So, back to Captivate 6. IU students, faculty, and staff can download it from IUware free of charge. You can’t beat that! Captivate 6 gives you features like:

• Rapid eLearning content development
• More effective collaboration
• Interactive eLearning experiences
• Rich multimedia to attract learners
• Easy quizzing
• Delivery virtually anywhere
• Scoring, tracking, and reporting

You’re itching to learn all about this cool tool aren’t you? Luckily, IT Training has a Captivate 6: The Basics workshop planned.  It’s an online workshop (imagine that), scheduled for Tuesday, December 4th from 2:00 to 4:00 pm. In the meantime, go ahead and download Captivate 6 and start playing around with it. You can also find Captivate 6 training on lynda.com.

If you’re an educator you may be called upon to create some online learning content, so learn how to do it and impress your boss.  If you’re a student you can surely use Captivate to put together some pretty nifty class projects. There’s something for everyone, so start learning today.

Captivate 6 opening screen

No one looking at my office (or my house) would suspect it, but all of my computer files are very neatly stored and nested, sub-folder within sub-folder. My virtual desktop is almost completely empty, save a few shortcuts. Any time I see two or more files in a folder that have something in common, I make a new sub-folder and drop them in.

As I’ve transitioned to paperless grading in Oncourse, particularly for my Spanish composition class, I’ve run across “Destination path too long” errors that baffled me. In Assignments 2, I make regular use of the “Download All” option, so that I can grade all of my students’ submissions for a particular assignment at once.

Oncourse is also hyper-organized (evidently we have this in common), so the zipped file that I save to my computer has a very detailed name: AssignmentName-Semester-Campus-Department-CourseNumber-SectionNumber.zip

Obviously in real life most of those come out shorter. Here’s a more true-to-life example inspired by my class.

Comp_1_v3_final-SP12_IN_SPAN_S399_99999.zip

When you look at all the information that Oncourse packs in to the name of the zipped file, it’s pretty impressive. There’s no confusion as to which assignment for which section of which class from which semester I have – it’s all in the name.

From here, I could simply open the zipped file, and then click the “Extract all files” link at the top of the window. But no, in an effort to be organized and clear, I choose to move the zipped file to my class folder. Where is that, you ask? Here’s a sample path that I might have on my computer:

C:\Users\kmurday\Documents\_WLAC\_Spanish\_S399\SP12 documents\comp1\

In case you don’t read path names on a regular basis, this means I have a folder in Documents named _WLAC (the underscore at the front makes it jump to the top of an alphabetized list). Inside that is _Spanish, for all the Spanish classes I’ve taught over the years. I have a sub-folder within that named for this semester’s class, _S399. Within that folder I might have sub-folders for handouts, another for rubrics, and definitely one for homework: SP12 documents. I include SP12 in the folder name so that if I teach the class again in the fall, I can put that class’s homework in a different sub-folder (FA12 documents, perhaps) but still have it nicely stored with my other S399 classes.  Within my homework folder, I then have sub-folders for each assignment. That’s the “comp1″ you see above. So once I’ve moved the zip file, my path name is this:

C:\Users\kmurday\Documents\_WLAC\_Spanish\_S399\SP12 documents\comp1\Comp_1_v3_final-SP12_IN_SPAN_S399_99999.zip

Once I click “Extract all files” the zip file is unpacked.  For some reason that I’m sure makes sense to someone somewhere, inside my newly unpacked folder is another folder with the same name.  Now I’m up to:

C:\Users\kmurday\Documents\_WLAC\_Spanish\_S399\SP12 documents\comp1\Comp_1_v3_final-SP12_IN_SPAN_S399_99999\Comp_1_v3_final-SP12_IN_SPAN_S399_99999\

OK, no problem. I open up the next folder, and find a separate folder for each of my students, named thusly: StudentLastName, StudentFirstName StudentMiddleName (studentemail)

Even for students with short names, this gets pretty lengthy. Now we’re up to:

C:\Users\kmurday\Documents\_WLAC\_Spanish\_S399\SP12 documents\comp1\Comp_1_v3_final-SP12_IN_SPAN_S399_99999\Comp_1_v3_final-SP12_IN_SPAN_S399_99999\Alabaster, Alfredo J (sample99)\

Oncourse tracks the date and time that students submit their assignment, and puts the files in a folder named by the year, month, date of submission followed by the exact time (such as 0928AM), then adds an additional number after that… probably for tracking purposes.  In order to find Alfredo’s assignment, I have to dig into this folder. If Alfredo has turned in his assignment as an attachment, that attached file will be inside. So now we have:

C:\Users\kmurday\Documents\_WLAC\_Spanish\_S399\SP12 documents\comp1\Comp_1_v3_final-SP12_IN_SPAN_S399_99999\Comp_1_v3_final-SP12_IN_SPAN_S399_99999\Alabaster, Alfredo J (sample99)\20120209_0928AM (1999199)\Alabaster comp1 final version S399.docx

Got all that?  Well, even if you do, Windows may not.  While I remember quite clearly the days when Windows required file name to be a max of eight characters followed by a dot and a three character extension, no exceptions, I also remember the happy day when that restriction was lifted. (I also remember snarky comments from my Mac-devotee friends at the time, but I digress).

