Idea Transcript
itslearning User Guide January 2017
User Guide
Contents Getting Started ................................................................................................................................... 3 1.1 Home Screen ........................................................................................................................................... 3 1.2 Menu ...................................................................................................................................................... 3 1.3 Personal Settings ..................................................................................................................................... 4 1.4 Calendar .................................................................................................................................................. 6 Course Basics ...................................................................................................................................... 7 2.1 Course Creation ....................................................................................................................................... 7 2.2 Course Menu ........................................................................................................................................... 8 2.3 Adding standards .................................................................................................................................... 9 2.4 Building Course Content ........................................................................................................................ 10 2.5 Planner Overview .................................................................................................................................. 11 2.6 Customizing the Planner ........................................................................................................................ 12 2.7 Planner Actions ..................................................................................................................................... 14 2.8 The rich text editor ................................................................................................................................ 15 2.9 What can be added to a course? ............................................................................................................ 16 Resources in Detail ........................................................................................................................... 18 3.1 Folder .................................................................................................................................................... 18 3.2 File or Folder ......................................................................................................................................... 18 3.3 Link ....................................................................................................................................................... 18 3.2 Notes .................................................................................................................................................... 19 3.3 Pages .................................................................................................................................................... 19 Activities in Detail ............................................................................................................................ 20 4.1 Assignments .......................................................................................................................................... 20 4.2 Custom activities ................................................................................................................................... 24 4.3 Tests ..................................................................................................................................................... 25 4.4 Surveys ................................................................................................................................................. 37 4.5 Conferences .......................................................................................................................................... 39 4.6 Discussions ............................................................................................................................................ 39 4.7 Registrations ......................................................................................................................................... 40 4.8 Crossword and Hangman ....................................................................................................................... 40 4.9 LTI Tool ................................................................................................................................................. 42 The Library ....................................................................................................................................... 44 5.1 Searching the library ............................................................................................................................. 44 5.2 Sharing to the library ............................................................................................................................. 44 Course Management ........................................................................................................................ 46 6.1 Adding Participants ............................................................................................................................... 46 6.2 Grouping Participants ............................................................................................................................ 47 6.3 Course Settings ..................................................................................................................................... 47 6.4 Editing Course Elements ........................................................................................................................ 48 6.5 Moving or Copying Elements ................................................................................................................. 50 6.6 Activating Elements ............................................................................................................................... 51 6.7 Permissions ........................................................................................................................................... 52 1
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Follow Up and Reports ..................................................................................................................... 53 7.1 The Grade Book ..................................................................................................................................... 53 7.2 The Learning Objectives Progress Report ............................................................................................... 58 7.3 Individual Learning Plans ....................................................................................................................... 63 7.4 Working and Assessment Portfolios ...................................................................................................... 64 7.5 Reports ................................................................................................................................................. 65 Portfolios ......................................................................................................................................... 68 8.1 ePortfolios ............................................................................................................................................ 68 8.2 Settings ................................................................................................................................................. 68 8.3 About me .............................................................................................................................................. 69 8.4 Blogs ..................................................................................................................................................... 69 8.5 Working and Assessment Portfolios ...................................................................................................... 70 8.6 Other Portfolios .................................................................................................................................... 71 8.7 Accessing Portfolios and Blogs ............................................................................................................... 72 Individual Learning Plans .................................................................................................................. 72 9.1 Setting up Mentors ............................................................................................................................... 72 9.2 Creating an ILP ...................................................................................................................................... 73 Groups ............................................................................................................................................. 75 10.1 Creating a Community ......................................................................................................................... 75 10.2 Adding Participants ............................................................................................................................. 76 10.3 Community Content ............................................................................................................................ 76 Parent Portal .................................................................................................................................... 77
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Getting Started 1.1 Home Screen When first logging into itslearning, your home screen will display recent updates from your courses, your tasks (or follow up tasks) and upcoming events.
1.2 Menu The main menu bar provides multiple options for navigation.
a. Home will take you back to aggregated updates, tasks and events. b. Courses provide a dropdown list of your favorite courses. By clicking on “all courses,” you will be able to view those that are not your favorites or those that were archived. o You can favorite a course by ensuring the star next to the course is yellow.
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Notice that you can see when courses were last updated, visited, the status and your role in the course. Rather than deleting courses, they are often archived from year to year. This allows you to continue to work with or carry existing content over. Notice the “show” option will reveal active or archived courses.
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c. Groups allow you to access your communities and organizational dashboards. o Communities are like courses, but are collaborative spaces in which you are a member. o Dashboards can be enabled for schools or districts to use as informational spaces. d. Calendar displays events scheduled in your courses or communities as well as an aggregated view of course planners. e. Library allows users can to search for resources that have been added to your district’s library. These may include teacher created resources, publisher content or open educational resources. You can add resources to your collection for quick and easy access. Some other options may be available within your menu, depending on your profile settings. f.
Mentor indicates that you have been assigned individuals or groups to mentor and develop individual learning plans g. Apps and Tools provide resources, links or utilities specific to your school or district. h. Admin provides administrative functions for which you have permissions. Not all users will have access to this option. i. Your Students lists all your students with details. Click on a student’s name to view his profile card. j. School or district created links k. Notifications o The bell icon provides notifications. o The speech bubble icon allows quick access to the internal messaging option.
1.3 Personal Settings By clicking on your name, you will have access to a personal menu. It is in this menu that you are able to search for content within your courses, communities or calendar. In addition, you have access to – o
Change your details (photo, contact information)
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Your files
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Your settings
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An aggregated grade book
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Aggregated learning objectives report
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Any Individual learning plans
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Your ePortfolio
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Sign out
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Your Settings
Within your settings you are able to customize the platform, change your detials or password, manage applications and mobile app. In addition you can change your alerts and email notificaitons.
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Customization: The next option, customize itslearning, allows you to change the language, time zone, use a simplified navigation tree or simplified text editor, and enable accessibility mode.
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Alerts: Users have the ability to activate email alerts for new assignments, news, and dashboard notifications. It is key that if these alerts are enabled, these settings are activated.
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1.4 Calendar When you open up the calendar, you will notice three tabs – schedule, planner, and search. Within the schedule tab, you have the ability to view your consolidated calendars by day, week or month. On the left hand side of this page, you will notice all of the courses and communities in which you are enrolled. Each course has a corresponding color for easier visibility. The events added to the calendar must correlate to a course, community or your personal calendar. Any events that a teacher adds to a course calendar will also populate on students’ calendars.
When clicking on an event, a more detailed description will appear and the event can be edited. To add an event to the calendar, simply click on any date. Events can also be moved from date to date using a drag and drop technique. Users can subscribe to calendars by clicking on the gear in the upper right hand corner. Events from a course calendar will also populate in the events block on a course dashboard. The planner tab allows a user to view all course plans in one window. This view displays a selected week of plans. The search tab provides a list of all events (past, present and future) from and communities in which a user is enrolled. The user may also search events using a specific timeframe or keyword.
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Course Basics 2.1 Course Creation §
Courses are set up to teach a specific subject area, for example, 2nd grade math or AP Chemistry. Then, within a course, groups can be created for different periods or abilities.
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Depending on a school or district setup, courses may be pre-created for instructors.
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Courses templates can be created also be created at the district level push out a standard model and resources to instructors.
