Brightspace and Me

I have officially been using Brightspace for three weeks.

And like a blind date, we’ve had our ups and downs.

Upon first meeting, Brightspace and I weren’t really too attracted to each other. Brighty thought one way; I worked in another. But as we spent more time with each other and got to know each other a bit better, a bond of sorts started to form.

Now this was not without some interference from friends… namely the Brightspace support team, “Team David”, I call them… David Biggins, Academic Learning Designer and Brightspace guru,  and David Hunt, learning technologist extraordinaire!

Between the two, they’ve kept my relationship with Brightspace blossoming. But this is not a tale of love between an academic and her VLE, no, what I want to share today is the number one thing that I absolutely love about Brightspace!

VIDEO NOTES!

I was never one to record a video for MyBU. Let’s face it, it was clunky. You needed to have a YouTube account, and then needed to upload there and embed links… it was just way too many steps for a busy academic like myself! But Brightspace? The video can be created within the VLE and it’s automatically there with the press of a record, stop and upload!

And my students LOVE them!

I’ve been leaving the students what I call,  “thoughts to ponder”, instructions for what I want them to do that week, questions to answer while reading journal articles, and I may have put a congratulatory video in there on making it to reading week and surviving my class!

It’s brightened up my unit, added a bit of pizazz and I’d encourage you to do the same.

I’ve created a video to show you how to do it. Please don’t judge my filming skills.

If you want to try this or find other hidden gems that Brightspace has to offer, there are Brightspace drop-in sessions on the following dates and times:

Lansdowne S117

Tuesday 10th October 9am-12pm

Friday 20th October 9am-12pm

Thursday 26th October 9am-12pm

 

Talbot Campus DL115

Tuesday 17th October 1pm-5pm

Monday 23rd October 1pm-5pm

 

2 Responses to “Brightspace and Me”

  1. Angela Warren's avatar Angela Warren

    Thank you so much for sharing this. This was one of my tasks for today and you have made it so easy with this step by step guide to post a video note! Excellent!

    Reply
    • Elvira Bolat's avatar Elvira Bolat

      I have been using Brightspace for four weeks now. Had few issues with Panopto recordings but it seems that now all issues are resolved – I’m loving it. Best thing is HTML editing – love how I can embed Padlet, mentinenter, ISSUU, tweets etc. – it is nice to see that links can be embedded so week within the content. Overall looks amazing and so user-friendly. Few issues with discussion forums and notifications and announcements but overall once you get understanding of how it works and what is possible, you will absolutely love it!

      Reply

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