When I first insisted on electronic submission of homework assignments, I used to end up with 25 files all named “Spanish Homework.doc.” I guess on their own computers, this made perfect sense to my students, but on mine it was a sea of confusing files I couldn’t keep straight.  I began asking my students to include more information in their document title, such as their last name, the class number, and the homework assignment. I had no idea this brilliant idea, combined with Oncourse’s detailed folder system and my compulsion to create sub-folders, would be pushing my computer to its limits. I didn’t know it had limits.  Turns out, yes, it does have limits on file names – and the path name to that file is included in the maximum characters allowed (which seems to be about 260 characters, give or take).

So I haven’t had any problems when I first download the zip file from Assignments because I send them automatically to “My Downloads” – a simple c:\users\kmurday\Downloads\.  Short and sweet. But once I try to get organized, I create a monstrous path and file name that chokes everything up. The error message that pops up under these circumstances was less than helpful, as all it does is provide the options to skip the file, or cancel the process entirely:

Ok, so what’s the solution? Well, we can’t easily or efficiently alter the folders and sub-folders that come along with the zipped file from Oncourse. However, they usually won’t cause a problem on initial download. If they do, save the zip file to your desktop, which usually has a relatively short path.  If that’s still creating too long a path name, put the zip file directly to your C:\ directory (find it under “Computer” in the Start menu, if you don’t have a shortcut on your desktop).

Bear in mind that once you unzip your file, you don’t have to move the top folder that it creates. In this case I don’t really need a sub-folder named Comp_1_v3_final-SP12_IN_SPAN_S399_99999 within the folder named Comp_1_v3_final-SP12_IN_SPAN_S399_99999. So instead of moving the top-level unzipped folder, I could move just the inner folder. Even better, I could rename the inner folder something shorter, like “Comp1_v3″ and then move THAT one into my class folder. Then I end up with C:\Users\kmurday\Documents\_WLAC\_Spanish\_S399\SP12 documents\comp1_v3\, followed by each student’s submission folder, and so forth.

I also recommend examining your destination folder’s path name, to see if any its folder names can be shortened.  For example, I could change a folder named “Spring 2012 documents” all the way to “S12docs” without losing clarity. Now that I know the problem exists, I will try to shorten my folder names… that way I can stay organized!

I became a very heavy user of Oncourse’s Assignments tool, in all of its incarnations. The current version, called Assignments 2, has several features that have made my transition to purely digital assignments much easier.

One of my favorites is the flexibility with due dates and submissions. With Assignments 2, I can set the open date and time; often, I set the open date for right after class ends on a particular day, so my more wired students won’t end up distracted during class. Having both date and time for the due date is helpful if I want students to turn something in before the next class starts. If I want something submitted by the end of the day, I’ve started making the “due time” 11:59pm. Otherwise I always worry that someone will get confused about the time (is 12:00am midnight or noon?) and date (if it says the due date/time is 12:00am on the 24^th, does that mean submissions will be rejected as of 12:01am on the 24^th, or not until 12:01am on the 25^th? I’ve never been clear on the answer to that, btw).   

The “Post Open Date to Announcements on Open Date” option is very helpful. I like having notice of a new assignment appear on the first page of my course site, but it used to be that my announcement would show up as soon as I saved a new assignment… even if it wasn’t open yet. So I’d get flooded with email messages from eager students who tried to start working on the assignment right away only to find it wasn’t available yet. Now, the announcement stays hidden until the day and time I set. Bravo!

If I decide students can earn partial credit on a late assignment, I can set a different “Accept Until” date. This can get confusing for students, however, as they see (Late) after the due date and often assume that it’s too late.  However, if you look closely at the example below, you can see that one of these two assignments has “View Details and Submit” versus just “View Details.” So this is one I still get email messages about from students (this time the desperate ones who didn’t submit before the posted “Due Date” and thus feel compelled to attach their homework to an email message and beg for leniency).

Note that the first assignment here is closed to submissions, but the second one will still allow you to submit – it’ll just be marked “Late.” I always insist that students post their work in Assignments, even if they’ve just sent it to me as an attachment via Oncourse email. As I tell them, I need to have everything in the same place, or I lose track of what has been turned in and what hasn’t. I’ll admit it; I’ve had to change course grades in the past upon discovering a missing assignment in my email instead of in the Assignments tool where it belonged!