If you have permissions to create a course, click on the courses tab in the menu and choose “add.” Next, decide what course type to use. 1. Regular Courses are used when creating a course from scratch. 2. You may also create a copy of an existing course template. Next, complete the details about your course. The course name and will usually be indicated by your school or district. Choose your organization – this should be the school in which you teach. Then choose save.
You will notice that you are now on the overview page of your new course. The following sections will outline how to build course content. The image to the right demonstrates what a course overview page could look like when populated. Notice there is a section for the day’s plans, bulletins, tasks and events.
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2.2 Course Menu Beneath the site menu, there is a ribbon with the course menu.
The menu options include:
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Overview contains recent updates, course bulletins, tasks or follow up tasks and course events. In addition, the plans of the day will be shown when the planner is used. (See image on the previous page.)
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Resources is the “filing cabinet” of the course with the file folders and resources in the course.
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The planner is the course roadmap. It is useful for teacher planning as well as a valuable resource for students and parents.
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Follow-up and reports includes the course grade book, standards mastery and other reports.
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Participants lists all the students or teachers in a course. It is in this tab that you can view course groups and when students have last visited the course. By clicking on a student’s name, you will view his profile card.
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More includes options for course groups, course settings and the course trash can.
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2.3 Adding standards To track standards mastery and progress, you will need to align your course to standards. In your course, navigate to the “more” option, then to settings. Then chose learning objectives. From here, you will find
learning objectives that have been loaded into the platform. Choose “find” and navigate to the appropriate repository. The national repository will contain most state standards including Common Core Standards and Next Generation Science and Social Studies Standards. Drill down and find the appropriate standards and then, insert the standards that will be used in this course. For example, if this is a Grade 1 Math course, you will insert all grade 1 math standards (not specific strands.)
Now, when you want to attach standards to elements in your course, these will be readily available to attach to the lessons or course elements. When you have selected the appropriate standards, choose “insert.” Note: If standards are missing, contact your system administrator. Users also have the ability to manually create or upload standards. Teachers may create their own standards to track within a course. These standards might be more student friendly or possible nonacademic standards. Note: If standards are created within a course, they cannot be shared with others unless the course is shared as a template. An itslearning administrator can import learning objectives (standards) from an XML format. An Excel spreadsheet may be utilized to organize the information prior to converting to XML. 9
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2.4 Building Course Content The planner is a great way for teachers to prepare a course roadmap & scope and sequence, and it can be customized based on teacher need. For example, blocks of information may be set so that only the teacher may view the information. It is recommended that you build your course through the planner. When you build within the planner, topic/unit folders are automatically created in the course tree. Then, if you align lessons with learning objectives (standards), the resources and activities that are added from the planner will automatically be tagged with those standards and built into the folder within your resources! The planner block on the dashboard provides direct information to users. Parents, students and teachers will all access information from this block on the course dashboard. Parents will not can open resources and activities, so it is important that teachers utilize the lesson outline to share important information. The fields within the planner may include text or interactive content. In your course, open the planner. Next you can begin by adding a topic (such as a unit) or customize the fields in your planner. See the next section for information on customizing the planner. In the images below, you’ll notice a topic titled “Unit 1” has been added. Plans are then able to be added beneath the topic.
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2.5 Planner Overview Add an additional topic (or unit). Unit actions include copy, delete, print.
View course plans by date or topic. By selecting, “view all your plans,” you will see all of your course plans by date. Toggle between table or list.
Customized fields can be added at the topic or plan level. Collapse/Hide lesson plans, add a lesson plan, access the plan options below.
Standards,
objectives, resources and activities will be covered in the next few sections.
The description section allows for the inclusion of plan information, or teaching materials. Date or date range. Plans can be set up so that students and parents can only see materials during this time period. The planner block on the overview page correlates to the dates in the planner. Keep in mind that the planner can be customized to meet your instructional needs. The above sample is from a relatively traditional teaching format. The image to the left shows how the planner can be used to create playlists for student moving through competencies at their own pace. In this instance, topics and dates are not used.
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2.6 Customizing the Planner The planner can be set up with a topic (or unit) with sub elements. Notice that you chose to create a folder for each new topic and your course folder structure will be built automatically. (This option is recommended). Activation relates to when plans and the associated resources are available and visible to students and parents. If you decide automate the activation of plans, you will want to use appropriate dates and choose the option to activate connected elements when the plan is activated. Otherwise, a plan may be activated, but the activities will remain inactive. In addition, you can select options for anonymous access.
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Topic Fields
Next, you can change the title of your topic field. This title can be changed to unit, theme, etc. You are then able to add sub-elements, such as unit resources or standards. To add a field, choose "add field." Then, type in the title and decide if you want this section to include text, learning objectives, or rubric. If you choose learning objectives, you can attach standards at the unit level.) Finally, set the visibility for each field.
Plan Fields
Plan fields allow you to create detailed plans that can be used year after year. These plans may be traditional lessons or nontraditional self-paced modules for students. The default columns for plans are as listed below. Each column can be renamed as seen in the image above. The visibility settings can also be altered so that they are shown to everyone, only the teacher, or no one. Additional columns may also be added as needed. §
Plan: This is the title of a lesson or a module, skill, or sub-topic.
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Description: This section contains a brief description of the lesson, module, skill, etc. Text, video, images, or a lesson outline may be included here.
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Date: Dates may range from one hour to one year… any dates can be included here. The dates allow the lesson information to be displayed on in the planner block on the course dashboard and they correlate with the activation settings as indicated in the planner settings.
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Class Hours: A numeric field (If you do not need to use this field, set the visibility to nobody and uncheck the option to show on the course dashboard.)
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Learning Objectives: This field will include standards that will be aligned to the lesson (Resources and activities that are added from the planner will be automatically tagged with these standards.)
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Resources: This field will contain consumable elements such as files, notes, and links.
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Activities: This field will contain items that require a student response: tests, assignments, discussions, etc.
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2.7 Planner Actions Notice that there are options available for plans: activate, deactivate, set date, copy, start or update sharing, disconnect from shared plan, delete, print. Use the selction option or check the box for the appropriate plan.
As mentioned, it is recommend adding resources and activities through the planner. First align your plan to appropriate standards. Then begin adding resources or elements. You will have the option to pull elements from the course, library or create a new element. When learning objectives (standards) are aligned to a plan, they will automatically align to assignments and tests to track mastery. In addition, the library will populate results based on the standards. The library will be covered in another section.
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2.8 The rich text editor The rich text editor is utilized throughout the platform – in content blocks, the planner, and resources and activities. The rich text editor has features like a word processing program. Within the rich text editor, users may type or paste elements from another location within the text box. You will notice the ability to edit text font, size, color and format. Bullets, numbers, tables, emoticons, foreign language symbols, and links can all be added using the rich text editor. There is no spell check within the rich text editor. Students also have access to the rich text editor when submitting assignments and without a spellcheck; teachers can see unaltered responses from students.
To insert website links, use the link icon. When inserting links, you can hyperlink to a section of text or image or merely paste in the url. The equation editor offers basic equation entry. These icons provide an integrated audio and video recorder. This tool is great for oral instructions or video messages. A robust equation editor is provided and includes the ability for drawing. The embed icon allows you paste embed code from platforms such as YouTube, Prezi, Padlet, etc.
