Student Guide Introduction

Welcome to COSTAATT e-classroom! In this guide you will be introduced to the basics of participating in an online course. It will take you step-by-step through entering the e-classroom environment and working within e-classroom. Your instructor has many options in setting up the e-classroom environment so you may access your assignments, interact with the students in your course, upload assignments, access resources and much more. This guide is your map to the electronic classroom.

Happy learning!

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Creating your user account If you do not have an account your site administrator will create one for you. You can contact the site administrator at kdavid@costaatt.edu.tt. You will be required to email your student identification number, CRN number and your course code.

Entering the Colleges e-classroom Open your web browser and go to www.costaatt.edu.tt, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on eclassroom.

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If you are logging on to e-classroom for the first time you may enter your username by typing your student identification number. Your default password is changeme.

This screen appears prompting you to change your password. Your new password should be at least seven characters long.

When you are finished changing your password click on save changes then click on continue. To go back to your course page click on the Home tab.

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Editing your profile You may edit your profile on the e-classroom by clicking on your name anywhere it appears. Click on the Edit profile tab to make any changes to your profile.

Fill out the information you wish to include in your profile. Not all fields are required. When you are finished with the changes click the Save Profile button.

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Entering your course The e-classroom is structured around the concept of courses. When you log in you are presented with a screen which contains a list of courses in which you are enrolled. Click on the text of the course title.

Basic Navigation There are several ways to navigate within the course site. Breadcrumbs - this is a menu positioned below the course title showing your location within the course site. Just as you got there you can now retrace your steps in the opposite direction to return to where you started. Just like leaving a trail of Breadcrumbs thus the name. Click on the name of the course and you will be returned to the course homepage. As you navigate you will notice this menu changes to reflect your current position.

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Blocks Whenever a different activity or resource is added to the course an icon will appear in a Block representing a specific Activity Module. Here are just a few of the types of Blocks the instructor may use to set up a course. People The People block contains a link to the list of the course participants. Generally speaking, a teacher will see this block in their course. The participants profiles are available by clicking on their name or picture. The list can be sorted by first name, surname, city, country and last access. There is a pull down menu which can filter the list for a specific role (tutors, students).

Activity Modules E-classroom contains a wide range of Activity Modules that may be used to build up any type of course. Activity Modules are represented by these icons.

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Your instructor will determine which Activity Modules will best facilitate the learning environment for your course. Here are some of the more common Activity Modules you will encounter in your courses: Assignments Assignments specify a task that requires students to prepare uploading their work to a server. Typical assignments include essays, projects, reports and so on. This module may include grading of the assignment. Chats - The Chat module allows participants to have a real-time synchronous discussion via the web. This is a useful way to get a different understanding of each other and the topic being discussed. Choices-contributed block that can be used in courses Forums - This activity can be the most important - it is here that most discussion takes place. Forums can be structured in different ways, and can include peer rating of each posting. The postings can be viewed in a variety of formats, and can include attachments. By subscribing to a forum, participants will receive copies of each new posting in their email. The two most widely used forums are the general forum and the learning forum. The general forum is an open forum where anyone can start a new topic at any time. The learning forum is where you might post a discussion response to a question posed by the teacher. Students in the class are then required to comment to a specific number of posts. Journals This is a forum where the teacher asks the student to reflect on a particular topic. This answer is private and can only be seen by the teacher, who can offer feedback and a grade on each journal entry. Quizzes This module is for quiz tests, consisting of multiple choice, true-false, and short answer questions. This module may include grading of the assignment. Resources-enables links to online resources to be made available in each course page. Wikis - The E-classroom Wiki module enables participants to work together on web pages to add, expand and change the content. Old versions are never deleted and can be restored. Search Forums The Search Forum block allows you to search the course forums for a word or phrase. Type the word or phrase you want to find in the text field space.

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For basic searching of one or more words anywhere in the texts, just type them separated by spaces. All words longer than two characters are used. If you want to use advanced search options you can either move to the Advanced Search page (clicking Advanced Search in the Search Forums block) or use To force exact matching of a word, use the plus sign, and the minus sign if there are particular exact words you don't want included in the search. To search for a particular phrase, use double quotes around it. To search for texts by a particular user, prefix a word from their name with "user:". If you know the user id of a particular user, you can search for them like this. To search for a word within the subject or title of a text only, prefix the word with "subject:".

You can also use the advanced search options. Administration- is typically for teachers and has tools to manage the course.

My courses- The Courses block lists and allows navigation between all of the courses in which the logged in user is a participant (as tutor and/or student). The block title shows as "My courses" and allows one-click access to a course's home page.

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Calender The Calendar block displays the following events: Site (event viewable in all courses - created by admin users) Course (event viewable only to course members - created by teachers) Groups (event viewable only by members of a group - created by teachers) User (personal event a student user can create - viewable only by the user)

Upcoming Events The Upcoming Events block displays future events in a summarized list. The number of days in advance is determined by the calendar_lookahead setting in Site Administration > Appearance > Calendar. Events are generated directly from the calendar and/or activity deadlines, providing a link to full details or directly to the activity. There are also links to Go to calendar... and add a New Event.... If you click on a date, you will go to the day-view calendar for that day. If the title of the event is a link, and you click on it, you will be taken to that event.

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Latest News Recent posts made in the News forum will display as a listed item in the Latest News block, along with a link to older archived news.

Recent Activity The Recent Activity block lists course activity, such as updated resources and activities, forum posts and assignment submissions, since the user last accessed the course.

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Logging out of e-classroom Click on Log out in the top right hand corner of the window.

See you next time!

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