Increase Adoption of Learning Technologies
TECHNOLOGY SUPPORT | CURRENT INITIATIVE

Over the past year we have identified and been promoting capabilities in existing software packages to support advising; identify at risk students; e-portfolio capabilities; support eExams; track learning outcomes; and enrich the classroom and online experiences of students. In the next year, we will aggressively promote widespread adoption of these capabilities; monitor their impact to student success.

Blackboard Retention Center
Allows faculty to see how their students are performing and to communication with, and motivate, their students. Its intuitive dashboard, segments students by risk categories. Each risk category is made of rules to monitor missed deadlines, low grades, minimal course activity or not logging in. Instructors can easily identify at risk students and communicate with them all thru a single interface. The retention center can be customized to monitor high achieving students. It is important to identify as soon as possible students who are falling behind and the retention center can help instructors do this.

BENEFITS
• Identify and motivate at-risk students effectively and efficiently
• Increase student persistence, retention, and grades
• Useful in all courses settings in particular for large enrollment and fully online courses

FACULTY TESTIMONIAL
YOUTUBE VIDEO

STUDENT PERCEPTION
“ These kinds of things….are the ones that motivate us to do great in class and keep studying”

PROMOTION SUCCESS METRICS
• Courses where the instructor has used the notification functionality within the retention center
• Number of attendees to the retention center presentations
• TechNews spring 2019

FUTURE CAPABILITIES/WORK REQUESTS
• “ … the ability to import attendance data (we have those monitors on the seven largest classrooms on campus and could install more) into Blackboard so that it is at the fingertips of instructors and advisors”
• Explore Observer role for advising

Microsoft OneDrive
OneDrive is the only secured cloud storage approved by UTEP’s Information Security Office for use with confidential data. With OneDrive, files are always available from any devices or anywhere both online and offline. The sharing and collaboration features of OneDrive can assist teaching and improve the student’s learning experience. For example, the combination of OneDrive with Microsoft Word presents an ideal platform to improve the teaching of first-year composition courses. In that, it makes it easy for faculty to work with students one-to-one and online to revise collaboratively papers in real time. Faculty can also add formative comments to students’ writing assignments and grade these.

BENEFITS
• Free unlimited storage
• One place to save, edit, and share files
• Document versioning – preserves a copy before each file change
• Real-time online co-authoring of documents
• Data protection from malware and ransomware
• Secured external sharing

FACULTY TESTIMONIAL
“ Students in first-year composition have high DFW rates when compared with other undergraduate courses. What prevents most of these students from success is simply turning in a first draft of a writing assignment. I had my students access their OneDrive accounts and share a writing folder with me… allowing me to follow their progress in real time, 24/7. I could comment on their papers on a daily basis and become familiar with their writing even before the paper was due. I saw tremendous improvements in content and style. More importantly, 100 percent of the students turned in their final drafts!”

PROMOTION SUCCESS METRICS
• Number of attendees to the OneDrive for teaching presentations
• UTEP-OneDrive storage usage increase
• Number of active users
• What’s new in Microsoft OneDrive presentations in 2019

FUTURE CAPABILITIES/WORK REQUESTS
• Faculty collaboration to help us identify other use cases for teaching
• Enable OneDrive’s Known Folders to faculty and staff PCs to protect their files without changing the way they work

Respondus LockDown Browser
Respondus LockDown Browser is a custom browser that locks down the testing environment in Blackboard courses. Prevents students from printing, copying, and accessing other applications or websites during proctored online exams. With the increased reliability of both Blackboard Learn and UTEP’s Wi-Fi, online exams are becoming more and more popular in courses with students taking exams on their own computers in the classroom.

BENEFITS
• Deters cheating during online exams
• Minimizes instructor’s time required for grading exams
• Students have quick access to exams results
• Eliminates the use of scantrons
• Prevents sharing of exam’s hard copies

FACULTY TESTIMONIAL
YOUTUBE VIDEO

PROMOTION SUCCESS METRICS
• Number of attendees to e-Exams workshops
• Number of courses with at least one Respondus Lockdown Browser exam/quiz
• TechNews Fall 2018

FUTURE CAPABILITIES/WORK REQUESTS
• Increase the number of mobile devices available for student checkout
• Large size computer lab for proctored eExams

Blackboard Collaborate
A real-time video conferencing tool that lets you share files, applications, and whiteboard. Increase student collaboration with polls and breakout groups. The polling functionality can be used to start a discussion or ask questions to see how well students are understanding in-class concepts. Breakout groups facilitate collaboration amongst small group of students. Instructors can create breakout groups and assign students to them. Breakout groups have their own private audio, video, whiteboard, application sharing, and chat.

BENEFITS
• Improves student experience in online courses
• Increases student interaction and encourages discussion
• Collaborate sessions can be recorded and made available later for student’s review
• Facilitates in-class participation of guest speakers
• Instructors can use it for office hours online
• Live conferences can be joined from iOS and Android mobile devices

PROMOTION SUCCESS METRICS
• Number of attendees to faculty workshops on improving student online experience
• Number of collaborate sessions

FUTURE CAPABILITIES/WORK REQUESTS
• Case study that demonstrate improvement of student success
• Add the webinar component to TSC student workshops

iClicker Cloud
A Classroom Response System (CRS) facilitates active learning in the classroom and can be used by faculty during class time to assess student’s comprehension of a course’s learning objectives. Students use their own mobile device (laptop, tablet, or smartphone) to participate in a CRS session.

BENEFITS
• Gauge prior student knowledge before covering new material
• Promotes active learning
• Enhance student learning experience
• Integrated with Blackboard

PROMOTION SUCCESS METRICS
• Number of unique students per semester
• Number of attendees to faculty workshops on increase student engagement using a classroom response system