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2.9 What can be added to a course? Activities require students to complete a task. You should utilize these elements more often than resources because we want our students to interact with content not merely consume content. Assignments, tests, surveys, and custom activities appear in students’ task blocks.
Keep in mind that the rich text editor will be included in all activities. So, if you want a student to watch a video and demonstrate their understanding, the video can be embedded within the assignment itself. The student can then demonstrate understanding through a short quiz or student created content such as a paragraph. The following list provides default itslearning activities, however school or district elements can be added by an administrator. (As seen in the image above) 1. Assignments require a digital submission. This digital submission might be a typed essay, PowerPoint presentation, VoiceThread, Prezi, Video, Image, etc. that demonstrates users’ knowledge. Assignments can be aligned to standards with rubrics and assessment criteria to track standards mastery. There is also an option for students to work in groups. 2. Custom Activities are non-digital submissions and may include student artwork, oral presentations, hand-written essays or a face-to-face discussion. Custom activities allow the teacher to provide digital directions and grading specifications, but the work will be submitted, assessed, and graded manually. 3. Tests might be quick quizzes or formal exams. Questions can be aligned to standards, categorized, and assigned specific point value. (Questions can also be imported.) There are ten question types (as seen in the image) that include technology-enhanced questions - matching, ordering, and hotspot. Each question and answer includes the rich text editor, so videos, sound clips, and images can be part of the question. 4. Discussions allow students to reflect on a topic, which may include media elements. Students may then read all posts and replies.
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5. Surveys can be utilized within a course or open externally. They include four question types (yes/no, open answer, matrix, multiple choice) and can be set to be anonymous. 6. Conferences are real-time video or text-based chats hosted by a teacher. The text-based chat allows a maximum of 50 students participate at one time while the video-based chat only allows a maximum of ten users at one time. The chat may be utilized for an in-class back channel or an evening study session. (Sessions cannot be archived.) 7.
Registrations allow instructors to create a list of options for participants to register. This may include a study session, presentation time, or group project.
Resources are consumable elements and do not always require the student to complete a task. The image shows resources that may be added. Administrators may add additional resources.
1. Folder are usually added in resources for organization. 2. File or folder: Allows for easy drag and drop addition of files from your computer, Google Drive, Dropbox or One Drive. 3. Links allow you to add a URL for an online resource. 4. Pages include content blocks of information around a single topic. Polls, videos, images, etc. can all be included within a page. Page is a great tool for student created content as well. 5. Note: The note is another utilization of a rich text editor. Embeddable content can also be included here such as YouTube videos, Prezi, Padlet, etc. Ready-to-Use Content includes elements that can be imported from other learning management systems or platforms as well as content that are in a shared library of resources. (Sometimes known as a learning object repository or LOR.)
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Resources in Detail Resources are used for student consumption. Resources do not necessarily require to students to respond, reflect, or submit work to the teacher. Resources can be more interactive if online simulations or games are added as a link or embedded into a note.
3.1 Folder Folders can be added within resources to organized content.
3.2 File or Folder Allows for easy drag and drop addition of files from your computer, Google Drive, Dropbox or One Drive. Keep in mind that files may also be attached to activities, so consider HOW you want to use a resource. This file/link option may be best for supplemental resources that include grading policies, syllabi, etc. The maximum file size for upload is 2047MB. You can sync to your Dropbox or Google Drive account for a file upload. You will be able to make the elements active or set a time span to activate the element. If Microsoft Web Apps has been enabled in you site these files may be viewed within the browser and on any mobile device (Otherwise a download is necessary.)
3.3 Link Using this option to add a link is a great way to provide a stand-alone resource to a lesson. The link may be an interactive web site, Khan Academy video or BrainPop cartoon. Links to Google Drive files may also be included here.
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3.2 Notes At the simplest level, a note consists of a title and a rich text block. This rich text block may contain images, links, audio, video and embedded content. The note is a very linear way of distributing information.
3.3 Pages Pages allow for blocks of content information focused on a topic. The layout of pages is like the dashboard layout as blocks may be rearranged. Content blocks on pages include the following: Files: Upload and insert files and organize them in folders Images: Upload and insert a collection of images Polls: Add a poll and allow other users to vote Rich Content: Add a block of rich content, such as text, images, and links RSS Feed: Import an RSS feed to your dashboard You will notice that the rich content option in pages does not include the “insert” option. So, to embed a video or twitter feed, use the “source” option to paste the HTML embed code into the block.
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Activities in Detail Activities are elements that require students to complete a task. We encourage the use of these elements more often than resources because they require reflection or a deeper interaction with content. Tests, assignments, custom activities and surveys will populate students’ task blocks when assigned. As students complete the work, the instructor will notice follow up tasks – elements that need to be assessed. The rich text editor is included in all activities. So, if you want a user to watch a video and demonstrate understanding, the video may be embedded within the assignment itself. The user may then demonstrate understanding through a short quiz or user created content such as a paragraph.
4.1 Assignments An assignment is a performance task assigned to students that will require a digital response. The student will receive a notification for the assignment in their task block. When creating an assignment, you can insert content and/or directions into the rich text editor. Use the rich text editor to provide ample information to students on how to complete an assignment. For example, you may ask them to watch a video and submit a summary. Assignments offer the following options Deadline: When students submit their work, the assignment response will be stamped with a submission date and time. If you choose to give students a deadline for an assignment they will have up to that point in time to submit their response, or you may allow students to submit their response after the deadline. In that case their date and time will be marked late. There are four options under deadline: no deadline, at a specific time, at the end of a specific day, at a specific event.
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Mandatory: If an assignment is mandatory, users will be able to track their course progress toward completion of all mandatory assignments. Active: Active assignments will be visible to students. Those assignments that are inactive will not be visible to students. So, if you want to set a time span to activate an assignment, students will only have access for that time period. Note: Automatic activation of elements may be set up within the planner settings. Files: You can upload file to an assignment. This might be a worksheet, packet of information, PowerPoint, etc. Plagiarism Control can also be turned on for your site. Groups: Assignments allow for groups of students to work together on an assignment and receive a single grade. §
Course Groups: For this option, the instructor would have pre-created course groups based on ability, period, etc.
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Student-defined groups allow students to create their own groups when they submit a response.
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Self-enrollment allows the teacher to specify the number of groups and size for students to enroll.
Submission Status allows for the following: §
When assignment is completed, include participant in another group. This is a great option for differentiation.
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Anonymous submission prevents the teacher from seeing the students’ names next to their submissions. This would prevent teacher bias when grading assignments.
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The school or district must subscribe to plagiarism control. If this option has been enabled, student submissions will be checked for plagiarism.
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Assessment allows the instructor to choose what type of grading process to utilize. Your itslearning administrators should have set up these assessment options.
