Russell Davidson

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Adding a File Only January 2016

Whether building or maintaining a course site, one of the most common activities is adding files and blocks of text. Depending on the content you’re adding, there are two methods of adding content to a course.

If you want to add multiple files in a group, text, images that may be viewed onscreen, or a single file accompanied by text, you’ll want to use the Add Item tool.

If you only want to add a single file — any kind of file, Powerpoint file, PDF file, Word file, video file, audio file — with no accompanying text, the easiest method is to use the Add File tool. Go into the content space where you’d like to add the file. Then, point to BUILD CONTENT and choose FILE under the CREATE heading.

In the select file space, enter the text you’d like your students to see and click on to access the file. If you’d like to change the color of the file link, click the (default black) color tile, and select a new color. To actually attach the file, click the BROWSE MY COMPUTER button.

Locate the file on your computer, then click OPEN to add the file to the page.

Under the File Options heading, we recommend setting “Open in a New Window” to YES. You needn’t worry about the “Add alignment” option.

The Standard Options on the Create / Edit a File page work as they do elsewhere on Blackboard. If you’d like to make the content available to students, whether immediately or at a later date, click select YES on the “Permit Users to View this Content” line.

If you’d like users to view the content at a set time in the future, but not immediately, you should select YES on the “Permit Users to View” line, then check the DISPLAY AFTER box and enter the date and time you want students to have access. You can limit access to a window of time by also checking the DISPLAY UNTIL box and entering a date and time (note, you can make content available from a set time in the future until a set time in the future by setting both AFTER and UNTIL restrictions; you can make content available from the moment you add it until a set date by setting only an UNTIL restriction.

If you’d like to be able to see view statistics for this content (as well as other content items on the page you’re adding it to), select YES on the “Track Number of Views” line.

Once you’ve set the options as you’d like them, click SUBMIT to add the content or save your changes.

Build / Add Content Russell Davidson Updated: January 25, 2016

Editing and Creating Piazza Folders January 2016

Once you’ve created a Piazza space for your course, you will probably want to edit the folder structure so it more accurately reflects how you plan to use Piazza in conjunction with your course. Piazza folders function much like folders or discussion forums on Blackboard: they serve to organize the discussions or questions in your Piazza site. However, where on Blackboard a user first enters a Discussion Forum, then creates a post, in Piazza, one starts creating a post and selects where it belongs from a list.

To make changes to the default folders, click MANAGE CLASS at the top of the Piazza page.

The Configure Folders setting space is a little buried in the current version of Piazza. To get to this section quickly, click CUSTOMIZE Q&A.

customize-Q&A By default, Piazza offers a number of folders. To make changes to these defaults, select the EDIT DEFAULT FOLDERS radio-button.

You’ll notice there two types of folders: Numbered folders and custom folders.

Numbered folders appear a some text followed by a number. For example, you may have 10 weekly homework assignments. To create folders for each of these, you need only enter the text Homework (or Assignment) in the text space, then select the appropriate number (10) from the How Many pulldown.

To edit the existing numbered folders, click the EDIT button.

You’ll notice Piazza provides a fair number of suggestions for labelling numbered folder. If none of these suit your needs, choose “Create your own,” then enter your custom label in the space provided.

Note that in these labels, spaces will be converted into underscores and capital letters will be converted to lowercase. To save your changes, click ADD.

To create a custom folder, simply enter the folder label in the title space, then click ADD. To remove a folder, click the REMOVE link.

To save these changes to the class, click SAVE CHANGES.

Communicate, Piazza Russell Davidson Updated: January 21, 2016

Responding to a Piazza Post January 2016

To respond to a question or discussion prompt, simply click in the Students’ Answer space and type your response.

Where Piazza becomes interesting, and different from Blackboard’s discussion board, is when an initial response has been posted, and another member of the class has an addition or clarification.

While a traditional discussion board is geared toward students individually responding to a discussion prompt, Piazza is unique in that it encourages students to respond to a discussion prompt collaboratively, editing a single posts in a wiki-like fashion. Changes are preserved in a timeline, making it easy for both instructors and students to see who made what changes to a post.

Note that, while instructors and students can edit student posts, only instructors can edit instructor posts.

Editing a post is simple, just click the EDIT button in the lower-left corner of the post.