The other problem that would crop up from time to time was students submitting their work and then needing to make changes for one reason or another. I’d end up with the updated files sent to my email inbox once again, and I don’t always remember to check my inbox while I’m grading assignments because, well, that’s not where they’re supposed to be. So I made the executive decision to change the “Number of Submissions” to Unlimited for pretty much every assignment.

This way, I can redirect students back to Assignments (instead of getting yet more files via email), and I have a history of all submissions in one handy place. I like that when I’m ready to grade, the most recent submission is listed first, and then I can dig down to look at older submissions if I want.

Every once in a while I’ll have a few students who genuinely learn better if they write things out by hand. I hate to discourage students who know what learning strategies work for them. Then I realized that many of our Student Technology Centers have scanners! Now I simply request that things like diagrams or other handwritten work be scanned and then attached to the assignment in Oncourse.

The best part of all this is I no longer have piles of papers to carry around, or spill coffee on, or drop in puddles, or misplace entirely. I’m never going back!

Under Settings, faculty can specify delivery dates for their assessments, including whether or not to accept late submissions. In addition they can add a time limit, and add feedback (for specific responses, or for the assessment as a whole). They can even allow students to respond anonymously, or choose to hide students’ names from the person grading a test (such as a course assistant). Two settings in particular can be exploited for pedagogical purposes: Assessment Organization and Mark for Review.

With Assessment Organization, test or survey questions can be delivered either linearly or non-linearly. In the linear format, the order of questions is set by the test creator, and students are forced to answer one question (or part of the test) at a time, without being able to return to previous sections. This is a good choice if, for example, the answer to question 2 shows up in question 4.  The non-linear (or “random access”) format provides much more flexibility: students can click on a Table of Contents link to skip ahead or return to unanswered questions. I like using this format if I can, since sometimes test takers panic and can’t remember the answer to something when put on the spot.

With Mark for Review, assessment creators can let students bookmark questions that they want to look at again before they submit the test. Students will see a check-box that says “Mark for Review;” if they click it, then that question is marked in the table of contents. To take full advantage of this tool, students should look over the table of contents before submitting their answers. They can use it to click on the questions that they wanted to review from that page. Naturally, this option only works with non-linear (random access) tests.

Assessment creators should explore their options under settings; students should make a point of noticing if they have the chance to review questions, or if they should make sure not to skip questions!

For more details on how to use Test & Surveys Beta, browse through these IT Training materials:

Least You Need to Know documents

• For instructors:
• Tests & Surveys Beta: Settings Overview
• Tests & Surveys Beta: Create a Test or Survey

• For students:
• Tests & Surveys Beta: Taking an Assessment

Feature Demonstrations

• For instructors:
  • Tests & Surveys Beta, Settings overview
  • Tests & Surveys Beta, Creating a new assessment

• For students:
  • Tests & Surveys Beta, Taking a linear test
  • Tests & Surveys Beta, Taking a non-linear test

Every course taught at IU automatically gets an Oncourse site. The following tools are immediately available:

• Home, where instructors post an introduction to their course. The Home tool also displays the most recent announcements, and whether or not there are new messages.
• Announcements, useful for keeping site members up-to-date on assignments and other events
• Assignments 2, for posting homework and other tasks. You can associate them with the Gradebook automatically, and choose to post an announcement when they come available.
• Gradebook, where to record and calculate grades.
• Library Resources, an interactive page connected to the university library.
• Messages, an internal email system for each site than can be connected to its members’ IU email address, or automatically forwarded to any outside email address, as desired.
• Resources, a place to post documents and links related to course content.
• Roster, which shows a list of site members (students, instructors, course assistants, and others). There’s even a roster version with everyone’s official ID photo for those of us with memory issues.
• SIS Grade Roster, a quick way to officially post grades.
• Site Setup, the only tool that can’t be deleted, which allows site owners (usually instructors) to change what tools are visible, who can access the site, and how basic info is displayed.
• Syllabus, where you can post a copy of your course syllabus, as text or as an attachment.

These are by no means the only tools at your disposal, however – there are many more.  Some additional tools that might be useful:

• Web Content, which allows you to list links to other web sites that will be listed among the tools on the left of the screen.  You can add multiple links this way.
• Forums, a discussion board
• Chat room, for live chat between students – with or without the instructor
• Tests & Surveys Beta, for creating assessments

There are many more tools available that might serve your needs.  For more details on how to use Oncourse, watch our short feature demo movies and read the PDF Least You Need to Know documents, or click the blue question  marks sprinkled liberally throughout the workspace.  Watch this blog for tips and tricks to make the most of your Oncourse experience!