Office 365 – Nathan Hall

Downloading your Blackboard Collaborate recordings

You would have received a couple of messages recently about Blackboard Collaborate recordings. The summary is this:

The amount of Collaborate recordings has exceeded the storage capacity we have with Blackboard and are being charged overage fees.
Those fees are costing Douglas College $11,000 per month! 😳
A very large number of those recordings have never been watched.
Any Collaborate recordings created before April 30, 2021 will be deleted on November 30, 2021.

What are your options?

If you don’t care about those recordings, you don’t have to do anything. They will be removed automatically.
If you have any recordings you would like to save, follow the instructions below.
If you need assistance, reach out to me before November 30.

Saving Collaborate recordings to your computer

Uploading your recordings to OneDrive

Uploading your recordings to Kaltura

Getting started with Kaltura

Organizing forms in Microsoft Forms into Collections

One of my favourite tools in Microsoft Office 365 is Forms. I use it in my
courses, my committee work, and anywhere else I need to collect information from people. It is a straightforward tool to use and has only gotten better over the years.

One of the main complaints I have had with Forms is the lack of ability to organize forms into folders. Thankfully, Microsoft has listened to us and has added Collections to Microsoft Forms.

Click on the image above to learn more in this 4-minute video.

The new and improved Microsoft Whiteboard

I have previously talked about using Microsoft Whiteboard with your students, but now Microsoft has added a number of features that really make it an effective collaboration and brainstorming tool. Click on the video to learn how you can use this with your students.

Convert a Word document into a webpage

It is really simple to take a Word document and turn it into a webpage that is accessible by desktop and laptop computers as well as mobile devices. It doesn’t take any programming skills either.

Here is how to do that:

Having students scan pages using the Microsoft OneDrive app on their phones or tablets

If you want your students to scan their work to share with you electronically, you can simply have them use the free Microsoft OneDrive app on their phone or tablet.

Here is a video you can share with your students on how to install the OneDrive app and then scan a document and save it to OneDrive.

Here is a video on how students can share a file with you using the OneDrive app.

Feel free to share these videos with your students.

Using Live Captions in Microsoft OneNote

Learn how to use the Microsoft Translator app on your phone to create live captions in OneNote that will automatically be saved as a transcript in the notebook. This is a great accessibility tool for students.

Create an online booking page for office hours using Microsoft Bookings

As we move back on campus, you might still want to use an online booking page for your office hours. This is a simple way for students to book a time with you in person or for meeting online. Some of you are already using a service to do this, but some of you may not be aware that Douglas College has access to Microsoft Bookings as well. This comes as part of your Office 365 package and is free for you and your students to use. It allows you to set the meeting increments (e.g. 15-minute meeting blocks) along with dates and times. I have been using this for a while now and it works well. Here is how to do that:

Log into your Office 365 account on your computer.
Click on the All Apps button in the bottom-left corner.
Click on Bookings.
Once you are in Bookings, click on Business Information to set up your booking account. Here is a 1:01 video to show you how.
You will now need to set up your Office Hours. Click on Services to do that. Here is a 1:06 video on how to do that.
Finally, you will need to create the page your students will use to book the meeting. Click on Booking Page to customize your page. Here is a 1:31 video on how to do that.
Copy the booking page link and share that with your students. I added it to the menu in Blackboard so they can find it easily. If you need a reminder on how to do that, here is a video that might help you.

Create live captions using PowerPoint Online (Office 365)

While Zoom and Teams both have the option of having your audio automatically captioned, Blackboard Collaborate Ultra does not.

One way to get automatic captions in your classroom or in tools like Collaborate is to use PowerPoint Online. Click on the image below to watch a video showing you how you can even use this in your face-to-face classes to caption what you are saying.

Screen shot of the video. Click on the image to get the video.

OneNote Class Notebook Training

I held a OneNote Class Notebook Workshop on August 20, 2021. For those who unable to attend, the session was recorded. Here is a link to the recording along with additional resources:

Workshop Recording

Screenshot of the video. Click on link to access

Start Here

Creating a Class Notebook

Add a Class Notebook to your Blackboard course
If you are not using Blackboard, you can manually create a Class Notebook: Creating a Class Notebook

Using Class Notebook

Using OneDrive on your computer

As we move from our home offices back to our DC offices, you might find it helpful to make use of OneDrive which is part of our DC Office 365 account. I did up a video on how to use the OneDrive app on your home and work computer to keep the files in sync. Please reach out if you have any questions. I am happy to help with this.