Helpful Hints

See the “Help” button at the top of your screen for assistance with any WebCT function.

Course Modules

• Click on the Course Module to view the components. A new module will appear every week — two weeks prior to the due date for the assignments on that module.

Calendar

• Click on the Calendar to view the due dates for the assignments, the focus of the chats, and the dates for the chats for your support group. Green lines will appear around the calendar when new postings have been added or old postings have been edited.

Bulletin Board

• To send a message click “compose.” Then check the “Topic” area. Use “Main” for any messages to be read by the entire class. Use “Support Group A (or B, C, etc.)” posting of the after reading reflections and to send messages to the members of your support group.
• When reading messages — check the messages under “Main” and under your “Support Group.” If you click the “All” topic you will see the messages written to every support group as well as to “Main.”
• When you go to a topic to read messages, you can have the computer show you “All messages” or “Unread” messages. Click “unread messages” when you want to see only the new messages that have come in since the last time you read the postings. You can also mark all the messages as “read” by clicking that box.
• After you compose a message to a topic area — it will not automatically show up. You will need to go to that topic area (such as “Main”) and click on “Update the listing.” This will update the list to include new messages that arrived since the time that you logged onto the computer.
• Post your AFTER READING REFLECTIONS to the your “Support Group” topic area of the Bulletin Board.

Mail Messages

• To send a mail message click “compose mail message.” Then “browse” for the name of the person to whom wish to mail a message. Type the “subject” of your message in the subject box and the text of your message in message box. Click “send” to send your message.
• When you have new messages, green lines will appear around the “mail” icon on the homepage. Simply click on the icon to go to your new mail. Click on the “inbox” to read messages which have been sent to you.
• You can view the messages you have sent others by clicking on the “outbox.”
• Use the “mail” function to send Dr. Many your CLASSROOM APPLICATION assignments and your LITERACY PROFILES.

Attaching Files

• You can work on a word processor and then attach the file to either the Bulletin Board postings or to Mail messages. To attach a file, go to either the Bulletin Board area or the Mail area and hit “compose.” Type the “Subject” and a brief message in the text box (such as “see attached”). Then click on the box at the bottom of the screen labeled “browse.” Next find the drive where you saved your file. For instance — if you saved the file on your “A” drive under “module 1 reflection” — go to the A drive and look for the name of the file. Then click on the name of your file. It will appear in the box beside “browse.” Now click on “attach file.” The name of your file should now appear beside the paper clip.
• Note — if you save your files in HTML or HTM it will be simple for the other members of the class (and me) to read your work. I can also easily read Word files or “text” files.

Chats

• Click on “chats” on the homepage to go to the chatrooms. The small areas at the top of the box on this page are “rooms” where we go to chat. The top four areas are chat rooms where the conversations are recorded. To go to a room — click on the box with the name of that room. To join the conversation — type in the white box below the words “type your message below and then press [ENTER].” When you press “enter” on your keyboard your message will be posted.
• I will hold online office hours from 4:30 to 5:30 in the room titled “Dr. Many’s Office Hours.” Although these will be recorded I will not “post” the entire contents of the office hours. I may from time to time cut and paste snippets from these transcripts if I sense other people may benefit from some of the information discussed.
• I will host my weekly chats from 5:30 to 6:15 in the room titled “Chats with Dr. Many.” These will be recorded and the full transcript will be posted on the bulletin board.
• Rooms ABC and DEF are for the support group chats. The transcripts of these chats will be posted to the bulletin board area for each support group.

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From “‘I Know Them Better Than Students in My On-campus Courses’: Exploring a Personalized Approach to Online Instruction ” by Joyce Many et al.
Reading Online, www.readingonline.org
Posted September 2004