We know that for people new to LaunchPad, they just want to learn the key functionality to get started--not all the pieces that the product offers. To that end, we just added a series of Interactive Guides to LaunchPad to get you up and running when you first log in. For instance, when you first go in to create a course, you will see the guide for how to create a course. You can follow this step-by-step walkthrough to actually create a course. At the end of the tutorial, you will have a fully functional course to explore. All in all, we added seven interactive guides to LaunchPad, including ones on Course Creation, Dashboard Navigation, Course Activation, Instructor Resources, Gradebook Tour, Instructor Console, and Zero Out Past Due Assignments. You can open them up by clicking on “Guides” on the right, or close them out with the x. We are testing these guides out this semester to see if you find them useful. Please let us know what you think by responding to this post (or by using the guides themselves)--and let us know if you have other topics that you think would benefit from a guide. ... View more

It is disheartening to know how many students don't realize that their LaunchPad includes the ebook--and we wanted to help fix that. So with the newer LaunchPads, we added an Orientation Quiz to help students better understand how to use LaunchPad. There is a short video to watch and a series of quiz questions so students know how to find assignments, reach out to tech support, locate their ebook, see their grades, and more. You can assign this to your class at the start of the semester to make your life, and your students' lives, easier.  If your LaunchPad starts with a Welcome unit, open that up for the Getting Started Quiz that you can quickly and easily assign.  Let us know what you think about this--and if you have any suggestions for improving this, we'd like to know that as well. And if your LaunchPad doesn't include this quiz to start, you can easily add it using these directions. Have fun!  ... View more

Inclusive Access is an option that ensures when students register for your course, they are charged for the course materials at a discounted rate. They save money and have access to course materials on the first day of class!  How does this work? Macmillan Learning works with you and your bookstore to find the best price and product for your students.  The format of the product is often dictated by your school but any Macmillan product is available for adoption including LaunchPad, Writer's Help, and our ebooks. Contact your rep to learn how to offer Macmillan content via Inclusive Access or check out our website for more info. ... View more

As of today, 70 LaunchPad titles have the link to the new ebook under the Help Menu. We wanted to give students the opportunity to access the mobile-optimized and accessible ebook, as well as give offline access. (You can look to see if your book has this functionality.)  So how does this work in LaunchPad? Go to HELP in the upper right of your course. You will see the option for “Download Offline eBook.” Click on that. (If you don't see that option, then your book doesn't have this functionality, unfortunately.)    You will then to go to a new log in page. Enter in your email address to create an account. That will then opened the book on your bookshelf: Then, if you want to do the app, you need to download the “Macmillan Learning eBook” app and use those same credentials that you just created, to log in and see the book on your device. If you go to another LaunchPad course that has the offline ebook, simply enter in your existing username and password, and you will then see that additional book appear on your bookshelf. (You will not need to create another account.) For more information, directions, and visuals, check out the article in the support community.  ... View more

One of the greatest benefits of using LaunchPad is how easy it is to customize to create the perfect course for you. But not everyone knows that you can do all these things, so here’s just a short refresher on how you can customize your own LaunchPad course. First off, you need to choose the correct LaunchPad course to begin with. Make sure you are using the author and version of the book that best matches your course goals. (And we have lots of books available with LaunchPad, so this can be daunting. Work with your local representative to find the best book for you, or you can see what we have by browsing our catalog.) Once you have the base course selected, next comes adjusting the content. You can re-name and re-order chapters/units, delete existing units, or add new units. You can add additional resources to your course, like your syllabus or student policies, discussion boards, outside links, video assignments and more. You can pull in resources from our resources tab that are in the course, but not assigned. You can create or delete assignments that we have created for you. You can edit existing quiz questions or add your own quiz questions. You can pool questions for greater variety and security in your assignments. You can create video assignments. And for all of these assignments, there are a variety of settings that you can adjust, such as number of attempts, time limits, or ordering of questions. Since so many people using LearningCurve so extensively, you should know that you can remove topics in LearningCurve, as well as adjust the target score. You can manage your roster, dropping students from your course, creating groups for assignments or for various accessibility reasons, or emailing some or all of the students in your class. You can change assignment settings for particular assignments or particular students. If you want to know more, check out all the articles in our support community or reach out to us if you have additional questions. We love to be able to tell you, “Yes, we can do that!” ... View more

