! Important Dates for Canvas November 16, 2018 - Last day to request migration of Spring A O-courses.  March 16, 2019  - Last day to request a copy of a Blackboard course to Blackboard. May 6, 2019  - Last day to teach ...

This week's TeachT@lk Webinar focused on a challenge that many of our faculty are focused on this summer. Change ! As ASU begins to convert BlackBoard courses to Canvas, there are many opportunities to improve all our courses in ways to benefit both faculty and students. Most materials CAN be moved into Canvas, but the question is SHOULD you move all your materials? Peter van Leusen , from EdPlus, talked about strategies to determine whether materials in your Blackboard course were valuable and important enough to import to Canvas. He suggested spending time looking at course evaluations, talking with TAs and your instructional designers to determine if content should be kept, modified or "dumped" before moving to Canvas. Jason Neenos , from UTO, then went over tips regarding file structure in BlackBoard and how it would import into Canvas. Showing that each folder became a "module". He shared a quick "Cheat Sheet" to help faculty remember how ...

This week's TeachT@lk webinar focused on a common issue at ASU, our large classes. Often faculty have 100+ students, and are overwhelmed at the end of the semester with grading. Our objective with this webinar was to share some different ideas about assessment that might make it a bit easier. I was joined by Lynda Mae from Psychology and Jason Neenos from the University Technology Office. We started with some tips to use online exams, even for face-to-face classes, that build on Bloom's taxonomy, and some sample questions. We also shared ideas about protecting integrity by randomizing questions, limiting times, browser lockdown and passwords. One interesting tip for multiple choice exams is that research shows that 30 seconds per item prevents cheating and does not tend to lower  performance. Of course, instructors may need to modify that number depending on the type of question. We also discussed an often controversial topic of group exams. We focused on a few differe...

The end is almost here! And it's the Final Countdown! We all know it's coming quickly. The end of the semester, and the pile of grading immediately afterwards is daunting and overwhelming. In our webinar this month, Jason Neenos and Paul Stoll talked through a number of great tips to keep in mind when finishing up your grades for ASU. They covered tips for pushing content from Blackboard, importing files, and manually entering grades. They answered questions about how to drop the lowest grade for students, and shared some terrific resources at https://students.asu.edu/facultycenter. Below are the resources that were shared during the webinar: Video recording of Webinar Slides from Webinar (PDF) Here are a couple of other resources that might be helpful as you approach the end of the semester: Things to think about at the end of the semester handout   End of semester evaluations article Blackboard article: Sending your grades from Bb to ASU Roster