Every week, EdTech U offers a session where instructors and students can get hands-on assistance with educational technology. These are their stories.

10/16 – An instructor was having an issue with tests and quizzes in Blackboard that use random blocks. The problem was that questions which were arrayed in random blocks were all being assigned the same point value, which was contrary to the instructor’s intentions. The fix for this issue was to use a different randomization method (Test Options > Apply Randomization) that allows for varying point values.

10/16 – An interesting issue that came up with TurningPoint and some podium computers on campus is the TurningPoint Dashboard seeming to disappear when logged in. It turns out that on a dual monitor PC, if you put the TP Dashboard on the second monitor and then log out, your roaming profile “remembers” the last location of the TP Dashboard. If you log into another dual monitor PC this is not normally a problem; however, if you log into a single monitor PC, the TP dashboard will attempt to appear in the last “remembered” spot on the second monitor, which is of course impossible on a one monitor machine. This leads to the apparent complete disappearance of the TP Dashboard. l An error like this can be very frustrating and confusing, to say the least! The fix for this issue is to place the TP Dashboard on the primary display of a dual monitor machine before logging out of that machine.

10/16 – Another TurningPoint issue was the inability to change the number value for the question timer. The instructor was able to change this value from a classroom computer, but not from a laptop computer. The problem was that the laptop computer was not running the most recent version of the Turning Point software. Updating the laptop’s installation of Turning Point to the current version, 5.2.1.3179, fixed this issue.