If a score is used, you can set a maximum score and decide if the assignment will be added to the grade book. In the grade book, all scores are weighted at 100% unless weighting is used in the assessment settings. For this reason, it is important to check your grade book settings prior to utilizing the grade book. Note: This assessment is not aligned to the tracking of standards mastery. 21
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Learning objectives (standards) must first be aligned to the course and then attached to an assignment. When standards are attached to an assignment, the instructor may track standards mastery. Standards-based rubrics with assessment criteria must be set up to track mastery. To add a standards-based rubric, first ensure that standards have been added to the assignment. Then choose "manage assessment criteria." You can search for assessment criteria that has been set up previously and shared. If criteria exist, it may be added to the assignment. In the image below no assessment criteria were found, therefore it must be manually created. To do this, choose "add criteria." The criteria are specific to a standard, and multiple criteria may be added to a single standard. Title your criteria accordingly and then provide descriptors within the rubric. The achievement levels within the rubric are established at the district level by an itslearning administrator. The default setting includes four levels (advanced, proficient, basic, below basic) as seen below. It is important that these settings are correct before you begin assessing students. Contact your itslearning administrator if you notice a problem with these settings. If you have chosen to assess your assignment with a score, the rubric may be weighted. The results from all assessment criteria will create an overall score. Once you have created assessment criteria for your standards you may choose to share the criteria with others in your school or district. Choose the share option. Depending on your profile settings you may share the rubric with your school, district or the itslearning global community. If you decide not to share the criteria, choose "close."
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Assessing Assignments
When checking student work the instructor will be able to see course participants and the details of their submissions.
By selecting multiple students, Assignments may be deleted or assessed in bulk.
If work was submitted past the deadline, the time stamp will be shown in red.
Student work may be downloaded to correct while offline.
Date in which the instructor reviewed the work.
Student work may be filtered by group (or period.)
The plagiarism check must be enabled at a district level and will check student work.
Status indicates the student’s performance on the assignment. Assignments may be sent back to students for correction or improvement if they are unsatisfactory.
To view and assess the students’ work, click on the “show” option.
Instructors can view student work, a plagiarism report, student status, and grade the assignment based criteria. The assessment criteria are aligned to standards and will track mastery. These mastery settings must be set at the school or district level. Depending on how the assignment was created, a score will be generated from the rubric. Teachers do can override the score or mastery settings. Instructors are also able to give multimedia feedback using a rich text editor or attaching a file. If students have worked in groups, only one submission and grade will be given to all students within a group. 23
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4.2 Custom activities Custom activities are designed for non-digital activities (lab exercises, oral exams, or artwork.) Custom activities provide space for the instructor to give digital instructions or content, but then submit work in a non-digital format. Then, assessment options allow the teacher or participants to track their completion.
Assessing custom activities
It is quick and easy to assess custom activities. An instructor may grade an art project or sculpture and type in grades and comments one by one.
Alternatively, an instructor may assess multiple students at once. Mastery may be adjusted by choosing “assess” under the learning objectives option.
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4.3 Tests Tests may be formal assessments or informal quick checks. There are ten question types within tests and these questions may be aligned to standards and categorized. To add a test, choose the test option within your activities menu. You will notice that there are two tabs at the top of this portion: Test information and Options. Begin by adding a title and an introduction. Here are a few examples as to what you might include in the introductory section. 1. Watch the following video and then answer the following questions to show what you’ve learned. (Embed an instructional video.) 2. Read the following selection and then complete this 5question quiz to show your understanding. (Paste an informational paragraph into the rich text editor.) 3. This test will cover all the material from Unit 4. Good luck!
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Once you have titled your test and included an introduction, attach learning objectives. Remember, when you add activities from the planner, learning objectives from the lesson will already be attached. If you are assessing an entire unit, you may include many learning objectives. Next, decide if you want to set a deadline and if you want students to be able to submit their response after the deadline. You will also need to indicate what type of assessment you will be utilizing. Keep in mind that scores can be added to the grade book and included in a student’s overall average. If you are adding the score to the grade book, select the term and category. Finally, indicate if this is a mandatory assignment or not and chose “Save.” At this point, you may begin to build your test. There are four
tabs: test, test categories and reports. Begin by adding questions. There are ten question types that can be added to a test.
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Test Questions
There are ten question types that you can insert within a test. The three interactive question types are sometimes called “technology enhanced questions.” All question types utilize the rich text editor. This means that you can insert images, videos, sound recordings, equations, etc. into both the question itself as well as the answer! The following pages will explain the ten different question types and provides examples for each. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
Either/Or Multiple Choice Multiple Response Short Answer Open Answer Select from a List Fill in the Blank Match Order Hotspot
Either/Or
This type of question can be utilized for true/false or yes/no questions. The teacher may also create options such as: Foreign Language: In the following audio recording, Mary is describing her summer vacation. (The audio recording is in Spanish.) Where did Mary go during her summer vacation? Beach/Camping Literature: The following paragraph, Tom is the… Protagonist/Antagonist
Art: Which of the following images illustrates Post-Modernist Period of Art? (Two images of artwork would be added to the rich text editor.)
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Multiple Choice and Multiple Response
These traditional question types are self-explanatory… but don’t forget that multimedia elements can be included in the question and answer! The set up in a multiple response question is identical that of a multiple-choice question, however, there can be more than one response. This means that a multiple response question with 4 alternatives can be answered in 16 different ways!
Short Answer
Short answer questions are easy to create, but they demand that you think through the possible outcomes of the question. You must phrase it in such a way that the answer is short and concise… the student answer cannot exceed 90 characters. Answers may be automatically assessed utilizing key words. For example, Literature: “What is a poem?” Keywords may include the following: rhyme, rhythm, beat, figurative language, etc.
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Open Answer
Open answer questions cannot be assessed automatically, and this question type is often used for essays. Students will also have access to the rich text editor, so they may include images, video, sound recordings, equations, etc. in their response. In the example to the right, students may write their own math problem based on the facts provided. Foreign Language: Use the recording tool in the rich text editor to record yourself reading the following sentence. You will be assessed on fluency and pronunciation.
Matching
This question type provides students with two lists to match based on the directions. Students drag and drop the correct answer into the space provided (as seen here.) Students may even match a picture to a word or an audio recording. To create this question, first place the directions within the rich text editor. Then add the matching information in the correct order.
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Select from a List
For this question type, students select an answer based on a drop-down list of alternatives. Here is a math example, Complete the following statement with the correct term: The top number of a fraction is called ___________ and represents __________. The bottom number on a fraction is ____________ and represents ____________. The dropdown list would include four alternatives: the numerator, the denominator, a part, the whole Notice the directions are listed in the introductory text and the actual question is listed in the second text box. Highlight a word and use the “create blank” option to create a blank. The list of alternatives will appear in a drop-down list.
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Fill in the Blank
This question type is similar to the “select form a list,” however it requires students to type in a response. If the answer is spelled incorrectly it will be marked wrong. If this is the case, it may be better to utilize the “select from a list” question type. To create a fill in the blank question, first provide and introduction text (directions.) In the second text box, enter the text that you want the participants to fill in the blank. Then, select a word to “blank out” and choose “create blank.” This will create a green box around the word. You may choose multiple words and even provide key words as alternatives.
The use of keywords is beneficial if there are multiple answers for a single blank. For example: Mixing the colors _______ and ________ make the color green. The blanked words would be – blue (alternative - yellow) yellow (alternative - blue)
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Order
This question type asks participants arrange a series of items in the correct order. You could, for example, ask participants to rank a list of alternatives from largest to smallest or place words in alphabetical order. The items appear in a drag and drop format.
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Hotspot
For this question type, students must click on a correct spot within an image. To create this question, first provide a set of instructions, next upload an image, and finally determine the hotspot.
