Print Discussion Messages

Desire2Learn now offers a way to collect several discussion messages on a printer-friendly window:

• You must look at your discussion in grid style, not reading style (choose this option on the Discussion Settings page).
• You can search for messages first, or select "All Messages" on the View menu to get a list of messages that can be sorted by any of the column headings (subject, author, or date).
• Click in the check box for one or more messages to select them.
• Click the printer icon: 

Collecting messages like this can only be done one discussion topic at a time. [VIDEO DEMO]

Embedded Content and Google Chrome

The Google Chrome browser handles web pages with mixed secure and insecure content in a subtle way that might frustrate users who encounter it. For Desire2Learn, this occurs when insecure content is embedded. The linked video shows a couple of ways to handle this.

Grade quiz response by word count

You can use regular expressions to grade automatically the answer to an essay question based on a minimum number of words.

• Create a new question on a Quiz as a Short Answer

• Type in the question on the Question Text section.
• In the Add Blank section:
• Choose the Rows and Columns for the answer box.
• Type in the code on the Answer box exactly as it appears below.
• Type 100 for the Weight
• Choose the Regular Expression radio button.

([\w\p{P}]*\s){99,}

This set of variables means at least 99 words, each followed by any whitespace character (including space, tab, etc.). This code would work to check for a 100-word essay.

If a student types the minimum number of words based on the regular expression, points will be automatically awarded  based on the Weight assigned to that Answer. You can change these points based on the content of the words by grading students' attempts at this question.

Long Answer (Essay) Question Feedback

Individual feedback to students on essay questions is visible to students only if the question answer is visible to the student in the currently available Submission View of a quiz. For each question that has feedback (including long answer questions), the student will see a link to "View Feedback." When the student clicks on it, they will be able to view the feedback.

If the question library was gathered from the publisher, long questions, essay questions, fill int he blank questions, and Short Answer already include generic answer feedback. The instructor will not have input any feedback based on those type of questions. However for multiple choice or true of false questions there is no feedback generated. Instructors must submit individually.

 

 

Use Google Docs to Create an Image Rotator

You can use a Google Slides presentation to create an image rotator for your course. For example, your students might submit photos to you and you want them to be displayed on your course homepage.