This re-opens the message in the text editor. Make whatever changes you feel are necessary, then click SUBMIT to save those changes.

You can see who has edited a post by checking the post’s lower-right corner.

To view the post history, drag the slider-bar at the top of the post left to view previous versions, right to view newer versions. Tics on the slider line indicate changes to the post. The yellow box that appears below the slider indicates who is responsible for changes in the visible version.

Communicate, Piazza, Piazza Russell Davidson Updated: January 21, 2016

Posting to Piazza January 2016

To post to Piazza, you’ll first need to click the NEW POST button, which appears in the upper left of the Piazza screen.

Before you get to typing your question, you’ll need to set the post’s type, audience, and location.

Post type indicates whether you’re posting a question (which begs a response), a note (a block of text that needs no response), or whether you’re posting a block of text that will include a poll (note, details of the Poll/In-Class Response are covered in another walkthrough).

Next, indicate whether the post should go to the entire class or just to the Instructor(s). Instructors have the option to post to the entire class or one or more students.

Last, select which folder you want the post to appear in. This option won’t be required if folders are disabled for the site.

Now you can get down to the actual posting ….

Much like an email (or a discussion thread in Blackboard), a Piazza post starts with a short subject or summary. This is followed by message (or question) body. If you need to include an equation, click the f_xbutton to launch the LaTeX equation editor. Similarly, if you need to include code, click the CODE button.

Once you have entered your post, you may (depending on the settings established by your professor) choose to post under your own name, post anonymously to classmates (meaning any instructor users will still see your name), or anonymously to everyone (both classmates and instructors).

Click the orange POST MY QUESTION TO [COURSE ID] to post your question, and you’re all set!

Communicate, Piazza, Piazza Russell Davidson Updated: January 21, 2016

Add Piazza to your Blackboard Course January 2016

Piazza is a free, third-party question and answer tool available to use through Blackboard. Piazza discussion differs from standard Blackboard discussion in a number of ways, primarily in that it is geared toward students collaborating to produce a single response to a question or discussion prompt in a wiki-like fashion, rather than each student responding individually.

Piazza set up is a two-step process. First, we add the Piazza tool link to the course, then we create or choose the Piazza space we’ll be using in the course.

To add the Piazza tool link to the course, enter the content space where we’d like to add the Piazza link. Point to TOOLS and choose PIAZZA.

Enter a name, description, etc. for your Piazza link as we would when adding any item on Blackboard. You may want to enter a discussion prompt, or other instructions about how you expect students to use Piazza in the description field.

Once created, this adds a Piazza item to the course. To complete the setup, click this link.

If you’re creating a Piazza space for this course for the first time, Use the CREATE YOUR CLASS ON PIAZZA section to create a new course space. Enter the course name and estimated enrollment — if you’re planning on using a single Piazza space for multiple sections, the estimated enrollment should reflect your total expected enrollment for the Piazza space. If the default term is not correct, select a term for your course, and click CREATE CLASS.

If you’ve already created the Piazza space you wish to use in the course, scroll down to the ALREADY CREATED A CLASS ON PIAZZA section and enter the Class Number. By default, Piazza pulls in your Knowledge Course ID as its class number.

Once the course is set up, you’ll need to confirm your account and enrollment. Verify that your name displays correctly and provide a password so you can access Piazza content directly on the Piazza web site or via their Android or iOS app. Read and accept the Terms of Use (if you wish to use the service), then click CONTINUE.

Last, we recommend changing your Piazza course setting to prevent users from adding themselves as instructors. To make this change, click MANAGE CLASS at the top of the page.

Class Information

The Class Information settings appear first. You just added most of this information during the initial Piazza class space setup. If you need to make any changes, you can do so here. You’ll also notice a Sign-Up link and Class link in this space. Because Piazza is linked with UDM’s Knowledge server, we do not recommend providing access to your Piazza course space using these links. Instead, route your students to Piazza through your Knowledge course site.

To disable Instructor Self-Signup, just select DISABLE on the Instructor Self-Signup line and click SAVE CHANGES.

Your Piazza site is ready for use. If the default setup is not to your liking, consider changing the Class Folders to better suit how you expect to use the Piazza site in the context of your course.

Discussion, Piazza Russell Davidson Updated: January 21, 2016

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