The rich text editor allows you to input text or an audio recording to use as your question. Once you have uploaded an image, you will use the square, circle or freehand tool to create a “hotspot.” You can create multiple hotspots within one image.
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Test Categories
You have the option to create categories within a test to organize questions. You may choose how many points each question in a specific category should be rewarded and the number of questions that is to be drawn from each category. Categories are used to weight questions, enabling the teacher to reward harder questions with more points. An important aspect of the category function is the possibility to vary the weight of each question or category. Notice that you may choose not to draw all questions from each category. This may allow a randomization of questions for students. Next to the test categories tab is a question tab, which allows you to edit test questions, their learning objectives, category or score.
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Test Options
When you edit a test, you will have the opportunity to change the test options. To edit a test, click the gear in the upper right hand corner, and then select the options tab. Within these options, there are five main categories: 1. Scoring method § With penalty penalizes participants with a negative score an answer is incorrect on a question. This option may prevent the participants from guessing for correct answers. § Without penalty does not penalize for incorrect answers. Only correct answers are rewarded. 2. Criteria for completion § You can set a percentage that a student must attain to receive a 'Completed' status on a test. § Display questions in random order allows for random assignment of questions. If you create a test with 100 questions and only assign 20 questions for students to complete, they may all receive a completely different test! 3. Question navigation: There are three navigation options: forward only, free navigation, show all questions on one page. 4. Attempts: You can set the number of attempts in which a student may take a test, which score will count, and how long the student must complete the test.
5. Results and feedback § On questions: Provides feedback after every question. Here you can define your own feedback messages that appear if: the answer is correct, the answer is partially correct, or the answer is incorrect § On alternatives: Provides feedback after every alternative. You must add a feedback message manually to each alternative when you add a question. § No feedback: No feedback is shown. The test mode browser is an add-on that 'locks down' a student's computer while the student is taking a test. Using this option, students can open any other browser windows or applications. The students must remain in 35
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test mode until they finish the test. The test mode browser is designed for a computer lab setting (ie: Windows or Mac OS) and will not function on mobile devices.
Test Reports Tests are assessed automatically, and an instructor may see individual student results and overall test statistics and question statistics. The question statistics include the category, question type, mean score, number of participants that answer the question, and the lowest/highest score. Note: If the questions were aligned with standards, mastery is tracked within the learning objectives progress report.
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4.4 Surveys Surveys are used to gather information on a subject from a group of respondents. Surveys may be sent to users within a course or externally. Responses may also be submitted anonymously.
When creating a survey, the rich text editor may be utilized to embed media or directions. Then, any of the four question types may be added to the survey: yes/no, multiple choice, open answer or matrix. Surveys are like tests but surveys do not specify a correct answer. The matrix question allows for multiple rows and columns to be set up for the rating of elements. Results can be viewed manually or exported to Excel. itslearning automatically creates answer statistics making interpretation of the results easy.
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Creating a Survey 1.
2.
Choose to "add survey" and then provide a title and description to your survey. You are then able to specify a deadline and the type of survey. Surveys may be anonymous, not anonymous or open externally. You will then be able activate your survey, however to add questions, you must ensure that the survey is not active. Choose save. Select the tab to add questions.
3.
Add survey questions. Options include: Yes/No, Multiple Choice, Open Answer, Matrix
4.
Choose save and then select the survey tab to activate the survey. To edit any details, select the three dots in the upper right hand corner.
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4.5 Conferences Conferences allow for real-time text or video based chat. Up to ten users may participate in a video-based chat while up to 50 users may participate in a text-based chat. Keep in mind that conferences must be facilitated by the creator of the conference and these conferences are not archivable.
4.6 Discussions Discussions allow students to reflect on a question or topic. The rich text editor allows for the inclusion of media elements. Students may then read all posts and replies. When creating discussions, the instructor has the options to use categories and allow for anonymous posts. If posts are anonymous neither students nor teacher will know who posted the comment. Teachers and administrators do can edit or delete any comments.
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4.7 Registrations Whether you need an overview of who is participating in what activity on a sports day or who has volunteered to do what in the school play, registrations provide the perfect tool. Instructors may create a list of options for which participants may register. When participants have registered, a list becomes available for the teacher with all information.
4.8 Crossword and Hangman If you would like to utilize the hangman or crossword builder within your courses, first choose the green + button on the far-right side of your course menu. This is the quick add option. You will then see a menu that allows you to add an element to your course. Click the gear in the upper right hand corner to browse the app library. The app library will list various apps that may be used within the platform. Within the app library you will see the crossword builder and hangman apps. Choose “include this app” for both and these options. The crossword builder and hangman game will now reside within your activities menu.
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Crosswords
The crossword builder allows you to create a crossword with answers and hints. The crossword is then automatically created. You can add up to twenty words. Crosswords may also be shared in the library.
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Hangman
The hangman app allows teachers to create simple and fun word quizzes in which the player tries to guess the letters of a word. Teachers can add words and clues. The images include an Elephant or Monkey. If you select Monkey the participants will see a monkey that loses bananas every time they guess a letter wrong. The Elephant will lose his limbs one by one.
4.9 LTI Tool LTI is short for Learning Tools Interoperability and allows for seamless connection of web-based applications and content hosted in other platforms. As an itslearning user, you can use the LTI integration to connect to several apps. While itslearning does not supply the apps, it facilitates their use in the platform. LTI apps can be added from the activities menu. When you choose this option, first add an appropriate title. You will then see two tabs, Settings and XML. The tab you use depends on the settings of the LTI app.
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Information about LTI apps may be found at the following two sites: 1. Edu-Apps https://www.edu-apps.org 2. Edu App Center https://www.eduappcenter.com/ When you have found an LTI app to use, determine if you need to use the Settings or XML tab. In the settings tab, enter the link provided by the vendor. If the LTI app requires a license or subscription, an application key or shared secret must be provided by the vendor. The fields for XML are similar and include a configuration link and XML code. You can assess LTI links as well.
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The Library The library is a space in which users may search for and share resources. There are two sections in the library – search and your collection. In the upper right hand corner, there is a button to create a new element.
5.1 Searching the library Users may search by keyword, author, learning objective or format type. Results can be filtered by Learning objective (standard), grade level, assessment type, format type, language, author, or provider.
5.2 Sharing to the library The ability to add content to a shared library depends on the permissions that were set up by your system administrators. There are different levels to the library. 1. Personal Library contains files, links, or pages that you have added to your own library. 2. School Library contains elements shared by members of your school 3. District Library contains elements shared by members at the district level or anywhere within the school district. 4. Itslearning Community Library contains elements shared by global itslearning users. Different permissions can be set up for searching and adding to the library. For example, you may only have rights to share with your school but you may be able to search for and use district level elements. Alternatively, you may be able to search for and use elements at any level but you are not able to share elements at all. When you start sharing, you should to complete all the options to help users when searching for the content. Then choose publish. The options include: • Available to: From the drop-down list, select whether you want to share the item with your school, district, or community • Allow Copies: Do you want other teachers to be able to make a copy and edit their own version of your item? • Co-authors: Do you want to give co-ownership of the item to another user? You can grant another user the rights to the element by searching for their last name. • Description: Provide a short description of the element • Keywords: List keywords that would be helpful when doing a search • Language: In what language is the element created? 44
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• • • • •
Format: Is the element mainly audio, video, image, text-based or interactive? Content: Is the element intended for students, teachers, mentors, etc.? Learning Objectives: What standards align with this element? This is especially important for standards mastery and the recommendation engine. Show your Name Allow Reviews
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Course Management 6.1 Adding Participants Participants within a course may include guests, students, teachers and administrators. There are several ways to enroll participants in a course. They may be added manually, through hierarchy synchronization or through integration with your student information system. Before adding any participants to a course, users must first be added to your itslearning site.