As we near the end of the fall semester, just a few notes to make sure you are ready to wrap up fall and prepare for winter or spring. There is a great section in the LaunchPad Instructor’s Manual called “Track Student Work” which can help you see all of a student’s individual LaunchPad activities—their ‘digital footprint’. Here are some other key articles that might be useful today: Check student activity on individual assignments How to change a student’s grade Check student activity as a whole Import scores for offline assignments, if applicable Zero scores for unsubmitted assignments Export your LaunchPad gradebook Preparing for the Spring Semester We’d like to provide you with some helpful articles on how to make sure your preparation goes smoothly: Create new or copy existing LaunchPad courses (when in doubt, you are probably better off starting with a new course) Set up your spring courses If you copied courses, batch update assignment due dates If you created new courses, create assignments Deactivate your fall courses Activate your spring courses (This is an important step and will result in a personal URL for YOUR COURSE that will be emailed to you and that you should distribute to YOUR STUDENTS! Students must enroll in the course with your specific URL.) Distribute your spring course URLs to your students so that they can enroll in your courses And remember: As usual, you can find links for training, information and help here. Use the opportunity to sign up for a 30 minute training session with a product and discipline expert. It will probably be the most useful 30 minutes you spend prepping this term! And if you run into any issues, you and your students can always contact tech support for help or check out our Instructor User Guide for more information. ... View more

In Part 1 of the series “LaunchPad”, I focused on how to use LaunchPad in your classes and what tools are helpful to use.  Part 2 of the “LaunchPad” series went on to discuss the most important aspect, the benefits to the students in using the product. The 3 rd and final part of the “LaunchPad” series is the benefits to the instructor. As an instructor, I continue to appreciate the benefits of efficiency, ease, and freeing up class time to teach using hands-on activities.  In freeing up class time, I have been able to improve my teaching to apply the information, complete activities, and drive concepts home more for students.  The use of digital products also enables our culture’s desirable use of technology in the classroom.  Breaking down these instructor benefits in more detail, let’s start with the most significant benefit to me…efficiency. I am so grateful for the time digital learning saves me from grading and entering grades.  Assigning LearningCurve assignments, as well as learning to use LearningCurves, is fast and easy.  Having students take their LearningCurves and quizzes online frees up more class time for me to teach and complete application activities.  I also appreciate that the quizzes and LearningCurves are already created for me.  Again, it saves me time not to have to write these, and I can even edit them if I wish.  I am also so pleased and confident when I can provide students with more affordable options since purchasing the online version is usually lower cost.  A repeat from a previous post, it forces students to actually USE their text, and delve into the material.  Especially in the communication discipline, I find it provides students with a better understanding, with the ability to apply it, and to RETAIN it.  Thus, I have seen my students be more successful and have higher grades.  Since students all have different learning styles, it adds the benefit to serve many different learning styles.  To reiterate, it also gives students an opportunity to use technology in their learning. In summary, my 3-part series “LaunchPad” discussed the digital products I use, how I use LaunchPad, the benefits to the students and to the instructor.  The benefits I’ve seen have been well worth the use.  If you have any hesitation on beginning the process of using digital products, I emphasize that it is not difficult, and is fast and easy to use.  If you still waver on the decision, Macmillan offers many opportunities to train and help you.   With the benefits to the students and instructor and the ability to get ahead on the latest technological savvy classroom, I encourage you to jump on board. ... View more

It is important not to forget that a main part of student learning takes place from actually reading the textbook - whether this textbook is either a traditional hardcover book or, with regard to what we will be talking about, an online version of the text. As a result, it is exceedingly necessary that an educator choose a text that is conducive to their own pedagogical values. What's more, given the increasingly online nature of higher education and content delivery, picking a text that excels in both of these areas may also be high on the priority list for instructors looking for a classroom textbook.  The eBook in LaunchPad does just that: it provides an integrative and immersive experience for student and educator alike. In what follows, I am hoping to show you some of the features of the LaunchPad eBook that I have utilized in my courses. But first, you will see below, that I have highlighted how to access the eBook from the main screen within the LaunchPad system. It is always displayed in the left tab menu for easy access. Let's check out "Chapter 1" and see what happens... Educators that have used LaunchPad in the past will be familiar with the drop down menu that breaks the chapter into various themes and sections. The eBook is organized in the same way. As such, it becomes easy to navigate because the student or instructor can topically navigate through the content, as opposed to having to thumb through the pages as is the case with a traditional textbook.  