A training powerpoint exploring the use of Learning Communities in the Digital Brain VLE

3. Possible Functions of Digital Brain as a Virtual Learning Environment 3. File Sharing Each user has an online storage area – files can therefore be stored and shared. – e.g. students handing in work or staff making available resources from lessons. 1. Electronic Communication All digitalbrain users have an e-mail account. Threaded discussions can also be set up – to encourage debate. A live discussion ‘chat room’ facility is available with or without moderator . 2. Personal Organisation Each user has a series of personal organisational tools – include online contacts, personal calendar etc.. (and when part of a course – assignment deadlines etc. are automatically added. 4. School Portal The overall school portal gives the school a web presence – all staff and students can interact with portal logging in at home and in school and a network can easily be set up to link staff / students through departments / year groups pages. 5. E-Learning Content Content can be uploaded to Digital Brain as powerpoints, word documents, existing web pages etc.. Or staff and students can easily create their own web pages by simply adapting on line templates and adding content 6. Learning Manager – it is possible to combine exisiting resources to create on-line communities. Assignments can be set online with links to useful resources, deadlines, supporting files etc.. Students can submit completed work online – marks can be stored in personal online mark books etc..

6. Over to You…. Task 1 – Making a Calendar Entry Task 2 – Setting up a Discussion Task 3 – Adding Weblinks for Students Task 4 – Creating an online poll for students Task 5 – Uploading Resources Task 6 – Editing the Online Learning Community Page and adding hyperlinks to resources NEXT STEPS – CREATING PAGES Making Use of an Online Learning Community

7. Accessing your Community 1. Click on eLearning in the top left of the tool bar and then select My Communities 2. You will then be given a list of the communities of which you are currently members – select your community from the list. 3. Once you have reached your community homepage you are ready to start editing and creating content.

9. Powerstation Documents One way of creating content is by setting up what is called a powerstation folder and then creating Powerstation documents within it. This example from the Teaching & Learning ICT community is a powerstation document. The benefit is that all powerstation documents within a powerstation folder are indexed from each page – like the example to the side (see the red bar). Powerstation documents are very simple to edit but they are limited in what you can do – you can only add 1 picture at the top – see the Revision pages in the Geography Community & the Teaching ICT community for examples To set this up from your community homepage, click view on the toolbar and select folder listing. Click new and select new folder e.g. AS Geography. Open folder and click new, this time select powerstation folder – e.g. named Unit 1. Open folder and click new again – this time add a powerstation document e.g. Waterfalls. Any powerstation documents within the folder will be shown in the index (like above). To edit any page – simply open it and click on edit

10. Learning Modules Learning Module folders provide greater flexibility than powerstation documents in terms of editing as they allow you to keep inserting photographs / graphics. Again create a Learning Module folder and within the folder you can then create Learning Module Pages. You can navigate through the pages in the folder in the order they are in the folder as arrows appear on the pages. (you can change the order in the folder)

12. An Example of an Online Course: GOLC - Year 12 – Online Course Discussion (Threaded or Live) Links (relevant to course) Student / Staff members Calendar Online Polls Resources Assignments Individual Mark Book