Participants may also elect to join a course if it has been added to the site course catalog. This option must be enabled by your school or district and may be appropriate for professional or non-academic courses. To manually add participants to a course, choose participants and then click “add.” From here you can search for participants based on name, role, hierarchy or another course. When you have conducted your search, click on the participants you wish to add. Then, select the role you want them and choose add. Note: More than one teacher may be added to a course! This allows teachers to collaborate on course content.
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6.2 Grouping Participants Instructors may choose to group students within a course for communication, organization, or differentiation. Instructors may create an unlimited number of groups and all groups may have one or more subgroups. To create course groups, choose the “more” option and then select “course groups.” Create a title for your group and choose next. Then select participants to add to the group. Choose complete. From here you will notice that when you click on a course group you can change the group title, add additional participants, add subgroups, or remove participants.
6.3 Course Settings
Course settings allow the instructor to edit settings related to the course. Navigate to settings from the more option in your menu. You will notice that you have the also can add learning objectives in this menu. The course properties and features allow the instructor to edit the course details and add terms. By clicking on the gear in the upper right hand corner, you may archive or delete a course as well as apply a template to an existing course.
Terms
Terms are divisions of the year in which your grades are organized. These divisions may also be called semesters, quarters, or trimesters, for example. Your itslearning administrator will have created terms for your organization to insert into a course. If your course has been set up through an integration process or using a template, these settings may already be in effect. If no terms are listed in your course, choose “add term.” Then, select the appropriate terms for your course and select add. If you do not see any terms listed, please contact your itslearning administrator.
Functions
§ Links: Allows links related to the course to be placed in the links option of the menu. § Grade Book: Enables the grade book function with a course. (The grade book settings must also be checked.)
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§ Learning objectives: Allows for learning objectives (standards) to be applied and mastery tracked within a course. § Participants: Allows course participants to see all participants within an entire course. § Files in course: Enables the function for adding files and links allows you to include documents that you have created in other applications, such as pictures, text files, and video content, in addition to Internet links. § Planner: Allows the user of the planner within a course. § Follow-up and reports: Allows participants to access their grades and course reports. § Portfolio assessment: Allows participants to create a portfolio from work within a course. Also, enables the functionality of the recommendation engine. § Disable comments on bulletins by default § Choose start page: Determines the first page users will see when opening a course. The permissions allow participants to withdraw from a course and the course may be added to the course catalog. Instructors may not have permissions to add a course to the catalog. Sharing a course as a template allows users to create a new course based on the template. All elements within the template will copy over to the new course including the course settings, dashboard, planner, and other course elements.
6.4 Editing Course Elements To edit most elements within the course, you must first open the element and then click the gear in the upper right hand corner. You will notice that you have the option to check permissions, edit or delete the item. (Some elements may also allow sharing to the library.) When you open a folder in the resources tab, you will notice that you have the option to view the items within the folder. You may also alter permissions, edit, or delete elements using the icons to the right of the element. Can reorganize elements within a folder by selecting the reorganize option. 48
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When trying to edit elements that may be added to the library (pages, files/links) you may notice a change in functionality. After creating a page, it may appear as though you cannot edit this page. You will notice a link icon next to the author’s name. This link means that the page is linked from your personal library or someone else’s library. To edit the page, hover over the gear in the upper right hand corner and either choose “Edit original” or “Create your own version.” You will then notice that the original page will open in the library. And you will can edit the original.
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6.5 Moving or Copying Elements Folders and items within a folder may also be copied, moved, deleted, or exported. First, open the parent folder and select the elements you wish to move or copy. Then use the action box to choose the appropriate action. Items may be moved and copied within a course or to other courses. To move or copy an item to another course, you must be an instructor in that course. Finally, select the destination to send the elements.
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6.6 Activating Elements When adding elements to a course, you may notice the option to make the element active. When items are active, they are visible to all users, including students and parents. However, when items are inactive, they are only visible to the teacher and administrator. You will notice that inactive elements are italicized in the course tree. A time span can be set up for the activation and deactivation of an element. The options include now, never, and at a specific time. Activation may also be set at the folder level. This is
a great option for “hiding” content from students until it is being covered in class. When opening the parent folder, the “Active” column provides a slider bar to activate and deactivate content. Alternatively, multiple items may be selected and activated at once by checking the item and using the “Action” menu.
Within the planner, elements can be set up so that they are automatically activated per the dates in the planner. (Refer to Section 2.3 for more information.)
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6.7 Permissions All course elements including folders, activities, and resources may have specific permissions based on need. To view or edit permissions, click on the gear in the upper right hand corner and choose permissions. You will see a menu of options: § § §
Select who can see and participate in the folder Select who may add new elements to this folder View a detailed overview of current permissions
To change permissions, choose one of the menu options, and then grant permissions to a group or specific participants. To do this you will select the names of the group or participants then select “add” (or “remove.”) When you have successfully edited the permissions be sure to save. Using the permissions feature is a great way to allow for differentiation and ability grouping. Within the itslearning platform there is no automated adaptive release, however groups, permissions, and the assignment tool can be set up so that participants are moved from one group to another based on the successful completion of assignments.
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Follow Up and Reports The follow up and reports option allows teachers to view reports for all elements of a course. You will notice that a teacher can access two major course-reporting tools: the grade book and learning objectives progress report.
7.1 The Grade Book Scores for tests, assignments, and custom activities may all be added to the itslearning grade book. When opening the grade book from the follow up and reports menu, you will find the following view. Prior to using the grade book, the settings should be checked by clicking on the gear in the upper right hand corner.
Grade Book Settings
Within the settings, there are three tabs: assessment scale, categories and grade book settings. The first tab that opens is the grade book settings, in which you may alter the following options.
Weighting
When weighting is enabled, you can enter a numerical weight to assignments, tests or custom activities. Unless weighting is utilized, all scores (whether 20 53
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points or 100 points) are calculated as 100%. The option for weighting assessments allows you to increase the value for individual assignments. For example, one assignment might be multiplied twice while another count three times toward an average.
Average
Who do you want to view participants’ averages?
Export to CSV
If manually linking the grade book to another program or excel spreadsheet, you may choose to export the grade book to a CSV file.
Assessment Scale
The assessment scale should align with your school/district grading policies and is set up by your itslearning administrator. While course instructors cannot change the assessment scales, you may create your own grading scale. Score should also be an option for grading, and if it is not enabled you should contact your itslearning administrator. Select a grading scale to view the details.
Categories
The categories tab allows the instructor to set up categories for assignments, such as homework, tests, quizzes, etc. These categories may also be weighted otherwise all categories will be evenly distributed.