Within the actual eBook, you will see a couple of things I have highlighted in yellow below. First, I wanted to point out that the eBook in LaunchPad will always display the page number that corresponds to the material 'brick-and-mortar' textbook. This is especially helpful if you have a mixed bag of students, some of which may be using the eBook and others a traditional textbook. What's more, in terms of standard citation practices, I have found that having this page number easily allows students to cite the eBook using various scholarly formats - for example, APA or MLA. This way, there is no confusion, which is generally the case when citing an eBook or an online source. I also wanted to show you how there is interactive media content integrated directly into the eBook. For example, you will see that the yellow arrow shows a video clip that students can play from within the actual eBook - not having to jump back and forth between the book and some other place within the LMS platform.  In the screenshot below, there are several items which I have noted. Looking at the text that I highlighted, you will see that the instructor can add notes directly into the eBook, and these notes can be viewable by the entire class or made private, accessible exclusively to the instructor. You may also see that I can add a note to the highlighted material (more on this later).  Next, the circle in the upper right hand corner will draw your attention to additional notation features. For instance, you may add a general note to the top of this eBook page, you can clear all of your highlighting, or you can delete all of your notes. This allows for the ability to master edit this section of the eBook. Finally, I also wanted to highlight how the "Read On" button at the bottom of the page allows students to seamlessly continue learning and reading, right into the next section. In other words, there is no skipping back and forth between different screens or apps, giving both educator and student an environment that is similar, if not better, than a 'normal' reading context. Returning to the highlighting feature I mentioned earlier, you will see that once I select to actually highlight the text it will turn yellow. I have also, in the example below, selected to add a note to that particular highlighted material. The note, again, can be made viewable students or retained just for instructor notation. I have found this feature helpful when I have wanted to draw attention to a certain concept that the class may be using in a term paper or in that week's discussion post.  All in all, I have tried to give an overview of the eBook that is integrated within the LaunchPad system - highlighting, along the way, the quality of integration, between media and text, as well as the ability to pedagogically insert your own values as an educator directly into the eBook. As a result, I hope I have gone to show that the eBook is another example of the great interactive tools that are a part of the LaunchPad suite! ... View more

In Part 1 of the series “LaunchPad”, I focused on how to use LaunchPad in your classes and what tools are helpful to use. The important aspect, besides how and what to use in LaunchPad, is the benefits of using LearningCurve to the students.  I discovered these benefits from observation of students and their grades, speaking with them, and surveying students at the end of the semester.  I ascertained most students see the benefits and appreciate use of LearningCurve.  Students are benefitting by preparing in reading their material more, retaining more information, appreciating the ease of use, being provided an affordable option, and providing successful learning opportunities in a stress-free environment. To break down the benefits more precisely, the most common benefits include:  Students learn and retain the material better. In the past, I always struggled with encouraging students to read their text; however, they now actually read the e-text and remember the content!  The digital platform is user friendly.  Students appreciate having to only log in through one site (through BlackBoard), and once they have logged in the first time, they never are required to log in again if they enter through BlackBoard.  It surprised me how much students dislike login pages because they won’t remember their login information.  Having immediate access to the text online anytime from anywhere is extremely helpful.  Students have been known to access the text and quizzes from school, home and even work during their busy, mobile schedules. Students concur that online quizzes from home are preferred over in-class quizzes and exams.  They value the ability to take an exam on their own time when they are comfortable, because they are able to use resources, and have the ability to take the quiz during the time of day they learn best or when they have time.  Students also like that they can start an assignment, save it, and return to it later.  In short, students are “testing” well because they are completing it in a stress-free environment. It is also satisfying for students to see their grade transfer and appear in their BlackBoard gradebook.  It provides for a productive feeling with immediate feedback.  It also keeps students from having to “record-keep” or save hard copies of assignments, quizzes and exams. Students expressed gratitude that the professor actually used the materials that students were required to purchase, and they were grateful for the reasonable price.  As surprising as it is to me, students complain that many professors never refer to or use the products students spent a lot of money on.  In using this product, students are offered an affordable option that they will indeed use and learn from. The digital product saves students time in many ways, from the ability to purchase e-text access online (no trips to the expensive bookstore!), having access any time, having their grades tracked and transferred for them, etc… In the high technology culture we now live in, most students have trouble keeping their technology devices put away.  Further, many young students arrive at college having greatly used technology in their middle and high school education.  Whether we like it or not, simply put, this is how they now learn.  Therefore, if many students learn from technology, prefer technology, and don’t want to go without it, I see it as a benefit to harness technology and incorporate it into their learning. Check back for the third and final post on how using LaunchPad can benefit you, the instructor. ... View more

“Professor, may we take more quizzes than what’s assigned?  Will you go ahead and assign more LearningCurves?  I’d like to do some ahead of schedule.”  Do these questions from students seem like an unrealistic dream?  As unrealistic as they sound, they have indeed been asked on numerous occasions since I started using LearningCurve assignments through LaunchPad. Before using digital products, most instructors dream of having motivated students who plan ahead and have a desire to learn.  Although we may have a few of these students here and there, they are not common.  Therefore, when I have a product that encourages a student to work hard and work ahead, I jump on it.  Using Macmillan Digital Products, including LaunchPad and its LearningCurve, have proven to be extremely beneficial to my students and me (the instructor).  I’d like to encourage you to jump on board, too, by sharing the following four helpful aspects to using LaunchPad:  1.) Which products I use; 2.) How I use LaunchPad; 3.) The benefits to the students; and 4.) The benefits to the Instructor.  In this first part of my LaunchPad series, I will focus on which products I use and how I use them. First, let’s start with which digital products I use.  I have used several different publishing companies’ digital learning, and LaunchPad is easily the most user friendly thus far.  I currently use LaunchPad for both “Real Communication” (Intro to Speech Communication) and “A Speaker’s Guidebook” (Public Speaking) texbooks. Second, how I use LaunchPad may be helpful.  It’s important to note that when using digital learning, such as LaunchPad, it should appear in your syllabus so students realize the importance of their use of the product to their learning and overall grade from the beginning of the semester. I have LaunchPad mentioned in four places within my syllabus to drive home the significance.  Within my syllabus, LaunchPad appears in the sub headed sections, “Required Text/Materials”, “Course Policies: Exams/Quizzes”, “Grading Evaluation”, and “Class Schedule.” An example of one of the places in my syllabus that LaunchPad appears is in the image below.  You will also see from the image that students have immediate access to the Publisher’s Help Desk contact information.  This will ensure the instructors do not have to deal with any technical difficulties that may arise. Next, let’s also look at how LaunchPad appears in my BlackBoard (Learning Management System/LMS), because this makes access to LaunchPad for both the instructor and students so easy.  Additionally, it enables integration so grades can be transferred over from LaunchPad to the BlackBoard gradebook. Now, more importantly, what types of assignments are in LaunchPad?  The specific assignments I use in LaunchPad range from a PRCA (Self-Assessment Score of Communication Apprehension), the e-text, Chapter LearningCurves, “What About You?” Self-Assessments, Tips & Techniques (for Anxiety Reduction), and Videos (Speech samples) and 2-minute video clips.  All of the assignments help students retain and apply the material. As you’ll see, the home page of LaunchPad is similar to a modern technological look students are familiar with.  Furthermore, it is user friendly by having gradebook, calendar, e-text, and assignments with due dates all at first glance when they enter LaunchPad. A favorite assignment feature on LaunchPad is the LearningCurve.  Macmillan describes LearningCurves as an adaptive quizzing and personalized learning program that puts the concept of "testing to learn" into action. It is game-like quizzing motivating students to engage with their course.    In the sample question, you can see students will be shown if they answered correctly.  If they answered incorrectly, it will further explain why he or she missed it, followed by an opportunity to try again, get a hint, access the e-text, or have it look up the answer for them.  The student has a total number of points to reach to finish the quiz, so the more they answer correctly from the start, the more points and faster they will reach their total.  If they are missing concepts, they will be asked about those again to ensure they learn the content.  At the bottom of the screen, they are able to track their progress. After covering how I use the digital products in my classes as well as the great tools available, return in a few days to read part 2 and 3 of this series which will focus on the most important part: the benefits of using LaunchPad to the students and instructor. ... View more

How would you like to give your students a form of assessment that only an online system, like LaunchPad, can offer? LearningCurve, one of the most exceptional features of LaunchPad, can do just that. By way of a brief introduction, LearningCurve is a form of adaptive assessment that conforms, dynamically, to how the student is doing during the duration of the assessment. For example, if the student is doing well, LearningCurve will select progressively harder questions and, conversely, if the student is doing poorly, LearningCurve will know to use easier questions for that specific student. In addition, if a student is struggling in one of the content areas of the chapter material, then LearningCurve will select more questions from that domain for the student to answer. For a more extensive account of LearningCurve, make sure to see the FAQ on LearningCurve embedded within LaunchPad and also the instructor's guide on the publisher's website. For the current blog post, I want to give you a brief glimpse of LearningCurve while, along the way, letting you know the experiences I have had using this product. If you have a test course set-up in LaunchPad or have used LaunchPad in the past, you will already know that there may be a couple 'mini' LearningCurve activities embedded within each chapter or module. As a case in point, below, there is a LearningCurve assessment that is focused in on the challenges of caregivers.  