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Adding to the Grade Book
Once you have checked/set up the grade book settings and added terms, elements may be added to the grade book. When creating assignments, tests, and custom activities, you will notice the option to add the results to the grade book. If you choose to add an element to the grade book, you will also have the option to choose the appropriate category and term. If you choose score for your assessment option, you can also choose the max score. Grades may also be added directly from the grade book by selecting the “add assessment” option. This function will create a custom activity.
Then, title your assessment; choose the category, and assessment details. Once you save this assessment, you will be able to add grades. Notice that when you hover over a column in the grade book, you have the option to assess or mark a student exempt from an assignment. When choosing to assess from the grade book, you will be taken to another screen to enter scores and comments.
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The grade book has three tabs: assessment, average and count, assessment summary. The assessment tab shows all assessments that have been added to the grade book. You will notice that you can filter by term, group, or category. You may edit and delete assessments within the gradebook.
The action option you to adjust the category weighting or assessment weighting. You may also view the grade book in Excel or CSV. If you have elected to use assessment weighting in the grade book settings, this menu will allow you to increase the weight of assessments. For example, if you want a quiz to count twice, mark 2 as the weight. Within the assessment tab, the overall average will consider all the assessments added to the grade book for the specified term, and the average may be shown in a variety of formats.
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The average and count tab provides an overall average and summarizes the average for each category in the selected term. The assessment summary allows you to calculate the final average for multiple terms. For example, the Semester 1 grade may be the average of Quarter 1, Quarter 2 and an end of semester exam.
Choose “Add calculation” to set up a new assessment summary. You have the option to set up a calculation based on categories and terms or on another calculation.
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7.2 The Learning Objectives Progress Report When a course has been aligned with learning objectives (standards), the performance of these standards may be tracked. Keep in mind that while they are related, the grade book is not related to standards mastery. You may track standards mastery and not use the grade book or you may use the grade book and not track mastery. There are three activities allow you to track standards mastery – assignments, custom activities, and tests.
Assignments
First an assignment must be tagged with standards and then, assessment criteria must be created. Choose manage assessment criteria, and then you will be able to create a rubric based on these standards. More than one rubric may be used for each standard and each criterion may be weighted differently. These rubrics may be shared at the school or district level, allowing teachers to search from a library of criteria-based rubrics.
Instructors then have the ability to assess based on the rubric. The mastery will adjust per the student’s score. Notice the teacher can override the automated status.
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Custom Activities
Custom activities must also be tagged with the standards. The activity may be assessed using assessment criteria (a rubric) or outcome status. The assessment criteria work in the same way as in the assignment. The teacher can score the activity based on a rubric. Alternatively, by choosing outcome status, the teacher can manually determine mastery.
You will notice that there are different statuses in regards to meeting standards as well as reoccurrence settings that determine overall standards mastery. In this image, the mastery setting is set at two assessments in a row. If you have questions about these mastery settings, contact your system administrator. The learning objective progress settings include assessment outcome statuses, reoccurrence settings, and achievement levels for the rubrics. These settings are established an administrator at the district or school level.
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Tests
Mastery can be tracked on tests when test questions are aligned to standards. The test can be set to follow reoccurrence settings or set to override mastery. It is in the learning objectives progress report that you can track mastery. The learning objective progress report
is divided into three tabbed sections: Learning Objectives, Participants and Assessments. The Learning Objectives tab provides information based on the standards selected for the course. You will begin by choosing the set of standards with which you would like to work. You will then drill down into the specific standard for which you are looking. For example, you might choose the 4th grade science standard S4E3.c, which is investigating how clouds are formed. When viewing any standard, you will see a description of the standard, indicators for “Does not meet”, “Meets”, and “Not Assessed”, as well as a bar indicating the percentage of mastery toward that standard for your students. 60
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The white box adjacent to “Not Assessed” will show the number of students yet to be assessed on that standard. Once your students begin to complete assignments and assessments aligned to standards, you will start seeing numerals appear in the pink box next to “Does not meet” as well as in the green box next to “Meets”. These numerals indicate the number of students who have achieved that level on this standard. If you click on the numerals next to “Does not meet” or “Meets” you will see a list of students who fall within this category. The blue mastery percentage bar indicates the percentage of the students who have mastered that standard. Here you are provided with further information about each student. There are also a variety of choices to filter these students: by group, status, sort by (name, status), and assignment/assessment.
By choosing “Back to Learning Objectives” in the upper left of the screen, you can view the participants tab. This view provides a list of students and the number of standards they have not met, those that they have met, and those that have not been assessed. In addition, the percentage bar indicates the percentage of the standards the student has mastered.
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The assessments tab, provides a list of activities that have been aligned to standards and assessed in your course. Notice that these will include assignments, custom activities and tests. You may view the type of activity and the date in which it was assessed. When clicking on an activity you can see detailed mastery information. Remember that the learning objectives progress report and standards mastery are separate from the grade book. Teachers may also view a student’s mastery across courses. To do this, the instructor must first navigate to course participants and then select a student’s name.
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7.3 Individual Learning Plans The individual learning plan allows a student to work with a mentor or multiple mentors to establish goals and tasks related to these goals. Teachers can view individual learning plans for students in their courses. However, teachers are only allowed to see the columns that are made visible for teachers in the ILP settings, and teachers cannot edit the information.
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7.4 Working and Assessment Portfolios When portfolio assessment has been enabled within a course, students will have access to both a working and an assessment portfolio. These portfolios contain samples of the students work and shows growth over time. The working portfolio contains all the work a student has completed within a course. Students can move any these elements into the assessment portfolio. The assessment portfolio may then be used to showcase student work.
Students may also add elements to their assessment portfolios that were not part of course assignments. Students may then create categories to organize these elements.
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7.5 Reports In addition to the grade book at standards mastery reports, instructors have access to other status reports.
The assignment report provides a list of all course assignments with student performance. The personal report shows a list of all participants and a detailed report of their performance within a course.
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There are two different progress reports within the follow-up and reports menu. The progress report shows a participant’s progress in a course, measured by the number of mandatory elements completed.
The first progress report shows completed or approved obligatory assignments, tests, surveys, and content with tracking (AICC and SCORM). The progress report 2.0 provides a report for mandatory course tasks and set up completion criteria for the course. In the progress report 2.0, each element is represented by a section in the progress bar. When an element is active but not started, the color of the bar is gray. A completed task is green. Tasks that are past their deadline are red, while tasks with a deadline within a given number of days are shown in yellow. A single black bar in the activity progress represents the last mandatory activity. All activities to the left of this must be green for the course to be completed.
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It is also within the progress report 2.0 that rules may be created for course completion. Choose the gear in the upper right hand corner to access the course completion settings. There are three course completion criteria: §
All mandatory activities: The participant must complete all mandatory activities for the course to pass the course.
§
A set number of mandatory activities: The participant must complete a given number of mandatory activities to pass the course. Enter the number of activities the participant must complete, in the number of activities field.
§
A percentage of the mandatory activities: The participant must complete a set percentage of the mandatory activities to pass the course. Enter the percentage of activities the participant must complete, in the Percentage of activities field.
The progress report uses a color code for activities that have deadlines approaching. In the field for the deadline warning you can enter the number of days in advance that the deadline warning should appear. The summary report provides a list of all elements within a course and the completion status of each element.
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Portfolios There are three types of portfolios: working portfolios, assessment portfolios and ePortfolios.
8.1 ePortfolios Itslearning provides an ePortfolio for student and staff use. Users may access the ePortfolio in their personal menu by clicking on their name in the upper right hand corner.
8.2 Settings The ePortfolio settings allow users to determine the start page, inclusion of a blog and about me URL, external links and
page, theme, access settings.
There are fifteen themes user may choose.
from which a
With administrative may publish the Internet or protect the password.
permission, users ePortfolio to the ePortfolio with a
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8.3 About me Students can include various content within the ePortfolio. The about me option allows the user to include personal information including a photo or email address. Each section uses the rich text editor, so font, size, and content may be customized.
8.4 Blogs Blogs allow users to create a blog, add and edit entries, and view comments. By clicking the dots in the upper right hand corner, users may edit their blog settings. Notice that the settings allow for publication to the Internet and subscription via RSS feed.
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8.5 Working and Assessment Portfolios Students may access working and assessment portfolios from the course menu.
The Working Portfolio
There are four tabs within the working portfolio: 1. Elements: It is here that you will see an overview of all the elements in the working portfolio. This overview provides a complete list of all course assignments and may then be transferred to the assessment portfolio as an artifact and evidence of learning. Files, links and notes may also be manually added to the working portfolio. 2. Tasks: This page reveals personalized tasks that have been assigned to a student from the learning objective progress report. Students may also create personalized tasks within this menu. This will add a task within the student's task block... helping the student to prioritize and organize work. 3. Log: The log provides students with a space to blog about coursework. The log also allows others who have access to the working portfolio to add comments. 4. Learning objectives: This tab shows all learning objectives/standards that have been aligned to the course. This menu is a legacy function and has been replaced by the learning objectives progress report (found in the follow-up and reports menu.)
The Assessment Portfolio
The purpose of the assessment portfolio is to showcase student coursework. There are three tabs within the assessment portfolio: 1. Elements: This tab displays the elements included in the course assessment portfolio. The student may also add, delete, or copy elements within this menu. 2. Categories: Students may create categories to organize elements in their assessment portfolio. 3. Export: Under this tab students may export the assessment portfolio. The assessment portfolio is connected to a student’s ePortfolio so that when a course is completed, the assessment portfolio will remain intact. The gear in the upper right hand corner allows the student to edit the portfolio settings. 70
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8.6 Other Portfolios The portfolios option allows users to manage portfolios. While users have one main ePortfolio, there may be several smaller portfolios within this main portfolio. Portfolios can be created for academic courses, professional development, or personal interests.
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8.7 Accessing Portfolios and Blogs If the permissions have been enabled, users may access each other’s blogs or portfolios in two ways: 1. Users may click on the user’s image in bulletins, discussions or view participants within in a course or community, select a user's name, and then access the ePortfolio within the student's profile. 2. The user may share the distinct URL of the ePortfolio. The teacher may create a student portfolio list within a content block on a course dashboard or community. Alternatively, the links may be placed in course folder or in course links.
Individual Learning Plans Individual learning plans allow a mentor to set up goals and objectives for users. This might be a guidance counselor working with a student to set up academic goals or an administrator working with a teacher to a plan for professional growth and observation. Both students and parents can view the individual learning plans, but there is a column for mentor notes, that are seen only by the mentor.
9.1 Setting up Mentors An administrator must first establish a user’s role as a mentor prior for that user to create individual learning plans. The administrator should navigate to the administration tab and then choose “supervisors.” From this menu, the administrator may add mentors. Then, each mentor must be assigned a group of users to mentor. The mentor will be able to set up and monitor individual learning plans for this group of users. Notice that mentors may be assigned an entire heirarchy, such as a grade level or a school. They may also be assigned individual users.
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9.2 Creating an ILP Once a user has been added as a mentor, he or she will view a mentor option in the menu. This menu will provide the mentor with the ability to set up and manage individual learning plans. There are two tabs within the ILP menu, students and setup. The setup options allow the mentor to set up categories for the individual learning plan. These columns can be set up so that they are only visible or may only be edited by certain users.
Once columns have been created to fit the needs of the mentor. The students tab allows the mentor to create and edit student ILPs. The progress bar shows user status toward completion of the ILP. The codes are labeled at the bottom of this menu.
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Once you create an ILP, you will be able to add content to the columns. The default categories are as seen below: skill, goals, task, reflection and mentor notes. In this case, the student may only edit the progress and add a reflection. The mentor must create the skill and goals for the student. Notice that the ILP includes dates in which it is active. Outside of these dates, the ILP is only visible to the mentor. If an ILP is published it is visible to users such as the student and parents and if the ILP is locked, then only the mentor may make changes.
Multiple mentors may collaborate on an ILP which make it a great tool for observations or progress monitoring. Administrators may even set up an ILP for staff based on professional goals. Notice in this image, the columns are titled domain and indicator. The teacher has a reflection column and the mentor notes are only visible to the mentor.
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Groups Groups contain two sections, communities and dashboards. Choose the “all groups” option to view additional groups or add a community. • §
Dashboards are used by the school or district to provide information. Communities are like courses, but are collaborative spaces for members. Unlike courses, assignments, tests and other activities are not enabled in communities. Users can share files and links, create discussion boards, and schedule conferences.
Community
Dashboard
10.1 Creating a Community § § §
All users are typically able to create communities. Communities may be created for group projects, clubs, or associations. There are two ways to be added to a community: invitation or administration. The creator of a community may invite users to join or an itslearning administrator must manually add users to a community. To add a community, select the “add” option and then, provide a title and description for your community.
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10.2 Adding Participants Once you have created a community, you may invite participants. Choose the participants option in your course menu. Then choose “invite users.” This will allow you to send an internal message to users inviting them to the community. There are two roles within a community: §
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Community manager – able to add participants, edit settings, create groups and manage the dashboard. Community participant – able to add and share content and participate in community activities
To add users, choose the invite users option. Then search for users by first or last name. Select the user and send and invitation. Users must accept the invitation to be a part of the community.
10.3 Community Content The community overview page provides a stream of bulletins, and a list of events. Content can be added directly within a bulletin or by selecting the resources tab. And choosing to “add” content. Users have the option to add folders, files, links, notes, conferences, discussions, or surveys.
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Parent Portal The parent has access to much information about each child. You will notice there is information about the child’s profile, tasks to complete, course with grade book, lesson plan, etc. Parents also have access to an internal instant messaging and immediate notifications.
The parent can view his/her child’s profile, individual learning plan, ePortfolio, course and personalized tasks, events and more. Parents are also able to see course events, which may include test dates, or other major events. Parents can subscribe to course events using RSS feed. The student’s profile also profiles an aggregated summary of information for users. This includes conversations, recent activity, grade book and learning objectives report.
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When looking at the course overview block, parents can access reports for each course by clicking on the icons. •
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Assessments provide student grades and averages. The course report provides a detailed description for what a student has and has not completed. Elements within this list are not necessarily mandatory, but this gives a good indication as to what is and is not being looked at by a student. Plans provide a detailed outline for what will be covered during a lesson. Parents have access to the information within the lesson outline and may view assignments and resources if enabled by the teacher. We encourage teachers to utilize the planner and include information in the lesson outline to keep parents informed. The learning objectives report shows whether a student is or is not meeting specific standards. A teacher must align tests and assessments to specific standards to generate these reports.
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