Clicking on it will reveal the following. You will see that this LearningCurve is focused on two content areas: caregiving styles and becoming boys and girls. You can also see that in order for the student to 'pass' the assignment - in other words, to earn full credit - they have to get to 300 points. This brings up another important point about LearningCurve. Students are guaranteed to earn full credit as long as they finish the assessment. If they do not, then they receive a zero. Personally, I have had many students tell me how much they prefer this form of testing over a traditional, timed quiz. Not only do they like the fact that they are certain to get full credit if they complete it, but they also tell me that the more engaged nature of LearningCurve helps them better retain the material from the chapter.  It is important to realize that the 300 isn't the point value for the assignment. This can be set from the home screen in LaunchPad and is usually, by default, assigned between 5 - 10 points. The 300 just signifies the points the student must earn within that particular LearningCurve. This makes for a kind of game-like experience, which I will explain in more detail later.   If you were to click on "View Sample Results" the system will display the following for you to see. Make sure to note that these sample results are in-progress, meaning that none of the students displayed have actually finished the assessment (since their grade would be 100%). It is also important to realize that if these students were not to finish this LearningCurve they would receive a zero from the system, since LearningCurve is, by default, a pass/fail adaptive assessment. What also is helpful is how the system breaks down the scores as per the content domains: caregiving styles and becoming boys and girls. As an educator, this allows me to see that material that the students are struggling with the most thereby informing my next lecture or what I want to present to the class during our next session together.  Let's click on "Preview as Student" at the bottom and see what happens... This screen, below, is what students will see when they login to a LearningCurve assessment. Listed are the content areas that are going to be covered so the student may go back and review these parts of the book or eBook if they so choose. Also shown is a link for students if they want some tips on how to do well on LearningCurve - this is especially helpful if the student has never used an adaptive assessment like this before.  Clicking on "Begin Activity" will take the student right into the first question. There are several things to note on this page. First, following the yellow arrow, the student can review the eBook directly from the LearningCurve assessment. Pedagogically, this is fantastic because it gives the student a seamless experience, not having to click out of the assessment to access the text, but being able to do it right from LearningCurve. What's more, the button will take the student directly to the section with the relevant information on it - talk about being easy and convenient.  The two yellow circles indicate possible options if the student doesn't feel like they know the answer to the question. They can select "Get a Hint" which will give them some clues as the nature of the answer; but, as you will notice, selecting this will also deduct a few points from point bar at the top, meaning they will likely have to answer additional questions to complete the full assessment. Alternatively, the student may pick "Show Answer" which would result in not earning any points on this particular question and would most likely prompt LearningCurve to select similar questions from this content pool in order to challenge the student before the assessment completes.  Highlighting the point bar, in the circle below, brings up how LaunchPad keeps track of the progress during the assessment. The goal is to get the blue, 15 points, all the way to the top of the bar, at 300. The student doesn't ever lose points, although they may not earn points and it may take them awhile to complete the assessment if they do not know the material very well. It is also almost impossible to complete the assessment by just guessing since LearningCurve throttles the questions according to the right or wrong answer. In other words, it would take a very long time to complete it by guessing at random.  Also, you may see that the student has the option to "Take a Break" as indicated by the button below. Selecting this will save the student's position within the assessment and will not deduct any points. In fact, the student has as much time as they need to finish or at least until the assignment comes due, as specified by the instructor on the homepage.  The ability to assess students in an engaged, interactive, and adaptive way in one of the major boons of the LaunchPad system. Without a supplemental online component, it is simply impossible to use an adaptive assessment, like LearningCurve, in a traditional brick-and-mortar environment. That's why, in the past, I have enhanced my 'in person' courses with an online LaunchPad and LearningCurve component. In this way, it is possible to get the best of both worlds. Plus, using an adaptive assessment like LearningCurve for an entirely online course is not a feature that every LMS platform has - thus making LaunchPad all the more appealing to instructors who want to use tools that are informed by the latest educational research showing the power of adaptive assessment to aid in student learning.  ... View more

How do I want to assess my students' competencies and monitor their progress in my course? Such a question can lead an educator to consider the means by which they gather data or measure the retention of concepts and material during the duration of their course. One way to do this is through a traditional form of assessment: quizzing or testing. In LaunchPad, there is the option to construct and edit this kind of assessment. Being different than another LaunchPad feature, the adaptive quizzing feature called LearningCurve, the more traditional quizzes in LaunchPad are, by default, listed at the end of each chapter and module. These summative and timed quizzes are aimed at testing the student over the material that was just covered in the chapter or module. They tend to be concise, having less than ten questions for the students to answer.  However, the quizzing feature in LaunchPad is also highly customizable, which means that if you want to give a large assessment, like a midterm or final test, you have the option to do just that. Below, you will see that, as I indicated earlier, by default the quiz comes at the end of the chapter. In instructor view, let's click on it and see what comes up.  Selecting the "Chapter 1 Quiz" row from the LaunchPad home screen will bring up the window below. If you follow the yellow arrow, I have circled where you can go in and edit. In the past, I have found it helpful to start with the publisher's default content, which gives me a template from which to begin, and then go in and tweak or make the changes I need to in order to fit the class.  Apart from just the edit button, you may also want to pay attention to the way that each of the pools of questions listed below are grouped together topically and randomized. This, of course, is more rigorous pedagogically insofar as it reduces or eliminates any sharing of the answers. But, for our purposes, let's click on the edit button... Doing so shows more details and gives us more options. For example, you can rearrange the order of the question pools, you can delete a pool, or you can edit that particular group of questions - see the yellow bracket. The new options that are available include creating new questions, showing feedback, importing questions, displaying the question pools, and collapsing the details of each pool. Clicking on "Create New Question" will give you the option to build your own quiz. In the yellow box below, you will find that click on "Create New Question" give you several options of the specific kind of question you want to create. While I haven't gone into more detail or shown the interface where you actually do create the questions, it is very similar to other tools you probably have used in the past to build online assessments. Suffice it to say, LaunchPad has a lot of deep or advanced features that I think are best learned through exploring or messing around with - in a test or dummy course similar to the one I have been using for this blog post.  Another feature I have used in the past, and I am sure many instructors would use as well (especially if you have taught from an older online platform), is the "Import Questions" option, to the right of the yellow box and listed in blue. Once you click on that, the following dialogue box appears. Some of you may be familiar with the formula it offers on how to import questions. That is, follow this template in a word processing program to get the correct formatting so that LaunchPad will recognized and place the information in the right way. My sense is that this formatting is pretty standard. So, some of your old test banks that you designed maybe for a more dated system should upload correctly (or just minor tweaks are required).  Finally, I wanted to show you that you may also search the entire database of publisher provided questions using various filters and keywords. This is great because it allows you to quickly sort and organize all of the test and quiz questions that are uploaded into LaunchPad.  Below is an example where I searched for the term "Watson" - an early behaviorist in the psychology profession. You can see that the system lists all of the questions, regardless of chapter or module, that contain the word "Watson" - allowing you to select ones that you may want to add to a quiz. In summary, I tried to give you a taste of how LaunchPad handles the construction of traditional, timed quizzing and testing. Hopefully, you have a better understanding of how to use the publisher's content as a springboard to customize and build your own quizzes, even how to upload quizzes and test banks the you may have used in the past. ... View more

The first thing that your students will see when they sign onto LaunchPad is the "Welcome Page." The default settings automatically include a couple widgets: an RSS feed from Scientific American and a list of upcoming assignments that are due. However, there are many ways that you can customize this page to fit your teaching style.  In this post, I am hoping to show you how I have used the "Welcome Page" in my courses. This demonstration will aid you in both learning about ways to customize LaunchPad as well as give you some pedagogical tips that could be incorporated into your own teaching style and LaunchPad courses.  You will notice, below, that when you are in instructor view you have the ability to edit the "Welcome Page." Following the yellow arrow and clicking on the "Edit Page" button will bring up the edit screen. The edit screen, featured in the screen capture below, lets you do several things. For example, you can rearrange the different widgets to different spaces on the page, you can add a new widget, and you can delete a widget. You may also notice that the two widgets that are enabled by default are an RSS feed for Scientific American and a list of the upcoming assignments that are due.  Let's say that we want to add a new widget. To do this, you would click on one of the empty yellow boxes or where it says add new widget.  Once you do this, the following gray box will appear - I have circled it in yellow. You have a few options here of what you can do. You can, of course, add or re-add an RSS feed from Scientific America, add your own custom RSS feed, add or re-add the upcoming assignment widget, and, finally, you can create your own. As a tip, in the past, I have had students use the Scientific America RSS feed to write a one page article that summarize some of the current research coming out of the psychology field. As an educator, I think it is important to stay as up-to-date as possible on the current literature and latest developments within the field. And, as a result, having this continually updated feed on the home page is a nice resource to utilize if you want to have students engage with current research in this manner.  To give you a concrete example, let's click on "Create Your Own." This will bring up a dialogue box that looks similar to an HTML page you can create within the module and chapter system of LaunchPad. This is great because it allows you to edit and customize the widget pretty extensively. Below is an example of how I have used this to create my own widget on the "Welcome Page." A lot of time, I have found it helpful, especially when teaching a fully online course, to post a class wide, at least weekly, update about the upcoming material that may also include technical and logistical notes. You can do this on the "Welcome Page" and students will see this every time they sign onto LaunchPad.  Posting a weekly update on the "Welcome Page" is one way I have used this LaunchPad feature in my courses. Also, as I have indicated, the Scientific American RSS feed is great if you are trying to help students stay on top of the most recent research and literature coming out of your discipline.  Overall, I hope that I have been able to give you some ideas about ways to customize the "Welcome Page" in LaunchPad and, in addition, given you some ideas about how to incorporate it into your own teaching style. ... View more

Customizing the content in your LaunchPad course is the first step toward making it uniquely yours. For this blog post, I want to show you how to do precisely this. I will first walk you through the different kinds of assignments and features that can be added to LaunchPad while also providing a few personal anecdotes from my own experiences teaching. Then, I am going to show you one of the customizable features that I use most often: "Document Collection". By adding this to your course, you will be able to attach virtually any file format (for example, PDF or a PowerPoint file) so that it is accessible and downloadable by your students. To begin, you will see below that I have highlighted the "Add New" button that appears in the home screen in LaunchPad. Click on this to access the customizable content window. Once selected, a window with eleven different options appears. I am going to briefly walk you through each of these. You may also be able to read the description that LaunchPad provides in the window as well.  The "Unit" selection is generally used as a kind of module placeholder for other content. In other words, it will help you build and structure your course. Use this if you want to create a unique module on the LaunchPad homepage. I typically select this to advertise extra credit opportunities or to post a large assignment like a final research paper. Next is the "Discussion Board" option. Be sure to check out my other blog post that goes into more detail about this feature: Using Discussion Boards in LaunchPad.  But, again, this is an excellent way to integrate your course fully into a single LMS platform - this is something that I have done and found it very convenient and helpful.  Third on the list is "Document Collection" which is something that I am going to go into a lot more detail later on in this blog post. As a result, I won't say too much right now other than this will allow you to upload and make accessible various kinds of documents to your course. You will also be able to type on an HTML page and include instructions or other kinds of content like URL links. Speaking of links, the next option will let you post a URL exclusively by itself. This can be helpful if you want to give students quick and direct access to a certain webpage or online resources. This would be opposed to having them click into a HTML page and then selecting the link from within the text. In general, this is a pretty standard and straightforward feature. The "Homework" content is somewhat of a new feature to LaunchPad. It will allow you to provide a very customizable experience for the student by bringing together and interlinking eBook content, APA or other professional standards and learning objectives, and quiz questions over chapter or lecture material. I would recommend creating a test course, like I have done here, and playing around with this one as there are many ways in which it can be deployed in your course. Next, the "HTML Page" is a pretty standard feature on other LMS platforms and other university content delivery systems. In it, you can edit a page much like you can a word processor page. I have found that this is helpful if I want to provide quick instructions to students or include a link with some context around it.  The "Offline Assignment" option is great if you are teaching a hybrid course, both online and in person. For example, if you give a large exam or assign a big research paper in the brick-and-mortar classroom, then you can use this to provide an entry in the gradebook in LaunchPad. This way, the students will be able to view current and up-to-date grades even though the assignment was not provided through LaunchPad.  "Link Collection" that is pictured below, is a hybrid between the "Link" and "HTML Page" features. It is pretty straightforward in that you will be able to edit an HTML page and attach, in a separate way, a URL link. By selecting "Quiz", you will be prompted to create your own quiz questions or select them from the pre-established test bank. I am sure you are familiar with at least a similar feature if you have any experience with teaching online. An analogous logic applies in LaunchPad, allowing you to develop your own form of timed quizzing (or you can use the built-in adaptive quizzing found in LearningCurve). Using the "Video Assignment" feature is great if you want to upload your own media lectures to the course thereby making it much more personable and, perhaps, more pedagogically effective. You don't have to be super proficient in internet and video technology in order to do this. For example, you may embed a YouTube video you record right on the site or you may upload, for instance, a .mpg or .mpeg file recorded on your computer.  Finally, the "Dropbox" gives you a place to let students submit any kind of document - whether that be a final paper, research proposal, or weekly journal reflection. This will also create an entry in gradebook where you can render a grade for the document; furthermore, allowing you to provide personalized feedback to individual students.  In the last part of this blog post, I will take a more detailed look at the "Document Collection" feature largely because I use it so extensively and I would guess, by extension, that other instructors do as well.  Below is the screen that will appear after having selected it from the original menu (above). You will notice that there is an option for you to select "Attach a Document".  Once you click on this, a prompt will show-up for you to browse for the file you want to upload. Again, the file type is really irrelevant, since the system can handle anything from a PDF file to a PowerPoint slideshow or a Word document.  I have selected a PDF file. You can also see that the "Description" box acts as basically an HTML page where you can provide context for the file or instructions on what the students are supposed to do with the attached document.  This last screen shot is virtually the same screen that the students will see. You will notice that I have highlighted how the uploaded document appears giving the students the option to download it.  I hope that this outline of customizable content in LaunchPad has been helpful in giving you an overview of the ways in which you can add your own material into the system or, at least, riff off of the default assignments that are already provided.  I have found LaunchPad to be extremely user-friendly when I have attempted to incorporate my own documents and brick-and-mortar assignments into an online platform. By extension, I think that the students, as well, have appreciated how seamless and efficient it is to have mid-semester content (like an extra credit assignment) appear within the user interface.   ... View more

Why not include all of your grading and student evaluation in the same place? That's what the "Gradebook" in LaunchPad is specifically designed to do. In this blog post, I will walk you through some of the key features of the "Gradebook" page in LaunchPad as well as describe my own experience using it for my courses - things that I have found helpful or ways in which I let it inform my teaching.  On the main screen, you will notice under the menu column on the left-hand side, there is a button named "Gradebook" - clicking on this will take you to a table that lists the current scores for every student in your course.  The below screenshot is what appears after clicking the "Gradebook" button. In this course, you may notice that I have left the display options set to their default settings. As an alternative, you may tell LaunchPad to order the grades by highest to lowest overall score, the amount of time students are logged into the system, or other factors of your choosing. In the furthest left column, this is the current total grade for the particular (redacted) student in the course. This is nice because it gives me, the instructor, as well as the student a convenient place to view the progress in the course - without having to calculate anything. You may also notice the import and export scores options in the row towards the top. This is an excellent feature if you are required by your institution to keep a copy of your grading in their own LMS platform as well. By clicking on a specific student name, you will be taken to a screen that provides more details germane to that student. This allows you to make changes to that student's grades - for example, you may alter the points for that exact assignment, give the student an exemption, or provide individual feedback. In order to do this, you will need to click on the specific assignment you want to access. See the below yellow arrow and circle as an example.  Once selected, the options highlighted in the following screenshot come up. Again, you will notice how the system allows you to provide two forms of feedback - one that is viewable to the student and one that is only accessible by the instructor. This screen will also allow you to see the specific items within the assignment that the student completed, either correctly or incorrectly. The yellow circle below indicates the place where you can add feedback to the content after or before the student completes it. In order to help you evaluate the class in a way that is more fair, LaunchPad also provides several statistical analyses. This has helped me in terms of receiving feedback on specific assignments that may have been too challenging or the concepts within the assignment may not have been explained by me as well as they could have been. As a result, this sometimes leads me to alter the point structure and curve of that specific evaluation. By clicking on "Class Statistics" you will receive statistical feedback. You will find, below, that LaunchPad represents that data in graph form making it easy to visualize the distribution of scores. This is presented with the numerical analysis adjacent to and below the graphic outputs. The "Gradebook" gives you, as an instructor, the option to see this kind of data as per each individual assignment or, in a more macro sense, for an entire student. There are so many 'deep features' that I was not able to talk about in this post that the "Gradebook" allows you to do. In my experience, it is helpful to just get in there and play around with the different options, perhaps in a dummy or test course. This lets you change options and settings without having to worry about it effecting the grade of the students you may be currently evaluating. Furthermore, by migrating all of your evaluating to the "Gradebook" in LaunchPad, it gives both you and the students a convenient and accessible place by which to access and monitor progress in the course. "Gradebook" in LaunchPad is comparable, if not more so, to evaluation tools found in other LMS platforms and systems. It is for these reasons that I have chosen to store my evaluation data solely within the LaunchPad system - and I know the students appreciate the ease of this, too! ... View more